The Road through Rushbury (Seasons of Change Book 1) Read online

  The Road through Rushbury

  Martha Keyes

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Seasons of Change Series

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  The Road through Rushbury © 2020 by Martha Keyes. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover design by Martha Keyes and Ashtyn Newbold.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Martha Keyes

  http://www.marthakeyes.com

  Chapter 1

  Ten thousand.

  That was the number of pins Georgiana Paige estimated she’d had stuck in her hair since her coming out eight years ago. She winced as her maid placed another one, the edge of it prodding the crown of her head in much the same way the heel of a boot prods at a reluctant horse.

  Georgiana relaxed as her maid stepped back, making a final adjustment to the coiffure. It was not Georgiana’s preferred way to wear her hair, but she didn’t care enough to dispute it. One could only muster so much opinion on such a matter. She dismissed the maid and was left alone with her younger sister Daphne.

  “You look magnificent!” Daphne’s voice was almost reverent as she stepped forward and surveyed Georgiana in the mirror in front of them.

  Georgiana looked up at her with a twinkle in her eye. “I look too old for this hairstyle, that’s what I look.” She stood and smoothed her skirts.

  “Nonsense,” Daphne said. “You mustn’t think that way, Georgie.” She pursed her lips together in a manner entirely at odds with her youthful naiveté. “You must consider tonight’s ball as though it were your very first—and you freshly arrived in Town.”

  Georgiana took stock of herself in the long mirror. “I feel as though I have been here an eternity.” She said it softly, almost to herself. She was every bit as plain as she had been upon her coming out—hair a nondescript shade of brown, a nose too long to convey the delicacy so valued in Society—and her face was showing subtle signs of the years that had passed: light wrinkles at the outer edges of her eyes and on her forehead, and a few pale freckles on her nose.

  Utterly forgettable. Those were the words she had once overheard applied to her appearance. They had stung at the time, but there was truth to them, no doubt. She turned from the mirror and smiled at her sister.

  “I cannot imagine tiring of London,” Daphne said with a sigh, plopping down on the bed and pulling a pillow into her arms.

  “Well, let us hope, then, that you haven’t occasion to spend as many Seasons as I have here, for I assure you that eight of them is more than ample time to give you a distaste for Society.” Georgiana held out the crook of her arm, and Daphne rose to take it, accompanying her out of the bedchamber and down the corridor.

  “But,” Daphne sputtered, “with all the balls, routs, evenings at the theater—”

  “All begin to blend together.”

  Daphne frowned. “But surely there are enough new people each Season to provide plenty of variety?”

  Georgiana smiled. She remembered being on the cusp of her first Season, just as Daphne was—the fluttering nerves as she prepared for her first ball, the anticipation of making a smart match. Never would she have imagined that she would be doing all the same things nearly a decade later, no closer to marriage than when she had been in the schoolroom.

  “I’m afraid they, too, begin to blend together, Daph. I have found that there is not much to choose amongst the gentlemen here—they are very much the same.” She patted Daphne’s arm. “But you mustn’t listen to me, you know, for I am nothing but a jaded spinster.”

  A gasp came from Daphne, and Georgiana glanced at her amusedly before rushing on. “I am determined to begin wearing caps and warm shawls and perhaps even adopt a cat to keep me company, in which case I shall forever be carrying it in my arms and saving it scraps of food from the dinner table.”

  Daphne let out a giggle and elbowed her as they came to the dining room. “Stop being ridiculous, Georgie. You are not a spinster. We will find someone for you yet!”

  “Thank you, my dear, but for some time now, I have thought that nothing would suit me better than living out my life in some solitary cottage, far from the sights and smells of Town.” They broke arms, and Georgiana turned, looking down at Daphne and shedding her humor. “I am terribly sorry that you find yourself having to wait for your turn at London because of me. I hardly think that Papa realized what he was agreeing to when he said he didn’t want two daughters out in Society at once. I believe he meant it as a way to spur me to action, but it has instead merely served to hurt you.”

  Daphne managed a smile. “It isn’t your fault, Georgie. And I only have to wait another year, even if you don’t make a match this Season.”

  Georgiana shut her eyes briefly. The likelihood of her marrying in the next few months was so negligible as to be ridiculous. And to someone like Daphne, a year was an eternity. Daphne should not be punished for Georgiana’s inability to elicit an offer.

  Footsteps sounded, and their parents entered the dining room, her father glancing around.

  “Where is Archibald?” He looked more grave than usual.

  Georgiana shrugged her shoulders. It was rare that they knew her brother’s whereabouts. “I imagine he will arrive halfway through dinner as he often does.”

  Her father pursed his lips and motioned for them all to take their seats.

