***
It was a warm afternoon and the duke had invited George for a drive through the park at the fashionable hour. Since she knew that he disliked the slow pace and the constant greeting and gossip sharing that was the park at thattime of day, she realized his purpose was to present them to the ton as a couple yet again.
He arrived on time, driving a very smart curricle pulled by a magnificent pair of matched bays. A liveried groom was seated behind.
Leaving a mournful Finn behind, she allowed the duke to assist her into the curricle; she could have climbed up easily if it weren’t for these wretched skirts.
They said very little as he negotiated the busy London traffic; horse and carts and wagons and barrow-boys and piemen and urchins and dogs, all hurrying in different directions. But once through the gates of Hyde Park it seemed somehow calmer, even though it was crowded in a different way, with elegant ladies twirling their parasols, gentlemen with canes as well as fine carriages stopping to take people up for a short time and put them down again.
It took nearly twenty minutes to pass through the first hundred yards, what with everyone wanting to congratulate George and quiz the duke on finally being caught—ha ha.
“Lady George, you clever creature. Fancy you being the one to lead our elusive duke to the altar.”
“And all the time we thought you meant it when you said you never wanted to marry.”
“Still waters run deep, eh?”
“How does it feel to be caught in parson’s mousetrap once more, your grace?”
By the time the crowd had thinned out a little, George was ready to spit. She was fed up with the insincere compliments, the veiled accusations of her having trapped the duke into marriage, the indirect—and some quite blunt—accusations of hypocrisy.
The idea thathewas the one who’d been caught, and thatshe’ddone the catching, infuriated her.
She glanced at the duke to see if he felt the same, but as usual, his face was like a graven mask; she could read nothing, no emotion on it.
“Shall we take this path?” he asked, and without waitingfor her response, turned the curricle down a less used pathway, away from the fashionable press. They drove in silence for a while, and George gradually calmed, lulled by the golden afternoon and the breeze in the trees and the quiet. There were only a few pedestrians here and there, and one or two people on horseback, who nodded but didn’t stop for conversation.
“I’m taking you to Venice for the honeymoon,” he said after a while.
“What? No.” She turned to him. “I mean, it’s a nice idea, but I can’t leave Emm until she’s had the baby.”
“I’ve made all the arrangements.” When she didn’t respond, he added, “Why do you need to be there? You’re not a midwife, are you?”
“No, of course I’m not, but I’m not leaving her anyway.”
“Why, what can you do?”
“I don’t know. Be there.”
“For heaven’s sake,” he said, exasperated. “Your uncle is besotted with his wife. She will have the finest medical attention available.”
“Princess Charlotte also had the ‘finest medical attention’ in the kingdom, and look at what happened to her, poor lady.” Princess Charlotte had died in childbirth, surrounded by the most highly regarded physicians in the land. Of course the finger-pointing and blame happened afterward, but George didn’t know or care who was at fault—she wasn’t going to leave Emm until she was safely delivered of her baby. “So you can go to Venice if you want; I’m staying here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“In any case,” she added, “should you be thinking of traveling out of the country? What about your mother?”
“What about her? She’ll get along perfectly well without me, I assure you. In fact, the less my mother and I see of each other, the happier we are.”
She stared at him in disbelief. To speak so about his dying mother. She was deeply shocked. “You really are heartless, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. “Hence the sobriquet the ton has bestowed on me.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know how you can even think of leaving your mother in her condition.”
There was a short silence. “What condition would that be?”
George couldn’t believe her ears. “Surely you know. She’s dying.”
