Courting The Forbidden Debutante

‘Father rarely comes to London these days,’ Georgina said. ‘He prefers to stay in the country, unless his commitments demand his presence in the city.’

She watched Mr Robertson’s face intently, but could see no hint of disappointment. Either he was a talented liar, or he had only been enquiring about her father for politeness’ sake.

‘He remains in Hampshire?’

‘Yes, for the foreseeable future at least. He will come up once the Season is properly underway I’m sure, to attend to his political commitments, but he doesn’t like to arrive too prematurely.’

Lady Westchester hurried back into the room, noting Mr Robertson’s new position on the sofa with a frown, but given there was a respectable distance between him and Georgina there was nothing she could say.

‘What are your plans while you are in London, Mr Robertson?’ Lady Westchester asked.

Georgina nearly rolled her eyes at her mother’s abruptness. She might as well have asked if Mr Robertson had come to the capital to search for a wife. No doubt her mother would soon begin hinting at the perfect pedigree they expected in any suitor for Georgina’s hand.

‘A little business,’ Mr Robertson said, seemingly unfazed by Lady Westchester. To stay calm and collected in the face of her mother’s unwelcoming demeanour was not an easy feat and Georgina felt her admiration grow for the man. ‘I also wish to reconnect with some people from my past. Having been out of the country for so long I find myself eager to be reacquainted with those I have been thinking about over the years.’

‘Out of the country?’ Lady Westchester’s tone was mild, but Georgina had to suppress a groan. It was entirely the wrong thing to say. Her mother didn’t trust foreigners and she included anyone who chose to spend any time away from England in that category, unless for some necessary and noble purpose in her eyes, such as fighting in a war.

‘The benefactor I mentioned lived in Australia. He passed away recently, so it seemed like the right time to return to England.’

‘Australia,’ her mother gasped.

‘Mother,’ Georgina murmured, glancing at Mr Robertson, before realising that he looked more amused than offended.

‘It’s a beautiful country,’ he said, ‘You should visit one day.’

‘Mama is not keen on foreign travel,’ Georgina said quietly. For her part she’d always dreamed about seeing the world. It was an abstract dream for a woman of her class and upbringing. If she was lucky she might find herself honeymooning around Europe, but that would be the extent of her travels. Well brought-up young ladies did not go any farther afield than Italy. Despite that Georgina had always paused on the pages of books with pictures of exotic locations, places like Egypt and India, or the wilds of Africa.

‘I understand,’ Mr Robertson said. ‘It isn’t for everyone.’

He glanced at her then, as if seeing whether Georgina shared her mother’s view on travel. She felt her heart beat a little harder in her chest and had to concentrate to stop her face betraying her emotions. It wouldn’t do to let her mother even glimpse the slight fascination she had for this man. Georgina knew it was just because Mr Robertson was different and perhaps because of those dazzling blue eyes and rather captivating smile, but she couldn’t help wanting to get closer to him, to learn more about him. Of course she knew that could never happen; the differences in their stations in life meant they couldn’t even easily become friends. Nevertheless she hoped she would see Mr Robertson again.

‘I must take my leave,’ he said, standing. ‘Thank you for receiving me, Lady Westchester, Lady Georgina. I do hope we see each other soon.’

He’d behaved perfectly, ensuring he did not overstay his welcome, and despite her mother’s obvious reservations about the man Georgina did not think she could complain about his behaviour, just his origins.

‘You mentioned the Hamiltons’ music evening,’ Georgina said smoothly. ‘Perhaps we shall see one another there.’

It was bold, far too bold, but she wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to Mr Robertson yet. She wanted to hear more about Australia, hear more about his background, so she’d decided to drop a hint as to where she’d be later in the week and see if he took up the invitation.

Chapter Five

‘Drowning your sorrows?’ George Fitzgerald asked as he clapped Sam on the back, flopping down into the free seat beside him. ‘Did the beauteous Lady Georgina turn you away?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Difficult types, these daughters of the nobility.’

‘She didn’t turn me away.’

‘Why the long face then?’

‘The Earl is in Hampshire and there’s not much chance of him making an appearance any time soon.’

