Kitabı oku: «Courting The Forbidden Debutante», sayfa 4

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.’

Looking around to see if anyone was watching, he saw her run the fabric of the jacket through her fingers as if deciding whether it would be wholly inappropriate to accept the gesture.

‘Surely one of your many admirers has lent you his jacket before,’ Sam said with a grin.

‘I don’t ever step outside with anyone,’ Lady Georgina said.

Sam raised an eyebrow and eventually she corrected herself.

‘I don’t normally step outside with anyone.’

He felt an unbidden tightening deep inside him and for a second the lights and sounds from the house faded away and it was as if they were the only two left in the garden. Quickly he regained control of himself. Lady Georgina was pretty, that was true, and she had something that intrigued him, something that made him want to get to know her better, but he had to keep reminding himself that wasn’t what he was here for. His purpose was to somehow get close to her father and he had to remember Lady Georgina was part of that mission. Allowing anything more, even too much of a friendship to develop, would only serve to hurt her in the long run.

Still, he felt himself being pulled towards her, towards that captivating smile and the sense that underneath her perfectly honed public persona was a woman with hidden depths just crying to get out. He could see it in the way she asked so many questions about Australia, in the wistful, dreamy expression that filled her face when they discussed how their worlds differed. For a moment he wished he could take her there, show her the country he had come to love so much, but he knew that was impossible. Even the overwhelming desire he had to simply take her hand, to brush his fingers against hers, would be too much. Somehow he had to suppress the attraction he felt for the woman in front of him and focus his mind on the reason he’d returned to England.

‘Signor Ratavelli will be starting again in a few minutes,’ Lady Georgina said, a slight catch to her voice Sam hadn’t heard before. ‘Shall we take one more turn about the terrace?’

Offering her his arm, they walked side by side down the length of the terrace. Most of the guests had returned back inside, but a few still lingered, talking quietly in groups and enjoying the fresh, cold air.

At the end of the terrace they paused as Lady Georgina stumbled, gasped softly, then laughed.

‘Sorry,’ she apologized. ‘I have a stone in my shoe, nothing more.’

Without thinking Sam led her a few feet off the terrace and over to an ornate bench no more than ten steps onto the grass. Pressing her to sit, he crouched in front of her and lifted the hem of her dress to reveal a completely impractical shoe. It was all fabric and decoration, with hardly any substance to it. Definitely not a shoe that would survive five minutes in Australia.

Shaking the shoe, he saw a small stone drop out and on to the grass. Before he could stop himself he had placed the shoe on the ground and ran his hand over the bottom of Lady Georgina’s stocking. It was an instinctive move, something Sam would do to himself if he got a stone in his shoe, a way to check nothing more would disrupt his comfort, but as soon as his fingers touched the silky material of her stockings Sam knew it was completely inappropriate.

Lady Georgina inhaled sharply, but Sam noticed she didn’t pull away. He was frozen in place, too, unable to move his hands off her foot, but also equally incapable of stopping his fingers in their slow backwards and forward motion.

‘Lady Georgina,’ a loud voice rang out through the crisp night air.

They jumped apart guiltily and Lady Georgina fumbled to put her own shoe back on.

‘Take your hands off her.’

A wholly unnecessary command. By time the words had crossed the man’s lips Sam was standing at least three feet away. The comment was designed to draw attention from the assembled guests inside the house and it had the desired effect within seconds.

‘Are you harmed, Lady Georgina?’ the man asked, his voice thick with concern.

‘What happened?’ This was from their hostess of the evening, eager to install herself in the middle of any gossip-worthy scandal.

‘I found this scoundrel out here all alone with Lady Georgina, with his hands all over her.’

‘It wasn’t anything like that, Mr Hemmingate,’ Lady Georgina said with remarkable composure.

Sam risked a glance at her and saw her cheeks suffused with colour, although whether from embarrassment or anger he could not tell.

‘I was simply—’ he started to say, but was cut off by a sharp jab in the ribs.

‘Mr Robertson was simply escorting myself and Lady Georgina for a turn about the garden,’ Lady Winston said.

Sam turned to her, trying to hide his incredulity. No one was going to believe that, Lady Winston had arrived outside along with everyone else.

‘You were in the ballroom,’ Mr Hemmingate said, his voice and manner indignant.

‘Are you calling me a liar, Mr Hemmingate?’ Lady Winston said, fixing him with a penetrating stare.

‘Well, no. But you weren’t—’

‘Mr Robertson was kind enough to escort an old lady around the garden and we stopped to talk to Lady Georgina for a moment. Nothing scandalous. Nothing to see.’

The assembled guests murmured and glanced from the stuttering Mr Hemmingate to the confident Lady Winston.

‘Now, I trust no one here will be nasty enough to spread untruths about what happened this evening,’ Lady Winston said, ensuring she caught everyone’s eye in turn. ‘Good. Nothing I dislike more than unkind words.’

Quickly she gripped hold of Sam’s arm, leaning on him more than she needed to, keeping up the pretence of him escorting a frail old woman around the garden.

‘Surely no one believes you,’ Sam whispered as they entered the music room. Over his shoulder he could see Lady Georgina being hustled inside by her mother. No doubt to sit as far away from Sam as possible.

‘I’m a dowager countess,’ Lady Winston said with a wicked smile. ‘They have to believe me.’

‘Thank you.’

Lady Winston turned to regard him as they sat. ‘That was foolish, but I put it down to youthful exuberance. Just be careful with the girl. She doesn’t have another country to retreat to once all of this is over.’

Good advice, Sam thought grimly. The more he got to know Lady Georgina, the less he wanted to hurt her. It had never been his plan to seek revenge on the father by ruining the daughter, but he hadn’t given much thought to a few hurt feelings along the way. Now he was keen not to hurt Lady Georgina in any way, even by association. He would have to tread carefully from now on.

‘Not that they’ll let you near her again,’ Lady Winston said as Signor Ratavelli re-entered the room and took up his place behind the piano.

With a bubble of panic welling up inside him, Sam glanced back over his shoulder to where Lady Georgina and her mother were sitting. Both were studiously avoiding all eye contact with him. A row farther back the interfering Mr Hemmingate was frowning as if displeased with how events had unfolded.