Page 40 of A Single Obsession

“Lady Harting invites me to stay at Holybourne House for a few weeks, to help support Frances’s spirits in the days running up to her confinement.”

“I beg your pardon?” Georgiana said. “Our aunt wants you to go to Alton in the middle of the season to keep Frances company? I don’t believe it.”

“It’s true,” Beau said.

Georgiana glared up at him. “Oh, do sit down. I shall get a neck ache trying to converse with you up there.”

He muttered a word of apology and perched on the edge of his chair in the same uncomfortable manner Eliza had adopted.

“Your mother is asking a lot,” her elder sister said with a frown. “Are there to be many other guests?”

“No—just family.”

“Including you?”

“Yes.”

“Am I invited?” Anthony asked.

He scowled at his friend. “No. I told you—just family.”

“Very intimate,” Georgiana said.

Beau coloured under her penetrating gaze. “You know what my mother’s like once she has an idea in her head. I’m sure you can spare Eliza for a couple of weeks. Please, Georgie.”

“Well?” she said, transferring her gaze to her sister. “It’s your choice.”

Eliza’s heart beat uncommonly fast. To spend such a long time under her aunt’s critical gaze was an intimidating proposition. But the nature of the invitation—so intimate. It could not be turned down.

“My mother is depending on you. As am I. Please say you’ll come,” Beau said, pleading her with his eyes.

“Yes.”

He let out an audible sigh of relief. “Thank you. I’m sure my mother will be delighted. I’ll let her know at once.”

With that, the two gentlemen took their leave.

As the door shut behind them, Eliza flew across the room and gave Georgiana an enormous hug.

“Thank you for letting me go,” she said, grinning from ear to ear as she flopped onto the sofa beside her in a most unladylike manner.

“As if I could stop you. I’m your sister, not your guardian. It’s perfectly respectable for you to stay under your aunt’s roof, even if it’s a poorly disguised attempt at throwing the two of you together. Don’t be fooled into reading too much into the invitation, though it was Beau who brought it to you.”

Eliza’s face clouded over. “What do you mean?”

“This isn’t Beau’s idea, but some plan of his mother’s. She has obviously decided you would make a suitable wife for him and is keen to forward the match.”

Eliza acknowledged the possibility—the strong possibility—that this was true. Beau would not choose to spend time with his mother and sister of his own free will. She imagined he was as appalled at the prospect as she was.

Even now, the thought of facing her aunt made her quake. But then she remembered the pleading look on his face, begging her to accept an invitation she had never considered refusing.

“I’m convinced Beau wanted me to accept.”

“To please his mother.”

Eliza jumped up from her seat and started pacing around the room. “Why do you always think the worst of him? Why can’t you believe he wishes me to go because he likes me?”

Georgiana rose and walked toward her, grasping both her hands.