The door opened. A serving maid entered and set to work laying the table for dinner. To Georgie’s dismay, only two places were laid. “Vic’s not dining with us?”
Her father shook his head.
Georgie bit her lip, waiting impatiently for the maid to leave. As soon as the door had closed again, she burst out, “Is it because of this afternoon? Because I don’t care about that! As if I would!”
“I’m pleased to hear it, my dear. But I think you’ll find that Alexander does care about it. It’s no easy thing to have one’s weaknesses exposed.”
“He’s not weak!” Georgie said. “He’s not. And if anyone dares to say that about him, I’ll . . . I’ll make them eat their words!” She stamped her foot.
Her father laughed. “Sometimes you remind me very much of your mother.”
“It’s not funny,” Georgie told him, managing not to stamp her foot again. She crossed her arms instead. “Vic isn’t weak.”
Her father sobered. “No, it’s not funny. And you’re right: he’s not weak. But—”
The door opened again: the serving maid bearing platters of food. She set them down on the table and departed.
“But?” Georgie said.
“But what?”
“You were going to say something.”
“Was I?” Her father shook his head. “I can’t remember what. Sit down, love. Have some dinner.”
“I’ll go and fetch Vic. He should eat with us.”
Her father shook his head again. “He wants to be alone now.”
“But if he’s unhappy, then now’s exactly when he should be with us.”
“He’s also a little foxed,” her father said.
“Foxed?” Georgie stared at him, astonished. “Vic is foxed?”
“Just a little. Sit down, love. Eat.”
Georgie sat, still astonished. Vickery was foxed?
The words Vickery and foxed didn’t go together at all, any more than Vickery and angry. Vickery got drunk as often as he lost his temper, which was never.
Georgie served herself at random and ate without paying attention to what she was putting in her mouth. Her thoughts kept returning to Vickery as she’d last seen him, flushed and damp-eyed and distraught. She wanted to throw down her cutlery and run upstairs and tell him that she didn’t care that he was afraid of the dark.
But Vic cares. He cares a lot.
She sorted back through the events of the day, not just the cutting, but what had happened before that. She remembered Vickery reading the entries in the parish register, a solitary figure in the empty church, remembered him standing alone at his family’s grave, remembered him walking blindly away from old Bill Kernow’s cottage—and she wanted even more urgently to run upstairs to him.
Today’s been awful for him.
She wanted to help him, but she didn’t know how to.
Georgie looked down at her plate and remembered kissing Vickery yesterday, remembered his exhilarating response—the passion and the urgency—and remembered what had come afterwards: his obvious shame. She sighed, and put down her knife and fork. “Papa? You said Vic’s confused. What about? Is it something I can help with? Something I can find for him? A person or a place?”
Her father looked across the table at her, and then he, too, sighed, and laid down his cutlery. “Sweetheart . . .”
“What?” she said, alarmed by the gravity of his expression.
“Alexander is trying to decide what to do next. He’s thinking of giving up his dukedom.”
Georgie stared at him. “But he can’t, can he? I mean, he can’t prove he’s Charley Prowse. No one can. It’s unprovable.”
“Which he’ll realize himself once he’s had time to think about it.” Her father smiled faintly, wryly. “No, Alexander is stuck with his dukedom, whether he wants it or not.”
Georgie thought about this for a moment. “Does he not want it?”
“I think part of him is very tempted by Charley Prowse.”
“If he wants to eschew public life, I don’t care,” Georgie said stoutly. “It’s Vic I want to marry, not a duke.”
Her father looked down at his plate and pushed it to one side. “Sweetheart . . .”
Georgie felt a prickle of foreboding. “What?”
“Alexander feels that he can’t offer for you right now. Not while everything is so . . .” Her father searched for a word and came up with: “Messy.”
Georgie stared at him, unable to speak.
Her father reached across the table and laid his hand over hers. “Alexander’s life has been tipped upside down; he needs time to adjust. I hope that once he has, he’ll make his offer. He assures me his feelings for you are unchanged.”
There was a cold, numb sensation in Georgie’s chest. “Is this because of what happened this afternoon? Or because of his parents?”
“Both, I imagine.”
“But I don’t care about either of those things. We’d be happy together, I know we would!”
“You don’t need to convince me, sweetheart. I know you and Alexander are well suited. I’ve known it for a long time. The person who’ll be difficult to convince is Alexander.”
Georgie thought about what her father had said as she readied herself for bed. She knew where Vickery was, her gift told her that, but it couldn’t tell her how he felt.
Her maid, Geddes, helped her to undress. Georgie donned her nightgown, brushed her hair, plaited it, and worried.
She imagined Vickery in his bedchamber, struggling with his decisions. And then she imagined talking those decisions through with him, helping him choose the best way forward, finding the solution that would make him happiest: Alexander St. Clare or Charley Prowse.
She thought about it for a long time, while Geddes tidied away the clothes and bade her good night, while the inn quietened around her. She thought about it until her thoughts were going round and round in fruitless circles—Should I? Shouldn’t I?—and then she decided to stop thinking and just do.
Georgie picked up her chamberstick and let herself out of her room. The corridor wasn’t completely dark. A thin crack of light showed beneath one of the doors. Vickery’s door.
Georgie took a deep breath and tiptoed purposefully down the corridor. She knew that what she was doing was very wrong, but she also knew that it was right. She knocked quietly, a light rap of her knuckles, and opened the door. “Vic? May I come in?”
Vickery was sitting up in his bed, reading a leather-bound book. There were two candles burning on his bedside table, three more on the dressing table, and a cluster on the mantelpiece.
He looked up at her entrance. His mouth dropped open in shock.
Georgie closed the door behind her. “Is that one of your father’s diaries?”
Vickery put the book down hastily. “What are you doing here?” The collar of his nightshirt was unbuttoned. Georgie saw his bare throat, saw the strong lines of his collarbones.
“Are you trying to decide what to do?” she asked.
Vickery hauled the bedclothes up almost to his chin. “Get out of here!”
“I thought we could talk,” she said. “It helps to talk about difficult decisions.”