Ravello. The image of the villa there, now hers, materialised in her mind’s eye. She seized on it. And was suddenly struck by the obvious solution to her troubles. Charles was a bully and totally unscrupulous. He would continue to threaten her peace of mind while she remained in England. And Bella’s brother, too, disturbed her rest and reduced her ability to cope with the daily round of fashionable life. Yet she was not particularly enamoured of the social whirl; it would cause her no great pain to eschew the life completely. It was a pleasant diversion, nothing more.
With sudden conviction, she made up her mind. She would see out the Season with Bella, as she had promised Arthur she would. Then she would return to Ravello, a great deal older and a great deal wiser. She stifled a small sigh and forced herself to promise—when winter set in, she would be in Ravello.
The increasing light coming from street-lamps as they entered the capital made it worth while for Dominic to desert his imaginings in favour of the real thing. He had been watching Georgiana for some minutes, wondering what it was that kept her so serious, when a point which had thus far eluded him surfaced as a question. “Georgiana, do you have any idea why Charles wants to marry you?”
As he said the words, he realised they were hardly flattering. Still, he had a high enough opinion of Georgiana Hartley to be sure she was not the sort of flighty young woman who believed all men who wished to marry her were smitten by her beauty. The memory of her numerous suitors, all of whom were most definitely smitten, himself included, brought a wry smile to his lips.
In the flickering, shifting light, Georgiana saw the smile, and her heart turned to lead and dropped to her slippers. To ask a question like that and then smile condescendingly! Well, if anything was needed to convince her Lord Alton had no romantic interest in her it was that. Doggedly, she forced her mind to concentrate on his query. Frowning with the effort, she shook her head and answered truthfully, “I have no idea.”
“It was the same while you were at the Place?”
Georgiana nodded. “Exactly the same.” She paused, then decided she might as well tell Lord Alton the whole of it. He knew so much already. Choosing her words carefully, she explained Charles’s claim of a long-standing betrothal.
“And you’re certain such an arrangement never existed?”
“Quite sure.” Georgiana paused, then added in explanation, “My father and I were…very close. He would never have done such a thing and not told me. Not for any reason.”
Lord Alton seemed to accept her assurance. He sat silently beside her as the coach rumbled along the cobbles towards Green Street.
Dominic had no doubt that Georgiana’s beliefs were true. He only wished he had known of Charles’s claim before he had returned to the inn parlour. The tenseness he had felt but not recognised on his drive to the Hare and Hounds had converted to anger once he had got Georgiana safely away—anger that had demanded some outlet. So he had returned to the parlour, to be quite unnecessarily provoked by Charles’s animadversions on his cousin. In the end he had administered a thoroughly deserved thrashing. He knew Charles was close to financial ruin—was, in fact, technically bankrupt. Georgiana’s small fortune would not come close to meeting his mounting debts. After suggesting Charles would be wise never to approach his lovely cousin again, he had repeated his offer to buy the Place. The sum he named was far more than Charles would ever get from any other, with the Place situated as it was. Charles had only attempted a sneer through swollen and cracked lips.
Dominic contemplated a late-night return to the Hare and Hounds, to pursue further the reason for Charles’s apparent fixation with marrying his cousin. Even less than Georgiana did he believe Charles would act for the good of the family. There was something in all this that he was missing, some vital clue which would make all clear. But Charles would almost certainly have left before he could return to the inn.
He turned the anomalies of Charles’s behaviour, both with respect to Georgiana and to the sale of the Place, over and over in his mind. Suddenly, the two connected. Dominic straightened in his seat.
“Georgiana, have you been to see your father’s English solicitors yet?”
Dragged from the depths of a series of most melancholy thoughts, Georgiana shook her head. “No. I suppose I should, but there doesn’t really seem much point.”
“But…” Dominic paused, then decided he was going to interfere even though he theoretically had no right. Right be damned. He was going to marry the chit, wasn’t he? “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to recall you left Italy before notification of your father’s death was acknowledged by your English solicitors. Is that right?”
“You mean,” said Georgiana, brow wrinkling in an effort to get the question straight, “before they wrote back after they got the letter from the Italian solicitors?” At Dominic’s nod, she agreed. “Yes, that’s right.”
“And you haven’t seen your father’s will?”
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“No…no. That was left with the English solicitors. But I always knew I would inherit all Papa’s money. And the villa at Ravello.” She paused, puzzled by his line of questioning, not sure of what possibilities he saw. “But surely if there had been anything more, or anything unexpected, someone would have told me by now?”
“Who are your solicitors here?”
“Whitworth and Whitworth, in Lincoln’s Inn.”
“Good. I’ll take you to see them tomorrow.”
Georgiana turned to look at him in amazement. She had not previously had much exposure to the autocratic side of Lord Alton’s temperament. She surveyed the satisfied expression on his face with misgiving. “But…why?”
He smiled at her, and she almost forgot her question.
“Because, my dear Georgiana,” he said as he captured her hand and raised it to his lips, “Charles, despite all evidence to the contrary, is not a complete gudgeon. His attempts to coerce you into marriage must have some motive behind them. And, as your kinship with him is the only connection between you, I suggest we start looking for the answer with your father’s solicitors.”
Despite the clear impression that Lord Alton had a stronger motive for insisting she visit her solicitors, Georgiana got no further chance to question him. He had barely ceased speaking when the carriage pulled up outside Green Street. In the ensuing hullabaloo there was no opportunity to do more than thank him prettily for his rescue and meekly accept his instruction to be ready the next morning at eleven.
GEORGIANA RETURNED Arthur’s reassuring smile as the Alton town carriage drew up at the entrance to Lincoln’s Inn. Both she and her host had been taken up by an irresistible force at eleven that morning, their objective being the office of her father’s solicitors. Despite her belief that nothing new would be learned from Whitworths, Georgiana was enjoying her first view of an area of London she had not previously had cause to visit.
Lord Alton, sitting beside her, had leant forward to speak to the porter. As he leant back, the carriage lurched forward again, over the cobbles and through the large gate of the Inn. The cobbled yard was surrounded by buildings entirely given over to solicitors and clerks. By each doorway leading on to a stairwell hung the bronze plaques of the practitioners within. The carriage drew up before one such door. Lord Alton jumped down and gave her his hand.
Their destination lay on the first floor. A desiccated clerk of indeterminate years, dressed in sombre grey and sporting a tie wig of decades gone by, bade them seat themselves in the small outer office, “While I enquire if Mr Whitworth will see you.” He left Georgiana with the definite impression that to be permitted to see the Mr Whitworths was tantamount to being granted an audience with the Regent.