To Win the Lady Read Free Page B

else would do but that she must go immediately to
the stables and behold the paragon so their aunt temporarily gave up trying to
talk sense into them. She returned to the subject at dinner, by which time she
had been shown to her room by Fanny, changed her gown, inspected the house and
viewed the grounds from an upstairs window.
    Beyond an
extensive stable-block, whose roof was almost immediately below her window,
there were two or three large paddocks in which upwards of thirty horses grazed
and beyond that a few farm fields, in one of which the haymakers were busy with
their scythes. In the other direction, alongside a copse of trees, was a
private gallop, where she could see a couple of stable-lads exercising horses.
She had not realised until today how large her brother’s stud was, nor how much
there was to do in the managing of it, and she was filled with admiration for
her elder niece. Not that it made any difference to her disapproval or her
determination to do something about both girls. It was her duty and Harriet
Bertram had never been one to shirk her duty.
    ‘I must return
to London as soon as maybe,’ she told the girls over the fish, which was
surprisingly well-cooked, though Harriet found herself wondering how close it
had been to the bran-mash. ‘Your uncle Edward will be home soon and I must make
sure everything is as it should be before he arrives, so I suggest you pack
your bags and we will go tomorrow.’
    ‘Tomorrow! I
cannot possibly leave so soon,’ Georgie said. ‘You had best go without me and I
will follow when the haymaking is done and I am assured Warrior Princess is
doing well.’
    No amount of
arguing would budge her and their aunt gave in. Felicity and Mrs Bertram would
post to London, in the lady’s carriage, and Georgie would follow a week later
in Sir Henry’s travelling coach, with a groom driving and Fanny as maid and
chaperon. It was not, in Harriet’s opinion, an ideal solution but it was the
only one Georgiana would agree to, and that young lady was far too self-willed
for her own good. Harriet blamed Henry, who, while acknowledging that he could
not produce a living son - there had been two stillbirths between Georgie and
Felicity, both boys - would not deny himself the pleasure of bringing one up,
and Georgie had been turned into a hoyden as a result. A very capable hoyden,
but a hoyden none the less.
    ‘I will
undertake to fit you both up with clothes,’ their aunt said. ‘And I’ll give a
ball. The Season is half over so it will have to be at the end, and by then you
will perhaps have made your mark on Society, that is if I can prevail upon Lady
Hereward to invite you to her ball next week and Mrs Sopwithy to include you in
one of her routs. Then there is Almack’s and perhaps, if you are lucky, a
drawing-room. It is fortunate that so many young men are returning from the
Continent for I declare every eligible in town must already have been spoken
for long ago.’
    She murmured on
in like vein throughout the remove of mutton and braised sweetmeats and the
fruit flan that followed them, and Georgie, who was made to feel that their
deficiencies were all her fault, was glad to escape and return to the stables,
once more clad in boots and breeches, leaving Felicity to complete the
arrangements with their aunt over the teacups.
    Georgie loved
horses with a passion which could only be matched by her father’s and had often
sat up all night with a sick animal or a mare that was foaling. She had watched
stallions at stud and cared for mares in foal right through until the time of
the birth, a fact which horrified her aunt. She could break and train a new
horse and was an excellent rider, liking nothing better than to feel the wind
in her hair as she put a horse through its paces on the gallops. Dawson, the
stable-master, and the other outside staff were used to her and would have died
for her right to continue her father’s work; they cared little for convention
and knew