First Comes Scandal by Julia Quinn

Author:Julia Quinn
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

It wasn’t going to be grand.

The wedding was lovely. The wedding breakfast delightful.

But the journey north . . .

No one was going to come out of it alive unless something was done about Cat-Head.

The other two cats were easy. Judyth had curled up in her basket like a proper feline and gone straight to sleep. Blanche had felt the need to demonstrate her contempt for all humans, so she’d spent a few minutes fussing and hissing before finally parking herself as deeply in the corner of the padded coach bench as possible.

But a furious Blanche Georgie knew how to handle. Blanche would be sullen and resentful, but she was easily bribed with a nugget or two of cheese.

Cat-Head, on the other hand . . .

Cat-Head moaned.

Cat-Head howled.

Cat-Head made noises Georgie would not have thought possible outside purgatory or hell.

And while Georgie might have been able to withstand such torture on her own, the traveling party had grown to fifteen, and she wasn’t sure how long she could inflict him on the others.

GRAOWWW!

Georgie peered nervously at Nicholas, sitting across from her in the carriage. He was doing an admirable job of hiding his flinches. Much better than—

GRAOWWW!

—Marian, Georgie’s trusted maid, who seemed to have developed a tic in her left cheek.

GRAOWWW!

“Cat-Head, hush,” Georgie said, patting him on the head. She didn’t know why she thought that might make a difference. It wasn’t as if she’d met with success the first one hundred and sixty-three times she’d said it.

GRAOWWW!

“How long have we been on the road?” Marian asked.

Georgie attempted a cheerful tone. “I’m not carrying a timepiece.”

“I am,” Nicholas said without looking up from his medical journal. “It’s been three hours.”

“That long?” Georgie said weakly.

GRAOWWW!

Marian’s eye began to twitch.

Georgie gave Nicholas a hard stare, the kind where one widened one’s eyes and jutted one’s chin forward. It clearly meant Do Something.

He returned with the sort of expression where one widened one’s eyes but instead of a jutted chin one tipped one’s head to the side, as if to say a shrugful What?

Georgie jutted her chin.

Nicholas tipped his head.

They both widened their eyes.

“Is something wrong?” Marian asked.

GRAOWWW!

“Besides that,” she muttered.

“Nicholas,” Georgie said pointedly, “perhaps Marian would like a sip of your whiskey.”

He blinked, then gave Georgie an expression she was fairly certain meant—How was I to glean that from your buggy eyes and jutty chin?

“Er, Miss—”

GRAOWWW!

“Miss Georgiana,” Marian croaked. “I don’t know how much longer I can—”

“Whiskey?” Nicholas asked, thrusting a flask in her face.

Marian nodded gratefully and took a swig.

GRAOWWW!

“Georgie,” Nicholas said, “is there anything to be done?”

He probably deserved her admiration for lasting this long before saying anything, but three hours of constant cat-moaning had left her nerves well frayed. “If there were,” she said peevishly, “don’t you think I would have done it by now?”

GRAOWWW!

Marian drained the flask.

“Will it continue like this the entire trip to Edinburgh?” Nicholas asked.

“God help us,” Marian muttered.

“I don’t know,” Georgie admitted, finally pulling her eyes off her maid, whom she’d never seen drink more than a quarter-glass of sherry.

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