"Dear brother, do wait—distressing you was never my intent," Sebastian called out, urging his stallion forward until he rode alongside Alexander.
"You remain the same impish nuisance you've always been," Alexander replied coolly, though a flicker of amusement danced behind his composed tone.
"Nuisance? I take that as flattery. I was trained by the very best, you recall," Sebastian said with a roguish grin. The two shared a brief, unrestrained laugh as their horses moved in elegant tandem.
"Ah, the liberties of bachelorhood... no duties, no expectations—only a well-charted path through salons and scandal, guided by the charms of the fairer sex," Sebastian sighed theatrically, casting a glance toward the morning sun.
"You'll never shed those boyhood whims, will you? Forever chasing petticoats as if the world were your private theatre," Alexander replied, his voice warming as they disappeared into the hush of the green countryside.
---
GEORGIANA POV
The gardens of Hastings House lay in that peculiar stillness known only to English estates in the golden hour—the air crisp with the scent of damask roses, the light gilding the box hedges into emerald precision. Within the conservatory teahouse—a jewel-box of glass and wrought iron, swathed in ivy that had been trained to perfection over three generations—Lady Georgiana sat across from the Honourable Eleanor Sutton, her oldest friend, her almost-sister. Not by blood, of course (the Suttons being merely respectable gentry), but by the sort of bond that forms when one has shared a nursery, a governess, and the hollow ache of losing a mother before one could properly remember her smile.
Georgiana's fingers—pale as the Wedgwood china between them—tightened, just slightly, around the handle of her cup. The tremor was near imperceptible. Nearly.
"I should be a dreadful liar if I pretended I wasn't afraid," she said at last, her voice as smooth as the Darjeeling in her hand. She did not look at Eleanor, but past her, through the glass to the manicured paths beyond, where the head gardener's boy was clipping a stray branch with military exactness.
Eleanor's answering sigh was soft, familiar. "I felt precisely the same," she admitted, her thumb brushing the edge of her saucer in a habit Georgiana had known since they were girls stealing biscuits from the kitchen. "The morning of my wedding, I thought I might cast up my accounts in the carriage. And yet—" Here, her hand drifted to the subtle curve beneath her bodice, the gesture at once unconscious and profoundly intimate. "Arthur has made it all so... effortless. As though I were something rare. Something to be kept."
A faint smile touched Georgiana's lips—not quite reaching her eyes.
"Arthur worships you," she said, with the quiet certainty of one who had observed every glance, every murmured endearment between them. "I daresay he wakes each morning half-convinced he's dreamt you."
"But I—" The cup met its saucer with a whisper of porcelain, the sound precise as a clock's tick. Her fingertip traced the rim, round and round. "I cannot seem to shake this... dread. What if it all comes to nothing? What if I become someone even I do not know—some brittle, polished creature with nothing real left in her?" A pause. The gardener's boy had moved on; a blackbird alighted on the path instead. "They all say affection will come. That the match is ideal. But what if they are wrong?"
Eleanor said nothing. She had always known when silence was the greater kindness.
Georgiana's next words were scarcely louder than the rustle of silk against silk.
"The world expects a trousseau from Paris. A tiara that belonged to someone's great-grandmother. A performance." Her breath caught, just once. "But what if this isn't the first act? What if it's the first unraveling?"
Finally, she lifted her gaze—and in Eleanor's eyes, she saw the reflection of every fear she had never voiced aloud.
"Life is not a fairy story," Georgiana murmured. "And I begin to suspect... happy endings were never meant for girls who think too much."
---
The conservatory air hung thick with the scent of Earl Grey and impending rain. Eleanor's hand—ungloved, warm against the chill of Georgiana's own—lingered for only a heartbeat before withdrawing, leaving behind the ghost of comfort.
"You think too much," Eleanor murmured, "because no one has ever permitted you to feel." The words settled between them like dust motes in a sunbeam—tiny, inescapable truths. "You were raised to be decorative, Georgiana. To be silent. To be good. But you—" Her voice dropped to a whisper only the ivy could overhear. "You are not some porcelain figurine to be displayed in his drawing room. And Lord Alexander, for all his titles, ought to recognise that."
Georgiana's fingers curled into her palm, blunt nails pressing half-moons into flesh.
"He doesn't see me," she said, so softly the words might have been mistaken for the rustle of her skirts. "Not as Arthur sees you. To him, I am... an item on an inventory. Already appraised. Already accounted for."
Eleanor tilted her head—the same angle she'd used at twelve when dissecting Latin verbs, at eighteen when dismantling suitors' pretensions. "Have you spoken to him? Properly?"
A laugh escaped Georgiana's lips—sharp, unladylike, startling even to herself. "Shall I draft a formal request? Dear Lord Alexander, prior to our nuptials, might I enquire as to the whereabouts of your humanity?"
Eleanor did not flinch. "I am in earnest."
"As am I." The teacup trembled as she set it down, the sound like a cracked bell. "He speaks in bullet points. His letters read like Treasury reports. And yesterday—" Her breath hitched. "Yesterday, he sent a missive through Papa's valet. Not even his own man."
A beat. The blackbird outside cocked its head, watching.
"What did it say?"
Georgiana hesitated. Then, with the deliberate motion of one extracting a splinter, she drew a folded slip of cream-laid paper from her sleeve. The creases were sharp, the ink unfaded—read too many times to count.
Eleanor took it. Unfolded it.
Her eyes moved down the page. With each line, her spine straightened further, until she sat as rigid as the hedgerows beyond the glass.
Instructions for the Viscountess of Haverford, to be observed upon marriage.
1. The Lady shall maintain a demeanor of unimpeachable composure at all public functions.
2. Emotional excess—particularly of a hysterical or possessive nature—is strictly prohibited.
3. All correspondence must be reviewed prior to dispatch.
4. Social engagements require advance notice and, where appropriate, chaperonage.
5. Estate matters remain the sole purview of the Viscount.
6. Conjugal relations shall be conducted with discretion and regularity.
7. Questions regarding the Viscount's personal affairs are unbecoming.
8. The Lady's foremost duty is the preservation of lineage, reputation, and domestic harmony.
Eleanor's knuckles whitened. "He sent this, just after the engagement."
Georgiana inclined her head—a duchess acknowledging a death sentence. "Papa called it practical. Said it was better to know the rules of the game beforehand."
"Did your father marry for love?"
The question hung in the air like the scent of overblown roses—sweet, cloying, faintly rotten.
"No," Georgiana said. "But I had rather hoped to."
Silence. The blackbird took wing, its shadow flitting across the tea tray.
Georgiana did not move. Did not breathe. As if stillness might preserve what little remained of herself.
Then, barely audible:
"Do you suppose it's too late to flee to the Continent?"
Eleanor met her gaze. No pity. Only steel.
"If you run," she said, "do it in broad daylight. And make sure they all see you go."
---
TO BE CONTINUED...