Historical Romance June 2017 Books 1 - 4. Annie Burrows

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       Chapter Ten

      Of all the high-handed, arrogant, supercilious...men! Georgiana glared at Edmund’s back as he sauntered out of the ballroom, his mind already clearly elsewhere. She spent the rest of the evening fuming. By the time she reached their rented house, all she could remember of the ball were the moments she’d spent with him. Being lectured and dragged round and forced to drink lemonade, and lectured again, and then tossed aside as if he’d grown bored with her antics. And all whilst trailing two feet of spangled floss trimming.

      Georgiana tore off her ball gown, wincing as one of the pins she’d used to repair the damage scored her ankle, kicked off her slippers and brushed her hair so vigorously that sparks crackled. When Sukey dreamily bade her a goodnight and wafted to her room on a cloud of happy reminiscences, she grunted a brief response, shut her bedroom door with exaggerated patience and then flung herself on to her bed, thumping the pillow for good measure.

      He was a beast to speak to her that way!

      The worst of it was more than half of what he’d said made perfect sense. Drat him. She had been foolish, thinking she might as well accept Major Gowan’s proposal—if he ever made one—simply to get the business settled.

      But Edmund had no idea what it felt like to have a sword hanging over his head, or the terrible strain of being braced for the moment it finally fell.

      Oh, she should have said that to him! Why hadn’t she come up with that clever analogy when it might have impressed him?

      She buried her face in the pillow and screamed her frustration into it. And then, since she was never going to be able to sleep, the way she felt, she rolled off the bed and went to her window, and sat on the sill with her knees drawn up, looking out at the night sky.

      As she watched the last few stars still valiantly twinkling in the face of approaching dawn, it occurred to her that at least he hadn’t had things all his own way. Once or twice she’d had the satisfaction of shaking him out of his cool, superior attitude. He’d blustered instead of making his point in a clear, concise fashion.

      Her lips curled up, just a touch, as she recalled the moment when he’d halted mid-sentence and then gone off on a completely different tack. It was a small victory, but a victory none the less. And all the more valuable since not many people ever managed to shake his utter certainty in himself, these days.

      But then Edmund was so very often right. Even she could concede that it was a good idea to think seriously about what would make a husband tolerable and discovering if any man in London possessed those qualities, before settling for the likes of Major Gowan.

      If only he wasn’t expecting her to apply reasoning to a problem that stemmed from her emotions. Whenever she bent her mind to the act of getting married, it was her body and her heart that shied away from it. The prospect of letting any man do what she’d seen Wilkins doing to Liza made her feel physically ill.

      She hugged her knees, trying to imagine Major Gowan...

      Ugh! No. She couldn’t bear that.

      Edmund was right. She couldn’t marry a man who would expect that of her. Who would be disappointed, and probably hurt, too, when she responded to his embraces by... She pressed her hand to her stomach.

      So what was she to do?

      Think—that was what. About what sort of man she might be able to stomach.

      Funny, before coming to London, she’d thought only some sort of savage would deign to consider her, but in fact, several perfectly respectable and well-mannered men appeared to find her attractive. Not Edmund, though. She knew, thanks to Bartlesham’s gossip mill, that every СКАЧАТЬ