‘Ah. I see.’ Fitzgerald drummed his fingers on the table before motioning to one of the serving girls for two more jugs of ale. ‘I take it you’re not giving up.’

‘No.’ Giving up was the furthest thing from his mind. ‘I’ll have to go to Hampshire, that’s all.’

He’d hoped to avoid returning to his home county. There were painful memories back in his childhood home that he didn’t wish to confront. The last time he’d been there, his mother and two younger sisters had been alive. Now he had no close relatives left in Hampshire, but the memories of his childhood and all he’d lost were based there and he had planned on leaving those ghosts to sleep.

‘You’ll struggle to even catch a glimpse of the Earl if you just turn up. You need an invitation.’

‘To go to Hampshire?’

‘To infiltrate the Earl’s estate.’

Sam tapped his fingers on the table and considered for a while. For years he’d sworn one day he would return to England and make Lord Westchester pay for stealing his childhood and ripping him from his family. As a young lad his fantasies of revenge were elaborate and often involved the old Earl falling to his knees, begging Sam for forgiveness. Now, older, and more worldly wise, Sam knew it was unlikely Lord Westchester would even remember the day he carelessly wrongfully accused a young boy of stealing. But he wanted the older man to at least acknowledge the wrong he had done and perhaps suffer in some small way, too.

‘These wealthy types often have house parties at their country estates, don’t they?’ Sam asked, his mind ticking through possibilities.

‘Yes,’ Fitzgerald said slowly, ‘I believe so, but probably not in the depths of winter.’

‘Doesn’t matter. I’m in no rush.’

‘And you’d have to be invited.’

Sam grinned. It would be a challenge. Lady Georgina liked him, that much he was sure of, but in the way you liked a rather exotic animal in a menagerie: interesting to study for a few minutes, but certainly not someone you allowed close. Then there was Lady Georgina’s mother. She’d judged him within seconds of their meeting and he knew he hadn’t come out favourably. His family were not one of the select few she approved of and as such she would regard him as unsuitable for her daughter to spend any time with.

Feeling the rush of anticipation at the idea of spending more time with Lady Georgina, he quickly tried to dampen the feelings. It didn’t matter she was the first woman in a long time to pique his attention, she was not the one for him. He had to focus, not allow himself to get distracted by those soulful green eyes and the sense that there was so much more to Lady Georgina than most of her suitors gave her credit for.

‘They might not even host a house party,’ Fitzgerald said, but nothing could dampen Sam’s enthusiasm.

‘I’m sure I can persuade the fair Lady Georgina it would be a splendid idea,’ Sam said.

Rolling his eyes, Fitzgerald clapped Sam on the back. ‘One thing you’ve never suffered from is a lack of self-confidence.’

‘No point going through this world not believing in yourself. Not many other people will.’

Sam didn’t quite believe that sentiment, despite voicing it. He’d been lucky enough to have someone believe there was more to him than his convicted criminal status. George’s father, Henry Fitzgerald, had taken both him and Crawford in to his family and given them a chance to build good lives for themselves in Australia. If it wasn’t for the older man they would probably both be travelling from farm to farm, selling their services as farmhands like hundreds of other ex-convicts, with no real base, no real purpose. Sam would be eternally grateful his life had taken a different turn.

‘Drink up,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘You don’t want to be spotted in such an insalubrious establishment if you want to be accepted by Lady Georgina’s crowd.’

He thought it unlikely anyone even acquainted with Lady Georgina would wander into the tavern, but drained the rest of his ale all the same. It looked like he was going to be in London for the foreseeable future and he had a lot to plan if he was going to secure invitations to all the events the Earl’s daughter would be attending. A little bribery of Lady Georgina’s household staff might smooth the way. At least that way he would know which events the Earl’s daughter would be attending.

* * *

Giving in, Georgina crossed to the window and peeked out from behind the curtains. Her bedroom looked out over the gardens of Grosvenor Square and often she would stand watching the exhausted nannies and nursemaids chasing their energetic charges along the perfectly kept paths. Today, however, she’d fancied she had seen Mr Robertson out there.