  Daphne looked at Georgiana consideringly as she pulled at her glove fingertips to remove them. “How is it that Archie can spend even more Seasons than you in London and yet still find plenty of enjoyment and to spare?”

  Georgiana’s eyes flitted to her father, who was listening with a slight crease to his brow. He worried over Archie’s unceasing ability to enjoy London—and the corresponding ability to spend money. No doubt Georgiana would have found more pleasure in London if she enjoyed the freedom that her brother did.

  “Well, as to that, Archie has always been odd, hasn’t he?” She raised her brows enigmatically, hoping Daphne would let the subject rest. She had no desire to set the tone for dinner with a discussion of Archie’s antics. She loved her brother dearly, but he knew just how to get under their father’s skin with his carefree and thoughtless attitude.

  She glanced at the folded letter her father set next to his plate, and his eyes lingered on it for a moment.

  “Is that from Aunt Sara?” Georgiana was happy for a reason to change the subject. And nothing was surer to bring a bit of joy to her father than talking about his
younger sister.

  He nodded, but his brow only furrowed further.

  Georgiana glanced at her mother, who grimaced and put a hand on her husband’s.

  “What news does Aunt Sara send from Granchurch House?” Georgiana kept her voice light, determined to fight against the glum mood that her father was bringing to the room.

  “Nothing good, I’m afraid. Miss Baxter succumbed to what appeared at first to be nothing but a cold.”

  Georgiana’s hands stopped in the act of cutting a carrot. Aunt Sara and her cousin Miss Baxter had been living together for nigh on two decades now, seemingly happy in their mutual spinsterhood.

  Her father picked up the letter and opened it, scanning its lines and shaking his head with a sigh. “Your aunt is in very poor spirits, as you might imagine. She wrote this the day before the funeral was held.” He held up the letter, and Georgiana thought she could see a few spots where tears had perhaps fallen, smudging the ink.

  “Poor Aunt Sara,” Daphne said. “She must be terribly lonely.”

  Their mother nodded and squeezed her husband’s hand. “Yes. But if she can only find a companion quickly, I think it will do wonders to prevent her from descending into a melancholy.”

  Their father shook his head. “But what companion? I am afraid that she will find any replacement sadly lacking indeed, for there is no company like one’s own family. Who could ever replace Miss Baxter?”

  Georgiana stared at her father, her wrists resting on the edge of the table. Her chest heaved at the enormity of the thought that assailed her. Could she?

  Her father set the letter down again so that the edge of it was tucked under his plate. Georgiana sensed the fading of an opportunity and seized the moment.

  “I could.”

  All eyes turned toward her, and she felt her muscles tense, even as energy pulsed through her with her speeding heartbeat.

  “You could what?” her father asked, perplexed.

  She wet her lips. “I could be her companion. Aunt Sara’s.”

  There was an unwieldy pause. Georgiana didn’t know if she had been wise to put forth the idea so rashly, but the more she considered it, the more it appealed to her.

  “What, and move to Yorkshire indefinitely?” He looked as though she had just suggested moving to the moon.

  Georgiana had never been to Yorkshire, but she had heard enough about it from friends who had traveled there during summers to know that it was thought to be a magnificent place. The thought of leaving London and seeing somewhere entirely new made her skin tingle. It spoke volumes about the monotony of her life that playing companion to her aunt could elicit such a reaction.

  She shrugged. “Why not?”

  Her father scoffed lightly. “Well, I think that should be obvious, my dear.” Just what should be so obvious, though, he declined to say, instead tugging at his cravat and avoiding her eye.

  Georgiana smiled wryly. “Father, if someone were going to offer for me, I think we can confidently say that it would have happened sometime during the legion Seasons I have spent in London and the many between-Seasons I have spent in Brighton and Bath.”

  Georgiana had no doubt that each one of her family and friends had their reasons for believing her to still be unmarried. It was a matter she herself had pondered on for years, at times anxiously. Had she some glaring flaw that was apparent to everyone except herself? She did sometimes offer her opinion too readily. And she had certainly never been counted among the Incomparables, but she felt herself no less marriageable than many of the young women who had made matches over the years.

  Perhaps it was merely a function of ill luck? After all, Georgiana had never yet met a man who had made her wish to marry, agreeable as many of them were. Was it so difficult to believe that the reverse was also true? That she had not inspired that type of reaction in any of the gentlemen she had met, through no fault of her own?

  She lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders at the pitying look she noted in her mother’s kind eyes.

  Her mother only wanted to see her cared for and established, but pity was one thing Georgiana would leave behind with gusto if she went to Yorkshire. Wishing to see anything but that sorrowful compassion, she glanced at Daphne, who was still looking at her incredulously.

