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- Authors: Emma Orchard
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Romance
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NORTH YORKSHIRE, A FEW WEEKS LATER
Georgiana sighed and leaned back in her corner of the luxurious Pendlebury
travelling coach. Even this, the most modern of vehicles, sometimes
struggled to cope with roads that were axle-deep in mud in many places.
The lurching and jolting motion was wearisome.
The season was over – God knows she was glad of it – and in normal
times she would by now be settling in to her brother Lord Irlam’s house in
Brighton, looking forward to all the fashionable amusements the summer
there could offer. But these were not normal times; no al fresco
entertainments or riding parties on the Downs could be expected when the
weather continued so very inclement, and icy showers greeted every
attempt to venture outside. The harvest was set to fail, or had already failed,
and there was hunger in the towns and unrest in the air. It was not the time,
serious-minded persons felt, for idle pleasures. Or at least, not public idle
pleasures.
Though she knew it was selfish to think so when it was causing so much
suffering, the disturbed, disturbing weather suited her mood. The events of
a few weeks earlier, her visit to that house and its aftermath, had been a
salutary shock to Lady Georgiana; she had looked at herself coldly in the
light of them, and she had not liked any part of what she saw.
Last summer, when for pure love of excitement and attention she had
entangled herself with the fortune-hunter Captain Hart and thought herself
so clever, so adult, she had been in reality foolish, reckless, immature. She
had hurt others who by no means deserved it – not least her brother Hal –
and had been very lucky, she knew, to escape the imbroglio that she had
created with her reputation and even her person intact.
Hal had talked to her
very seriously about her irresponsible, careless behaviour, as had her aunt,
but she had not really been punished for her folly; she had instead been
taken on a luxurious tour of Europe, and seen beautiful cities, ancient ruins
and natural wonders few girls of her age were privileged to see. They’d
spent months abroad, in Italy and elsewhere, and Hal had even trusted her
to visit Venice with a friend’s family, away from his supervision. She’d
spent Christmas there, and had behaved well, self-consciously properly, still
chastened by her brother’s gentle reproaches – but look how she repaid his
trust now.
She knew she was spoiled and over-indulged, as the only girl among her
numerous orphaned siblings; last year she had apologised for her follies a
dozen times, and cried, and promised to do better, and had thought she
meant it, but once again she had allowed her impulsiveness, her
thoughtlessness, that wild streak that she did not yet know how to control
and sometimes feared she never would, to lead her into dangerous
behaviour.
Much more dangerous behaviour. She had gone to that cursed house –
perhaps that could be excused, as Mrs Aubrey was greatly to be censured
for her mischievous and apparently pointlessly cruel deception – but when
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