She smiled, touched them. La, but they’d been so young then. She’d sat beside Simon in this very room, with all their other comrades gathered about, playing whist or charades or solving each other’s silly riddles—
“You are like a sparkling diamond.”
Georgina slammed the drawer shut as she turned. “M—Mr. Oswald.”
He strode into the room, appearing as livened in the early hours of the morning as he did at the start of a ball. He grinned. “A diamond. Lovely to spot on the neck of a beautiful woman, of course, but utterly tantalizing to discover hidden, unexpected, in a crevice of the earth.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I shall try not to be offended.” He walked around the chaise lounge, nearer to where she stood, and lit a cigar. “I shall also try to ignore the chagrin I sense in your voice. You are very transparent, Miss Whitmore.”
“Does Simon know you are here?”
“Simon? My, we are quite unceremonious with him, are we not?” He puffed out smoke. “But perhaps that would be obvious by the fact that you are in his house at the break of dawn—”
“Oswald.” A hard voice sounded from the doorway.
Both turned.
Simon stepped into the drawing room, eyes like ice, shoulders tense and broad. “What do you want?”
“I should think that would be obvious.” He swept a hand across the room, as if gesturing the house—but his eyes flicked to Georgina.
Heat burst on her cheeks.
“Get out.”
“I fear a prior engagement with your mother makes that impossible.” Mr. Oswald tapped his cigar on his finger, heedless of the ashes that fell to the rug. “Sir Walter shall be arriving soon, and then we shall get to business with the details of the deed.”
“I have more time.” Simon stepped forward. “The house belongs to us until—”
“Perhaps you should take up such details with your mother and friend the barrister. They seem as eager to get this over with as I do.” He shrugged. “But I, in no way, wish to be discourteous. I have waited this long. Perhaps, if it will amend disagreeable feelings, I shall delay my appointment with Sir Walter and bid him to return another day.” When Simon answered him with no more than a glaring stare, Mr. Oswald chuckled. He glanced at Georgina. “In truth, I did not expect to find you here at all, Miss Whitmore.”
“There is nothing improper in her being here,” said Simon.
“I did not say there was.” Mr. Oswald held her eyes. “It is only that I expected Miss Whitmore to have arrived at Hollyvale by this time.”
Confusion struck her. “Hollyvale?”
“You did, of course, receive the invitation?”
“To what?”
“I should have known my sister would be incompetent in even this. I suppose you have heard nothing of the house party?”
She shook her head, wariness filling her.
“It begins tomorrow. You are invited, of course, and may stay as long as you like.” Mr. Oswald grinned back at Simon. “You may even bring your friend, if you so wish.”
“I am certain we could not—”
“We will be there.” Simon cut off Georgina with steel and stepped forward. “Now I will see you out.”
“I spoke in haste.” Simon found Georgina alone in the breakfast room, already seated with a plate of toast and scotch eggs. “You will not go.”
“It is a solution to both our troubles,” she answered.
“Mine, not yours.”