She looked for thirty seconds, peering from her hidden position, before feeling rather stupid and stepping out from behind the curtains.

Of course there was no sign of the enigmatic Mr Robertson. There was absolutely no reason for him to be in her street, especially five hours after he’d paid his call.

‘Silly girl,’ she murmured to herself. She refused to behave like a lovesick fool.

Forcing herself away from the window, she had just turned when the door opened and Caroline came flouncing into the room.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘Nothing.’ Georgina felt her cheeks begin to colour at the lie.

‘Then why are you blushing?’

‘I was looking out the window,’ Georgina said.

‘For?’

‘For no one. Just looking.’

For once she wished her friend was a little less astute. It was clear Caroline didn’t believe her and Georgina watched as she crossed to the window and spent thirty seconds peering out.

‘There’s no one there,’ she said eventually.

‘I know. I told you, I was just looking.’

‘Hmm.’

‘You looked like you had news,’ Georgina said, deftly changing the subject.

‘I do. I’ve been asking around, very discreetly of course, and your Mr Robertson is from Australia,’ Caroline said triumphantly.

‘I know.’ Georgina didn’t correct her friend and inform her that Mr Robertson might have recently sailed from Australia, but was actually originally from Hampshire.

‘How do you know? Hardly anyone knows anything about him.’

‘He told me himself.’

‘You’ve seen him again? Already?’

‘Don’t look so pleased,’ Georgina groaned. ‘He called on me today, that is all.’

She left out their meeting in Hyde Park, knowing Caroline would be utterly fascinated and demand every last detail.

‘Anyway, he’s not my Mr Robertson.’

Waving a dismissive hand, Caroline flopped down on the bed. ‘Tell me everything,’ she said dramatically.

‘There’s nothing to tell. He came to call, Mother was here, as was Mr Wilcox. We sat and talked for a few minutes, then he left.’

Georgina didn’t add that she’d found it hard to banish Mr Robertson from her mind ever since his visit, ever since their encounter the previous night.

‘Will you see him again?’ Caroline asked.

‘I’m sure our paths might cross at some event or another. He is staying with Lady Winston.’

‘A relative?’

‘No, he’s a friend of her nephew.’

‘How wonderful,’ Caroline said dreamily, throwing herself back on to the bed and staring up at the canopy above.

‘He is just another acquaintance.’

‘So why were you looking for him out your window?’

‘I-I wasn’t,’ Georgina protested, but knew her stutter gave her away.

Chapter Six

‘Where’s the third one of you?’ Lady Winston asked as she elbowed her way through the crowd towards Sam and George.

‘He had a prior engagement,’ Sam said, although he didn’t know that was the truth. Ben Crawford had been acting strangely all week, ever since the ball where they’d first made their entrance into society.

‘A woman, no doubt,’ Lady Winston cackled. ‘He’s a good-looking boy.’

‘The ladies do love him,’ Fitzgerald murmured.

Lady Winston didn’t answer and he followed her gaze across the room to where Georgina and her mother had just entered.

‘Shoo,’ Lady Winston whispered to her nephew.

Suppressing a laugh at Fitzgerald’s disgruntled expression, Sam raised an eyebrow at Lady Winston, silently asking her what she was doing.

‘Better not to have to introduce anyone else when we get your Lady Georgina over here,’ she said. ‘Too much distraction.’

‘So pleased to be nothing more than an unwanted distraction,’ Fitzgerald murmured, but wandered off all the same.

‘Lady Westchester,’ Lady Winston called, much louder than was proper. A few conversations stopped as heads turned in their direction, but Sam could see her break with etiquette was not a surprise to most of the other guests.

‘Lady Winston,’ Georgina’s mother said as they made their way through the small crowd.

‘I believe you have been introduced to Mr Robertson,’ Lady Winston said. ‘He’s a dear friend of my nephew.’

‘A pleasure to see you again, Lady Westchester, Lady Georgina,’ Sam said, executing a small bow. He was beginning to get to grips with the social etiquette required when out and about among the ton. Correct forms of address were to be adhered to at all times, the more polite you were the better and it was unseemly to talk to one person for too long.