  Daphne. She was more than ready to be a part of the London scene. Since her arrival in Town a few weeks before, not a night had passed without Georgiana returning home to find Daphne sitting upon her bed, waiting anxiously for her to recount the events of the evening. Waiting until the beginning of the next Season would be torture for her. And entirely unnecessary.

  What Daphne needed was to enter Society unencumbered by the constant presence of Georgiana and the shadow she inevitably cast over the family, a shadow that lengthened its reach with every year she failed to make a match.

  Her father was watching her through considering eyes, shadowed by bushy eyebrows. He hadn’t said “no” yet, and it was time to press home her advantage if Georgiana wished to spend the most crowded and suffocating part of the Season anywhere but London.

  “I am certainly not Miss Baxter,” Georgiana said, “but I believe that I could be a very helpful and agreeable companion to Aunt Sara, knowing and loving her as I do. She was always very fond of me, you know.”

  She watched her father’s frown relax slightly and the way his jaw worked in tandem with his thoughts.

  “And what’s more, this could be the perfect opportunity for Daphne.”

  Daphne’s eyes swelled in horror. “Going to Yorkshire?”

  Georgiana laughed. Leaving London for a place like Yorkshire would feel like a death sentence to Daphne. To Georgiana, though, it felt like freedom.

  “No, of course not, silly!” She placed her hands in her lap and looked back to her mother and father. They were glancing between their two daughters, who were separated by nearly a decade in years and yet the dearest of friends despite it. “It is March, and the most promising part of the Season is still before you. If I leave to be with Aunt Sara, Daphne might be brought out after Easter instead of waiting for next year.”

  Daphne’s hand grasped Georgiana’s under the table and directed a gaze at her so painfully hopeful that Georgiana determined that, whether or not her parents agreed to the idea, she would find a way to ensure Daphne had her come-out before the Season ended.

  “Well…” said her father, obviously finding it hard to refute the sense in the argument. He was terribly fond of his sister Sara and would go well out of his way to ensure her comfort, but to agree to Georgiana’s plan would mean acknowledging the unlikelihood of her making a match, and he was far too kind to do such a thing.

  “Let me think on it,” he said evasively. He shot a smile and wink at Georgiana. “I do my best thinking over a bottle of port.”

  When the women rose to leave him to the bottle—with still no sign of Archie—Daphne immediately linked her arm with Georgiana’s.

  “Georgie!” she whispered urgently, leaning in so that Georgiana had to push back on her to keep from stumbling. “What in heaven’s name are you thinking?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Yorkshire? Aunt Sara? Papa has said that she lives in the most remote village. I imagine there isn’t a young gentleman to be found within miles.”

  Georgiana smiled. “It sounds delightful. I would be content never to see a marriageable gentleman again.” She’d had enough talk of marriage and prospects to last her a lifetime—and thinking of the lack of actual offers she had received brought on the familiar desire to curl up in a dark corner.

  Daphne shook her head slowly, disbelieving. She would likely never understand the appeal that a life in the countryside held for Georgiana.

  Georgiana hadn’t seen Aunt Sara in years, but even if her aunt were a terribly difficult woman, her vagaries would likely be outweighed by the freedom Georgiana would gain—freedom from every expectation and every pitying grimace that currently filled her days and nights.

&
nbsp; There was something terribly humiliating about watching her parents’ ambitions progressively shift from the wealthy lords they had hoped for during her first Season, to the simple but well-off gentlemen during Seasons three and four, to today, when they rarely mentioned her prospects at all. Georgiana suspected that they would be relieved by almost any decent man who could put a roof over her head and food in her belly.

  The door opened, and Archie strode in with a smile and quick, confident movements.

  “Archibald,” their mother said, striding over to him for a quick embrace. “How good of you to come. Your father is still in the dining room if you’d like to join him.”

  Archie returned her embrace and shook his head. “When I can spend time with you three dashing beauties?”

  Their mother tried to look severe, but Archie’s good humor was too difficult to resist, and her mouth stretched into a smile even as she shook her head at his flattery.

  “What have I missed?” he asked, disposing himself in a chair so that his legs stretched in front of him, crossed at the ankles.

  The door opened again, and their father entered—apparently too restless to linger long over his port—his eyes immediately finding Archie and then moving to Georgiana. He held the letter from Aunt Sara in his hands, and his thumbs rubbed it as his eyes rested on Georgiana.

  She met his gaze, feeling her heart trip as she waited for him to say something.

  “Very well,” he said with a decisive nod.

  Georgiana’s brows shot up, and she blinked three times. “You mean that I may go?”

  He looked down at the letter. “I will not be at peace until I know Sara is in good hands, and I can think of no one I trust more than you to ensure her well-being. I think she will benefit greatly from your presence.”