A girl no better than her parents, evidently.
Indeed, lady or no, the girl deserved a thorough dressing-down. “Tell me. Are you betrothed?”
Mary stilled. “It’s only my second season.”
Georgiana advanced, enjoying herself. “One more and you’re on the shelf, aren’t you?”
A hit. The girl’s gaze flitted away and back so quickly that another might have missed it. Another who was not Chase. “I have a number of suitors.”
“Mmm.” Georgiana thought back to Holborn’s file. “Burlington and Montlake, I understand – they’ve got enough debt to overlook your faults for access to your dowry —”
“You’re one to talk about faults. And dowries.” Mary chortled.
The poor girl didn’t know that Georgiana had five years of life and fifty years of experience on her. Experience dealing with creatures far worse than a little girl with a sharp tongue. “Ah, but I do not pretend that my dowry is unnecessary, Mary. Lord Russell does perplex, however. What’s a decent man like him doing sniffing around someone like you?”
Mary’s mouth went wide. “Someone like me?”
Georgiana leaned back. “With your appalling lack of social grace, I mean.”
The barb hit true. Mary pulled back as though she’d been physically struck. Her friends covered their gaping mouths, holding back laughter that they could not help. Georgiana raised a brow. “Cruelty lacks pleasure when it’s directed at you, doesn’t it?”
Mary’s anger came sharp and unpleasant. And expected. “I don’t care how large your dowry is. No one will have you. Not knowing what you really are.”
“And what is that?” Georgiana asked, laying her trap. Willing the girl into it.
“Cheap. A trollop,” Mary said, cruelly. “Mother to a bastard who will likely grow into a trollop.”
Georgiana had expected the first, but not the last. Her blood ran hot. She stepped into the golden light spilling from the ballroom, her words quiet. “What did you say?”
There was silence on the balcony. The other girls heard the warning in the words. Murmured their concern. Mary took a step back, but was too proud to retreat. “You heard me.”
Georgiana advanced, pressing the girl from the light. Into darkness. Where she reigned. “Say it again.”
“I —”
“Say it again,” Georgiana repeated.
Mary closed her eyes tightly. Whispered the words. “You’re cheap.”
“And you’re a coward,” Georgiana hissed. “Like your father and his father before him.”
The girl’s eyes shot open. “I did not mean…”
“You did,” Georgiana said quietly. “And I might have forgiven you for what you called me. But then you brought my daughter into it.”
“I apologize.”
Too late. Georgiana shook her head. Leaned in. Whispered her promise. “When your entire world comes crashing down around you, it will be because of this moment.”
“I am sorry!” Mary cried, hearing the truth in the words. As well she should. Chase did not make promises she did not keep.
Except she was not Chase tonight. She was Georgiana.
Christ.
Georgiana had to back away from the moment. Mask her anger before she revealed too much. She stepped away from Mary and laughed, loud and light, a sound she’d perfected on the floor of her club. “You lack the courage of your convictions, Lady Mary. So easily frightened!”
The other girls laughed, and poor Mary came unhinged, disliking the way she’d been so thoroughly toppled from her position. “You’ll never be worthy of us! You’re a whore!”
Her friends gasped collectively, and silence fell on the balcony. “Mary!” one of them whispered after a long moment, voicing their mutual shock and disapproval at the words.
Mary was wild-eyed, desperate to resume her place at the top of the social pyramid. “She started it!”
There was a long pause before Sophie said, “Actually, we started it.”
“Oh, be quiet, Sophie!” Mary cried before turning and running into the ballroom. Alone.
Georgiana should have been happy with the scene. Mary had gone too far and learned the most important lesson of Society – that friends would stay with you only as long as they weren’t marred by your tarnish.
But Georgiana wasn’t happy.
As Chase, she prided herself on her control. On her stillness. On her thoughtful action.
Where the hell was Chase tonight?
How was it that these people held such sway over her – over her emotions – even now? Even as she wielded such deft power over them in another parallel life?
You’re a whore.
The words lingered in the darkness, reminding her of the past. Of Caroline’s future if Georgiana did not make this world accept her.
The girls held sway because she allowed it. Because she had no choice but to allow it. It was their field, and the game was to make her feel small and insignificant.
She hated them for playing so well.
She turned on the remaining women. “Surely you all have someone waiting for the next dance?”
They dispersed without hesitation – all but one. Georgiana narrowed her gaze on the girl. “What’s your name?”
She did not look away, and Georgiana was impressed. “Sophie.”
“I know that bit.”
“Sophie Talbot.”