In truth, all the bowing and titles seemed bizarre to him. He’d been brought up the son of a clerk and later, when his father had passed away and his mother had resumed her role as a cook, the son of a servant. His mother had ensured he was always polite, but titles and peerages had not been part of his world. Even less so after his conviction. First on the hulk ship, then on the transport ship and once they’d arrived in Australia there was no room for politeness. You pushed and shoved with the rest of the filthy men and women to ensure you got your rations for the day and respect for the guards was hard to summon when they ruled with whips and fists.

When he thought about it he should be much more uncouth than he was. It made him laugh when he remembered back to the dirty young lads he and Crawford had been when George Fitzgerald’s father had taken them in. Slowly he’d cleaned them up and taught them not only how to survive in Australia, but also reminded them how to read and write, how to address people respectfully and how to behave like decent members of society. It had taken years, but the older man’s patience had meant he and Crawford were slowly transformed from coarse convict lads to young men who could hold their own with people from any level of society.

‘Come, sit with me,’ Lady Winston said. ‘My legs aren’t as young as they used to be.’

There was no denying that Lady Winston was a sly old woman. Sam knew there was nothing wrong with her legs, it was just a ploy to help him sit with the lovely Lady Georgina. Once the two Westchester women were seated it was unlikely that they would move throughout the performance.

‘I hope you are well, Mr Robertson,’ Lady Georgina said as she took her seat next to him.

‘Much better for seeing you.’

‘Empty flattery does not suit you,’ she said, but Sam could see the smile that was trying to break out on her lips. He suddenly wanted very much to see her smile again, to watch as those rosy-pink lips curved upwards and to know it was he who’d made them do so. Unbidden, images of those lips doing much more than just smiling at him began to creep into his mind and he had to use all of his resolve to push them away and focus on the conversation they were having instead.

‘It’s true. I’m told tonight will be an evening of musical excellence and I need your expertise to help me navigate through it.’

‘I’m hardly an expert.’

‘Do you play an instrument, Lady Georgina?’

‘Of course. I play the piano.’

‘And you sing?’

‘There aren’t many young ladies who don’t.’

‘And I’m guessing you’ve been to a few of these musical evenings before.’

‘Ten to twenty,’ she admitted with a smile.

‘Then compared to me you are an expert.’

‘They don’t have events like this in Australia?’ she asked.

Sam smiled. Of course people socialised in Australia—there were a few taverns Sam liked to frequent and he was sure some of the daughters of the wealthier landowners liked to pay visits to one another, but he couldn’t imagine the hardened men and women of Australia sitting through a musical recital. It was enough to make him nearly laugh out loud.

‘I’ve never heard of one,’ he said.

‘Perhaps you could introduce the idea when you return.’

‘I’m not sure my reputation could withstand it.’

‘Reputation?’ Lady Georgina asked.

‘Just as it is important here for you to maintain a certain image, it is the same for me back home. I can’t imagine trying to gain the respect of any of the landowners if I suggested we sit down and listen to some classical music.’

He’d lose all credibility and be laughed out of the region.

‘I can’t imagine,’ Lady Georgina said with a frown.

Sam had known his life in Australia would be of interest to people here in England, just as they were interested in the exotic animals brought from overseas to the menageries for the public to ogle at. Not many men made it back from Australia and certainly not any who would move in the same circles as Lady Georgina.

‘The people are coarser, less refined, even those who own great swathes of land. There is much less of a class system, the divide comes between those who have been transported and are still serving a sentence and those who are free men, able to take what work they choose.’ Luckily for him, he thought. In Australia there was no shame in being a self-made man—in fact, coming from a background as a convict and building yourself into a success was what most men strived for. ‘Life is harder, there is no question about it, and more basic. Even the wealthiest people live in simple homes and will go out to work every day. There is no idle life.’

‘You must find it very strange here,’ Lady Georgina said, ‘where the men spend their time playing cards and attending their gentlemen’s clubs and the women play the piano and go to balls.’

‘That’s the beauty of visiting somewhere else,’ Sam said. ‘You get to experience a different life, a different way of doing things.’

