First Comes Scandal
Dear God.
“Freddie,” she said, “you need to go before someone sees you.”
“My dearest Georgiana,” he intoned.
“Stop! Now.” She twisted her head to look up at the sky. “I think it’s going to rain again. It’s not safe in that tree.”
“You do care about me.”
“No, I was simply stating that it’s not safe in that tree,” she retorted. “Although heaven knows why I bother. Only a fool would climb it in this weather, and I could certainly do with fewer fools in my life.”
“You wound me to the quick, Miss Bridgerton.”
She groaned.
“That wasn’t in the letter,” he explained.
“I don’t care what was in the letter!”
“You will when I finish reciting it,” he said.
Georgie rolled her eyes. God save her.
“Here is what I wrote.” He cleared his throat in that way people did before a grand speech. “It distresses me more than I can say that I have not heard back from you.”
“Stop,” she begged.
But he sailed on, as she knew he would. “I bared my heart to you in my letter. I wrote words of love and devotion and heard only silence. I can only believe that you never received my letter, for surely you are too gentle-hearted and lovely to wound me with silence.”
He looked up expectantly.
“I already told you I got the first letter,” Georgie said.
This deflated him. But only momentarily. “Well,” he said, in the sort of tone one uses when deciding to ignore logic and fact, “I also wrote: I am sorry if I frightened you with my ardor. You must know it is because I love you so desperately. I have never felt this for another lady.”
Georgie let her forehead fall into one of her hands. “Stop, Freddie. Just stop. You’re embarrassing both of us. But mostly you.”
“I am not embarrassed,” he said, placing a dramatic hand over his heart. The motion caused him to sway, and Georgie gasped, convinced he was going down. But he must have had a better grip on the tree than she’d realized, because he remained solidly in his perch, legs wrapped around the long branch that stretched toward her window.
“For the love of heaven, Freddie, you need to get back down before you kill yourself.”
“I’m not getting out of this tree until you agree to marry me.”
“Then you should consider building a nest, because that is never going to happen.”
“Why are you being so bloody stubborn?”
“Because I don’t want to marry you!” Georgie jerked to the side as first Judyth, and then Blanche hopped up onto the windowsill. “Honestly, Freddie, can’t you find someone else to marry?”
“I want you.”
“Oh, please. We both know you don’t really love me.”
“Of course I—”
“Freddie.”
Judyth hissed. Blanche followed suit, but Blanche always did whatever Judyth did. At that point Cat-Head jumped up, and now there were three hostile cats in a row, all glaring at Freddie.
“Fine.” His mouth came together in a hard line, and his entire demeanor changed. “I don’t love you. I don’t love anyone. But I do need to get married. And you’re the best woman for the job.”
“One would think the best woman for the job would be a woman who actually wants the job.”
“I don’t have the luxury of finding that woman,” he retorted. “I need to get married now.”
“How far in debt are you?”
“Quite,” he said. “You’re the perfect combination of dowry and tolerability.”
“This is how you think to convince me?”
“I tried to go about it the nice way,” he said.
“Kidnapping?”
He waved dismissively, causing Georgie to once again gasp for his safety. But he did not slip. She recalled that someone had once told her Freddie was a natural athlete, that he’d ruled the cricket fields at Eton. Thank God for that, because she had a feeling it was the only reason he hadn’t yet tumbled to the ground.
“I did everything properly,” he said. “I danced with you. I took you to a bookshop.”
“From which you kidnapped me.”
He shrugged. “My creditors advanced my calendar considerably. Now please, if you would. You haven’t a choice. Surely you must know that. Your reputation is in tatters.”
“Thanks to you!”
“Then let me make it up to you. Once we’re married, it will all go away. You will have the protection of my name.”
“I don’t want the protection of your name,” Georgie seethed.
“You will be Mrs. Oakes,” he said, and Georgie honestly couldn’t tell if he was willfully ignoring her or too caught up in his own greatness to notice that she’d spoken.
He leaned toward her. “When my father passes you will be Lady Nithercott.”
“I’d rather remain Miss Bridgerton.”
“Miss Bridgerton is a spinster.” He started scooting down the branch. “You don’t want to be a spinster.”
“Stop it, Freddie!” Georgie eyed him with growing panic. Surely he didn’t think the branch would hold him all the way to her window.
“I’m coming in.”
“You are not.”
“Accept your fate, Georgiana.”
“I will scream,” she warned.
He actually laughed at her, the cretin. “If you were going to scream, you would have done so by now.”
“The only reason I haven’t is because my brother is here tonight, and he will disembowel you if he finds you anywhere near me.”
“So you do care.”
Dear God, this man was stupid. “About my brother,” she hissed. “I have no wish to see him jailed for murder. And I don’t need another scandal. You’ve already ruined my life.”
“So let me fix it.”
“Your plan all along, I assume.”
He shrugged again as he nudged himself forward a few inches. “You’re not going to do better.”
“Freddie, don’t! It won’t support your weight.”
“Toss me a rope.”
“I don’t have a rope! Why would you think I had a rope in my bedroom? And for the love of God, back up.”
He didn’t listen.
“Do not come closer,” Georgie warned. She was starting to worry that maybe the branch would hold his weight. It wasn’t bowing nearly as much as she would have thought.
“You will marry me,” he growled.
“Would it be easier if I just gave you money?”
He paused. “You would do that?”
“No!” She picked up the closest object she could put her hands on—a book—and hurled it at him.
“Ow!” It clipped him on the shoulder. “Stop that!”
She threw another book.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Defending my honor,” she ground out. She tried to lean forward, but the cats were in the way. Without taking her eyes off Freddie she picked them up one by one and tossed them down. “If you have any care to your well-being,” she warned him, “you’ll remember what happened last time you tried to convince me to marry you.”