They’re all so lovely.” Georgiana stroked a hand down the third dress she’d pulled from Barbara’s cabinet. “You really don’t mind sharing? I know your mother said so, but these are your coming out dresses. It’s just there’s no time before the poetry reading Lady— Aunt Whitfeld arranged for us.”
Barbara waved her permission, not even finding the heart to smile at how Georgiana continued to struggle with her mother’s name. “Take whatever you need. I doubt I’ll have much use for them.” She turned back to the paper on her desk, though even a discussion of the latest London politics couldn’t hold her attention for long.
Georgiana stopped her assessment to stare at Barbara, her intent look discomfiting. “For someone who was so eager to return, you don’t seem any happier for being home.”
Barbara shrugged. “You are happy enough for the two of us. From your scowl on our journey, I expected little joy. Yet not even a day later, and here you are admiring my dresses.”
“And such wonderful dresses they are,” Georgiana said, pressing a lovely cream satin to her as she spun in a circle. “Why shouldn’t I make the most of it? I might not have had a choice in coming, but that’s no reason to waste the opportunity. Besides, my Freddie will still be there when I return.” Her eyes sparkled at the thought of her beau, something likely to upset both her father and Charlotte were they able to see.
“I doubt your family, or my mother for that matter, plan to have you return home to your farmhand. I’m sure they’re hoping a young viscount or baron will turn your head until this Freddie is forgotten.”
Georgiana laughed at some private joke, full of the supreme confidence of young love, then shook her head at Barbara’s statement, her lips curling into a broad grin.
A flash of jealousy went through Barbara. Had she ever felt such simple knowledge about anyone? It seemed the moment she’d set her sights on finding love, every bit of confidence and surety were lost forever leaving her in a well of doubt and confusion.
After putting the dress over a chair, her cousin came to kneel next to Barbara. “We weren’t talking about me,” Georgiana said. “Why do you think you’ll have no use for your dresses? There’s time yet even in this season.”
Barbara gave up all pretense of reading the paper to twist and face her cousin. “I already have offers to spare. I’ll put their names on a letter, close my eyes, and jab with my finger. It doesn’t matter which of them I choose, and this way I can’t curse myself for choosing poorly if I don’t come to love the man as my mother did.”
“You love him that much?”
She rose to pace the room, fleeing from her cousin’s knowing gaze. “I just told you I’d choose at random. Does that sound like love?”
“If it were my Freddie,” Georgiana said as though Barbara had not spoken, “I would fight for him. It wouldn’t matter what had happened. Besides, who is he to complain when he was right there in the fields with you? If propriety is at question, question his.”
Barbara’s path took her to her cousin once more, and she put a hand on Georgiana’s shoulder in the hopes of ending this conversation. “If only it were that simple. No, what happened at the farm is over and done with. I must look to my future and you to yours.” She forced a laugh past stiff lips. “If you don’t have a dress chosen for the reading tonight, my mother will choose for you.”
Georgiana watched Barbara for long enough she had to fight not to fidget under that penetrating gaze, but then her youngest cousin’s nature reasserted itself as she swept up and back to the cabinet. “Well, then, I better be at it. So many to choose from. Do you have any you’d prefer I let be?”
“No. Choose whatever takes your fancy and get your enjoyment from them.” She would not let her cousin’s good spirits be dampened by her own. She’d proved to be a spoiled and foolish girl where she’d thought herself more than that, but at least she wasn’t so horrible a person as to wish her cousin miserable just because she was.
Barbara moved to the window to stare blindly out on the busy street below. If she had only decided to prove to Aubrey that she could be steadfast rather than proving his falsehoods to be true, none of this would have happened. She had herself to blame for finding love and corrupting that very emotion.
She wished Georgiana a better road, though with her uncle set against this unknown Freddie, she doubted they had much chance especially now with her mother involved. Perhaps someday Barbara and her cousin could comfort each other in their grand houses with their well-positioned husbands, each having once known the simple freedoms of a love that sprang to life in the wild countryside.
Barbara turned to look on her cousin, grateful to find the other girl occupied in choosing which fancy, but not too fancy, dress to wear. She didn’t want Georgiana to see the pity in her eyes, for all she couldn’t help it being there. She might deserve the fate in store for her, but for Georgiana to lose faith in her love seemed needlessly cruel. Her cousin had done nothing to merit it beyond ignoring rules that held much less sway in the country, and less still for the daughter of a simple landholder regardless of what wealth he may have accrued.