Lady Georgina sighed and looked away and Sam wondered if he’d struck a sore spot. In many ways Lady Georgina had it all—wealth, a good family name, every physical comfort she could desire—but what she did not have was freedom. After being locked up and condemned to transportation, Sam knew more than a little about a lack of freedom. Now he could choose to go anywhere in the world, he was his own master. Lady Georgina would never experience that. She was destined to spend her life under the control of another, for now her father, and once she was married, her husband.

Sam started to try to convey that he understood some of that frustration, but his words were lost as a small man entered the room and their hostess for the evening clapped her hands for everyone to fall silent.

‘Good evening,’ Mrs Hamilton said. ‘It is my pleasure to introduce to you Signor Ratavelli, master musician and kind enough to grace our humble little gathering with his presence.’

There was a smattering of polite applause as Signor Ratavelli took a bow, then sat down behind a piano at the front of the room.

With no musical inclination or training even Sam knew from the very first note this man was talented. Normally he had little interest in music—it had not played a major part in his life. There had been no music in his simple but comfortable home in Hampshire and there certainly had been no music in his life after transportation save for the occasional work songs sung by the convicts to try to keep morale up. Nevertheless he felt a little of the soft melody seeping under his skin and found that despite himself he was enjoying it.

Turning to Lady Georgina, he regarded her for a few moments. She was completely entranced, watching the small musician through the gaps in the rows of people sitting in front of them, occasionally having to crane her neck to see.

She looked beautiful like this, her lips slightly parted, her cheeks suffused with colour and her eyes sparkling with interest. Easily he could see why she was considered the catch of the Season, even without her family connections and hefty dowry.

With his head half-turned to look at her he felt eyes burning into him from somewhere behind. Discreetly he turned, trying to keep the movement as subtle as possible, to see a man of about thirty glaring at him. Puzzled, Sam nodded in greeting, unable to help himself despite knowing it would anger his unknown observer further, then turned back to face the front.

No doubt it was one of Lady Georgina’s many admirers, upset that he did not get to sit with the object of his affection.

The first half of the musical recital had lasted for nearly forty minutes and Sam surprised himself by enjoying all of it. When the last note died away he clapped along with everyone else, wondering what the men he employed on his farms would say if they could see him now.

‘What did you think?’ Lady Georgina asked, leaning in towards him a little to be heard over the swell of conversation now the music had stopped.

‘I enjoyed it,’ Sam said, rising quickly as he saw Lady Georgina’s mother glance at her daughter and frown, unable to extricate herself from the brilliant job Lady Winston was doing at keeping her talking. ‘Would you care for a drink?’

‘That would be lovely. I’ll accompany you. I need to move around after forty minutes of sitting still.’

Just as he had hoped. He offered her his arm, glancing quickly back over his shoulder, expecting the man who had been staring at him throughout the performance to be bearing down on them, but finding no one there.

After collecting two glasses of wine, they moved on to the large terrace. The doors from the music room had been thrown open to combat the stuffiness in the room and, despite the cold weather, many of the guests had moved outside for a breath of air.

‘You’re shivering. We can go back inside,’ Sam said as they reached the edge of the terrace.

‘No, it’s a beautiful night.’

Together they both glanced up at the sky where the night was clear and a few stars visible along with the brilliant white of the crescent moon.

‘I’m sure the skies are much different in Australia.’

Sam thought of the endless expanse of darkness, which on a clear night was lit up with hundreds of stars. When you were out in the wilderness it could feel overwhelming, but beautiful all the same. Again he noted the slightly wistful note in her voice, the dreamy way she looked as she imagined the country he now considered home. If he wasn’t very much mistaken, Lady Georgina was an adventurer at heart, trapped by the suffocating conventions of society.

‘I notice a difference when I’m at home in Hampshire,’ Lady Georgina said. ‘The skies are darker, somehow, and the stars brighter.’

She shivered again and quickly Sam shrugged off his jacket and started to place it around her shoulders.

‘I couldn’t...’ she protested.

‘You’re cold. It’s only a jacket.’