Mary Balogh: Gentle conquest

"Lansbury!" his wife admonished, placing her cup back in its saucer with a clatter.

The viscount clasped his hands behind his back and regarded his wife, rocking back on his heels as he did so. "Very well," he said. "You heard this from Eugenia, Livvy? She ought to know. The woman has been matchmaking for years. I shall accompany you on a visit to Lady Sheldon tomorrow afternoon. We shall see what can be learned about this youngster. I do not set my hopes too high, though. The man who will be willing to take Georgiana off our hands will have to be somewhat touched in the upper works. Now, if it were Vera… How can two sisters be so vastly different from each other?"

"Vera is an angel," the viscountess said briskly, rising to ring for a footman to remove the tea tray, "but she is three-and-twenty and still unmarried, Lansbury. And without prospects. One must admit that the girl is on the shelf to stay. If we can but catch Chartleigh for Georgie, I shall be well content. It will be a quite brilliant match for her."

Georgiana sat in the drawing room of her father's house on Curzon Street, all outward docility. Since Mama and Papa had explained to her the afternoon before that a marriage between her and the Earl of Chartleigh was a definite possibility, she had been all set to rebel. No one was going to marry her off to a total stranger.

But Papa had foreseen her reaction and her ears were still tingling from the peal he had rung over her head immediately after luncheon. The earl was to visit that afternoon with his mother, the countess. Georgiana was to conduct herself as a young lady of the ton who was "out" was expected to behave. She was to be courteous and agreeable. If she was not, if she did one thing to show the visitors what a bad-tempered hoyden she really was-just one thing!-she would have him to reckon with afterward.

Georgiana had dared to glance inquiringly at her father at that point. The spanking threat again? He appeared to read her mind.

"It will be home to the country for you, my girl," he said, "and there you will stay until some gentleman farmer is fool enough to offer for you. Or failing that, you may spend your declining years ministering to the needs of your mother and of the parish. You will never see London again, never attend a ball or a party, and never wear a fashionable gown. Do I make myself understood?"

Georgiana dropped her eyes meekly to the toes of her blue slippers. "Yes, Papa," she said.

And that was just the sort of threat he would keep, too, she thought glumly. She could safely disregard the threats of a spanking. Papa had never ever beaten her, though he must have threatened to do so at least once a week since she was six. He had even dismissed a governess once when he caught the woman rapping her over the knuckles with a ruler for not paying attention to her lessons. But he would send her home. That was just the sort of thing Papa would do. She would take the beating any day rather than have to go home. She would positively die of boredom.

So she had quite sincerely assured her father that she would behave herself that afternoon, and gloomily allowed herself to be turned over to Price, Mama's hatchet-faced dresser. And here she was as a result, a lamb prepared for the slaughter, sitting meekly in the drawing room wearing her pale pink muslin, which she positively hated because it was so delicately feminine. And her hair! She had not counted the ringlets as Price turned them out, like so many sausages on a string, from the curling tongs. But it felt as if there must be at least two hundred of them bouncing against the back of her head and the sides of her face. And ribbons! One pink bow on each side of her head, starkly noticeable against the darkness of her hair. Georgiana scowled, remembered her promise, and schooled her features into bland emptiness again.

Why had she never met the Earl of Chartleigh? She had never even heard of him before. Was he newly arrived from the country, still smelling of the barn? And how old was he? What did he look like? What sort of man had to have a marriage arranged for him? And with a girl he had never set eyes on! She heartily despised him already. She was going to hate him, she knew she was. But how was she to put him off without making it obvious to a hawk-eyed papa that she was doing so? She would not marry him. She was not going to marry anyone. If she ever did marry, it would be to someone like Warren Haines, a thoroughly good fellow with whom she could be herself and not have to trouble about ringlets and pink dresses and all that faradiddle. But she had laughed at Warren the week before when he had suggested that perhaps they should think of becoming betrothed. She did not really want to marry even him.

Georgiana stifled a sigh. Mama and Vera were all dressed up as for a big occasion too, and both already wore on their faces that bright, sociable, artificial expression that they reserved for visitors of special significance. Why could not this earl marry Vera if he was so anxious for a bride? She was the older sister, after all. And Vera was not an antidote, though Mama was fond of saying so when Vera herself was not within hearing. She was a little too thin, perhaps, and a trifle pale, and her hair of a somewhat indeterminate color, but she had the finest gray eyes Georgiana had ever seen. "Windows to the soul" was the phrase that leapt to mind when one really looked into Vera's eyes. And, more than that, she looked beautiful when she felt deeply about something. Her cheeks would flush and her whole face come alive. Unfortunately, that did not happen often enough. Vera seemed to think that a lady should always be calm and in control of her emotions. She was an angel-even Mama admitted that much. She never lost her temper or got into scrapes.

Georgiana jumped noticeably in her chair as the butler opened the double doors into the drawing room with a flourish and announced the Earl and Countess of Chartleigh in his best theatrical manner. Her heart fluttered painfully. How could one possibly be expected to behave naturally in such very embarrassing circumstances? She schooled her features into a smile that matched exactly in artificiality those worn by her mother and sister as her father stepped forward to greet the visitors.

She curtsied deeply to the portly countess, whom she recalled seeing on occasion at church, and to the earl, who was blocked to her view at first by the large frame of his mother.

When she did see him, Georgiana was definitely shocked. This was the husband her parents had chosen for her? This… this boy? He was surely no older than she. There must be some mistake. She felt an alarming urge to giggle as everyone settled into chairs and began the laborious business of making polite conversation. The older people sustained the flow of talk. The three younger ones sat mute after the opening greetings-like children who must be seen but not heard, Georgiana thought hilariously.

At first she kept her eyes riveted to the face of whichever adult was talking. But several furtive glances at the Earl of Chartleigh assured her that he was not looking her way at all. He seemed to be engrossed in the conversation. She studied him openly, losing all track of what was being said.

How old was he? Far too young to be married, at any rate. Most of the men of her acquaintance held that marriage before the age of thirty was a shocking waste of a youth. She doubted if this man was even twenty. Her eyes passed over his tall frame, slender and elegant in his mourning clothes. A boyish figure. Not the sort of godlike, muscular physique that all girls dream of. His hair was very fair and looked baby-soft, but it was thick and rather unruly. Although it was fashionably rumpled, she doubted that the effect had been created deliberately. His complexion, too, was fair. He had a sweet face. His nose was high-bridged, a rather prominent feature; his eyes and his mouth looked as if they smiled, though his face was in repose.