Page 16 of Invitation to Pleasure
Daniel swung to face him grinning like a schoolboy. “So I have you to thank. We were just coming to find you. We have a favor to ask.”
Rufus looked between the two of them and his smile died. “Best we go back to the house and find Rheda then. I don’t do favors without her approval.” At Daniel’s raised eyebrow, he added, “Well, not that she knows about.”
Chapter 7
The carriage was approachingthe house and her father’s snores didn’t help to steady her nerves. When they arrived home her mother would no longer be in residence. She’d taken her father into Newmarket on the pretense of Christmas shopping while Billy, Tessa, and Jimmy her father’s valet and Tessa’s husband, moved her mother to Hascombe.
Georgiana prayed none of the other servants saw them go. Tessa and Jimmy now worked for her. They could never go back to Wentworth. They would be her mother’s caregivers. While Billy… she prayed hard that no one saw Billy helping with the escape. He insisted on staying at Wentworth to guard her, and Daniel agreed.
She decided to let her father sleep until the carriage came to a halt. How long would it take for her father to learn his hold over her had escaped? She swallowed down her fear. Her father was a cruel man and she worried how he would react. Perhaps, as Daniel had said, she should have gone with her mother. But if they both went her father would suspect the Hascombe’s. Hopefully he would think Georgiana had merely sent her well away, he’d have no idea the Hascombe’s were helping her.
As they drew up to the steps, leading up to the front door, she noticed the commotion and knew her mother’s absence had been noted. She literally jumped out of the carriage before it had fully stopped.
“What is it Burton?”
He stood ringing his hands. “It’s Lady Wentworth—”
“What’s happened to my mother?” she cried. “Is she ill?” and she made to move past Burton up the steps.
But Burton cried out, just as her father stepped from the carriage. “She’s gone. And so are Tessa and Jimmy.”
The whole county could have heard her father’s roar. What she had not expected was the hand that suddenly wrapped around her throat almost lifting her off the ground. “You… You will tell me where you have hidden her or by God I’ll—”
“My Lord, perhaps this would be best handled in private.” Burton’s calming voice brought her father out of his murderous haze. His hand loosened at her throat and she began gasping fresh air into her lungs. He grabbed her arm and began pulling her up the stairs. She didn’t have the breath to stop him. She saw Billy’s worried face peering round the corner of the house. He’d go for help.
Her father swung her round and pushed her into the drawing room closing the door behind him. She crawled along the floor until the settee was between then. “You will tell me where you have put my wife or I will beat it out of you.” It wasn’t the words themselves, merely the way he said them. He was calm. Too calm.
“I have no idea where Tessa has taken mother. I was with you. I am not party to this.” Her fingers were crossed behind her back.
He moved slowly toward her. “You must think I’m stupid. Tessa would not move your mother without your say so.” He reached out and swiped the vase off the stand and watched it smash against the slate fire surround. “Now tell me where sheis.”
She got to her feet and used the back of the settee to support her shaking legs. She hoped Daniel would not be too long. “No. I won’t tell you. I’m done being used. I know what you have planned. You’ll wait for me to come into my trust and then you’ll use mother to make me sign it over to you. And then you know what you’ll do? You’ll gamble it all away like you have everything else, until I have nothing left.”
Another step closer.
“Nothing left. You stupid girl. You will marry and marry well. You don’t need that money. Your face is your fortune. I have already made an arrangement with Lord Featherstone.”
That was the last straw. “Selling your own daughter now. Is this what it has come to? Why am I not surprised? I wouldn’t tell you where mother is if my life depended on it.”
“It just might,” he threatened.
She threw her head back and laughed. “No. I’m far too valuable alive. If I die before I marry, the money goes to my cousin.”
Her father halted in his tracks. “Pain has a distinct way of making people talk.”
“I swear I won’t tell you no matter what you do to me, but I will tell everyone who will listen about mother and my trust fund, if you lay your hands on me. So unless you want our neighbors and villagers to see me covered in bruises then I’d think again.” Georgiana could see the fight beginning to leave her father. He suddenly understood her conviction. She taunted him. “If you need money sell this estate and leave mother and me alone.”
Her father sunk down onto the nearest chair. “Sell the estate. I could go to the Americas. Men are making fortunes out there in the plantations.” It was as if she no longer existed. He sat talking to himself his excitement building. “No stuffy society watching and condemning everything I do.”
She silently thought to herself it would be a wise move to leave England should any of the men her father had duped with worthless nags, seek restitution. She also knew when he left it would be the last time she’d ever see her father. Titles meant nothing in the Americas and she did not doubt her father would end up dead on the end of a sword, pistol or knife.
She couldn’t seem to care. He’d never been a father to her in the real sense of the word.
She took the opportunity to walk round the outside of the room and head for the door. He didn’t even try to stop her. Burton, bless him, was hovering outside and his look of relief made her suddenly remember the staff. She hoped the new owner of Wentworth would keep the staff on. She would try to ensure that happened.
“Are you well, my lady?”
“Perfectly, thank you. Lady Hascombe has invited me to spend Christmas with them. Can you organize my luggage to be packed and get the carriage ready?”
