The Debutante's Daring Proposal

Edmund handed his hat and coat to the footman who’d opened the door to him, and made his way across the wainscoted hall to the staircase that swept up the left wall, via a series of half-landings, to the gallery spanning the next storey. The hall was massive. And could have been imposing, but somehow felt welcoming, in spite of Lord Havelock’s forebears scowling down at him from their heavily gilded frames.

That was possibly because he didn’t care about the opinion of long-dead nobles. To be frank, he didn’t give much for the opinion of living ones either. The only person whose thoughts interested him in the slightest, at this moment, was Georgiana.

She was bound to be angry with him after the way they’d parted. Though at least this time he knew why she was angry with him and had a perfectly sound explanation to offer. At least, he intended to explain why he hadn’t called upon her before she’d left Bartlesham. He was tolerably certain she would understand his need to think things through. And that she’d forgive his earlier offence once he demonstrated his willingness to be her friend once more, if not her husband.

What he was not going to do, however, was offer any explanation as to why he hadn’t called upon her now that he was in Town as well.

A flush crept up his neck as he mounted the stairs, brought on by the recollection of the impetuous way he’d stormed out of Six Chimneys before he’d gathered all the information he needed. And then the difficulty he’d had attempting to track her down. By the time he had done so, it was far too late to simply pay her a morning call, since she was bound to have known exactly how long he’d been in residence at Ashenden House. Various newspapers regularly reported his movements, for reasons that remained a mystery to him. It would have looked as though he’d been too busy, or too indifferent to call before.

Besides, he’d reasoned, they wouldn’t have been able to converse privately anyway. He could just imagine the scene in her drawing room, with her shooting dagger glances at him, while he would have been unable to explain anything to his satisfaction. Not with her stepmother in earshot. For he was certain the woman could not have known about their meeting by the trout stream. If she’d been brought into Georgiana’s life to teach her how to behave, then one of the first things she would have taught her was the impropriety of meeting single gentlemen without a chaperon.

Once he’d come to that conclusion, he had then briefly wondered how Georgiana had managed to engineer the meeting at all. But only briefly. For she had been wearing a riding habit and there had been no sign of a horse. Somewhere close by there must have been a groom who had somehow been persuaded to let her out of his sight for a few minutes.

He shook his head. The stepmother must be completely hen-witted if she thought she could trust Georgiana out of her sight with only a groom to guard her. Didn’t she know what a wild, free spirit dwelled in that shapely body?

Which reflection made his heart speed up considerably.

Or perhaps it was simply that he’d just climbed several flights of stairs and would soon be walking into the reception room in which Georgiana must surely be by this time of the evening. He’d deliberately arrived late, telling Lord Havelock that he would ‘pop in’ on his way back from another engagement. ‘It would be best to commence my association in London with Miss Wickford by meeting as if by chance,’ he had explained, ‘at some event where we have mutual friends.’

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