“And what exactly is my situation, Father?” Josiah asked.
“Working.” He spat the word like it was dirt on the tongue and looked around Josiah to Georgiana. “Once you’re married, you’ll get him to stop this nonsense, yes?”
She swung around, and Josiah stepped out of the way. He’d seen that particularly sharp dagger of a gaze aimed at fortune hunters, who she cleanly dispatched with no remorse. She stopped when she stood directly before him and… melted, the sweetest grin gracing her lips. “Oh, yes. It is such a shame Josiah wastes himself making sure your estate is running well. How scandalously insupportable that he ensures your tenants are happy. How horrifically insupportable that he cares about something other than…” She cocked her head to the side. “What is it a gentleman like Mr. Evans is supposed to care about?”
Josiah’s father’s brows had knit together, and he looked first left, then right as if he weren’t quite sure she was talking to him. When his gaze once more landed on her, he straightened, shifted from foot to foot and said with more hesitation than Josiah had ever heard him use before, “His mistress?”
“Josiah,” Georgiana said, sugar dripping from his name. “Do you keep a mistress?”
“Not since earlier this year. March, to be exact.”
She glanced at him over her shoulder. “March? Before or after—”
“After Xavier and Sarah’s wedding.”
“Hm. Fascinating.” She returned her attention to his father. “What else?”
“Well, young men of his station should focus on… pleasure. Gambling, drinking. He has money of his own and does not have towork. If he must have a profession, it should be more gentlemanly. The church perhaps. Or the military.”
“Of course, Lord Westgrove. It is all clear to me now. Thank you for that explanation. In short, you believe that Josiah should abandon work he’s good at. Abandon something that gives him purpose and delight.”
His father grasped the edges of his great coat and snapped them tight. “Precisely. And you’ll make sure he does so, insist he move to London and—”
She threw her head back with a laugh, strong and wicked. “Oh, no, my lord. I’ll do no such thing. You see, I’ve rather taken a liking to this charming little room and this charming house that provided such excellent shelter during last night’s storm.” She walked forward slowly, each step pushing his father backward and into the hallway until she stood just inside the bedchamber, her hand on the edge of the door. “And more, I’ve taken a liking to Josiah. A man of intellect and humor and kindness, quite worthy of all the love, paltry though it may be, I have to give him. I quite plan on moving into this house and sleeping in this bed and being proud of my husband for doing exactly what he is doing—ensuring the future profitability of an estate that belongs to you, you nodcock!” She slammed the door shut and slammed the lock home, then she turned to Josiah with a dusting of her palms together. “There.”
Incoherent rumbles rolled under the door, then, “You harridan!”
“I am, rather, aren’t I?”
“Decidedly so,” Josiah assured her. He sauntered slowly toward her, wrapped his hands around her waist, and pulled her closer. “Tis a mystery why I love you.”
“Clearly, you’re a nodcock, too. Must run in the family. I’ll have to watch for signs of it in our children and teach them good common sense.”
“Like wandering alone in a snowstorm?”
She swatted at his shoulder and laughed at herself. “Just so.”
He leaned his forehead against her as his father banged on the door, yelling incoherent demands. “I love you. You do not have to move here. It is not the sort of luxury you are used to. It is quiet here, not as it is in London. I know you need—”
“I need you. London had grown lonely long ago. After Aunt Prudence died, I sat alone every morning and night. And the closer Christmas came, fewer people were in Town, all my cursed suitors gone for good… everything was hollow. I felt too much like that little girl on Christmas day, sent away from her family forever.”
“Never again, Gee. You’ll be with me today and every Christmas day after.”
Her smile was small but strong, and she drew a delicate finger down his stubbled cheek. “I think… I think it was not the dare that brought me here. It gave me an excuse to go where I wanted to be.”
“And where is that?”
“Wherever you are.”
He kissed her. And kissed her. And kissed her. He kissed her until the bellowing outside the door disappeared and the sun melted the glittering snow and they stood alone together, not needing an aunt’s approval or a father’s as long as they held each other in loving arms.
Epilogue
April 1822
“The best man is one you love who loves you wildly in return.” –the working memoirs of Mrs. Georgiana Evans
From across the crowded London ballroom at Sarah’s first event as hostess, Georgiana watched her husband eat cake. A brute, he was, shoving the dense, fruit-heavy slice right into his mouth without a care for the raisins that had dropped by his boots or the crumbs dotting his evening jacket. With a sigh, she bustled across the room. She’d have to clean him up. He saw her coming before she arrived, and the grin that grew on his lips—slow and knowing and hot-blooded—put speed into her steps.
