Hopeless Heart

“Like what? Aside from smacking him on the side of the head with something heavy, I am at a loss to find a way to deal with him. The man just doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer,” Georgiana wailed.

“It is because he has always gotten you to do what he wants before. This time, things have to be different. He has to get the message that he has to return to Cranbury empty handed. If I am completely honest with you, Georgiana, his ego could do with the set-down. He won’t be so willing to come back and try again if he is defeated. You only have to do it once. He is to be wed soon, and will have something else to take his attention. Then we can all rest easy.”

“How, though?” Georgiana whispered. “How do I get the message across to him?”

She swiftly blocked out all thought of Will’s future wife when the pain became unbearable. “I have told him that he is wasting his time but he just won’t listen. What am I supposed to do?”

“Well, we have to show him that he cannot get you to surrender this time. It is about time he had a taste of his own medicine,” Ruth replied.

“How?”

“You are here to fulfil your list of adventures, right?”

“I am here because I want to live somewhere nicer, with people who respect me for who I am,” Georgiana replied honestly.

Ruth nodded and softened her stance a little when she realised she was being too stern with her emotional relation.

“If he won’t listen to what you have to tell him then how about ignoring him? Go about your business without a care for him and ignore any and all attempts he makes to talk to you. I mean, he is betrothed to someone else now. It is highly inappropriate for him to be haranguing you. You are a single female. Tell him so. Ask him how his fiancé would react if she found out he was pestering a woman he isn’t related to. That should be enough to cook his goose. I am sure he would return home then. Meantime, go about your business, completely aloof and uncooperative. If you don’t converse with him, he cannot talk you into anything now can he? It is only a matter of time before he has to return home–if only to prepare for the wedding. Stand your ground. You’ll see. Then you can put this entire debacle behind you.”

Georgiana shook her head. “I want to continue to work my way through my wish list, but I don’t see how I can when he is always around. Anything I do will only get filtered through to my parents and will fuel their argument that I am not capable of living anywhere else and must reside with them.”

“But you are an adult now, Georgiana. You are not at liberty to do anything you don’t wish to do. You have a roof over your head here and money in your pocket that they can’t touch. Why, they have no threat to hold over you,” Ruth declared knowingly. She was right.

“Why do your parents want you to go home so badly, Georgiana?” Ruth murmured thoughtfully.

“Cecily wants me to get involved in the wedding preparations,” Georgiana replied with a shrug.

“But it isn’t her wedding. She isn’t even family. There is no reason for her to get so excited about it.”

“But Will’s mother, Agnes, told her in the strictest of confidence. Cecily has seen this as a connectio

n to the aristocracy she can milk as much as possible. She revelled in being the first to hear the news, and intended to spread it far and wide-” Georgiana leaned forward and, in a startlingly accurate portrayal of Cecily, mimicked “-all in the strictest of confidence of course.”

“Oh, dear,” Ruth sighed.

“Cecily swiftly launched into a diatribe about how one must wear the right attire befitting a social engagement of the highest society.” Georgiana snorted. “I have no doubt that should I have stayed, Cecily would have continued to push for me to marry as well. My father has made it clear he wants me off his hands and has lined up Bertram Meddleton for me on many occasions.”

“That’s the Vicar’s son,” Ruth protested with a frown. “Isn’t it?”

“He is also a Viscount and connected to an Earl something or other. Either way, he has connections which Cecily has set her sights on. I have adamantly refused to marry at all, but that is always swept aside because it isn’t what Cecily wants.”

“What Cecily wants Cecily gets,” Ruth murmured in a slightly disparaging tone.

Georgiana nodded. “Well, not on this occasion she won’t. I am not going to go back to be confined and then sold off like chattel.”

“Then you shall stay here,” Ruth declared enthusiastically. “Stand your ground. You are stronger than you realise.”

Georgiana smiled her thanks at such rousing support. While she had no qualms about trying anything on her list, Georgiana suspected that ‘standing her ground’ as Ruth put it was an impossible adventure she would never be able to succeed with–especially if Will tried to hold her again.

“I need to keep my distance from him,” she admitted wryly.

“Of course you do, so like I said, ignore the man,” Ruth declared.

Georgiana absently picked up her list of adventures and studied it.

“What are you going to try first on that?” Ruth asked curiously.

Georgiana grinned at her. “Well, I have already tried skinny dipping and, today, I went scrumping for apples.”