Read Pemberley to Waterloo: Georgiana Darcy's Diary, Volume 2 for Free Online Page B

kind of club."
    Ruth paused again. "I was just going to shout at him, tell him to stop, when another man rode up on a big black horse, swung himself down from the saddle, caught Rakes' club in one hand and jerked it away from him. Rakes was sullen--he said the dog was suspected of stealing chickens. But the other man just clenched his jaw and said that unless Rakes wanted to get a feel for his club on the receiving end, he'd better get the hell away from there. I think Rakes would have argued more. But he could probably see the man was one of the gentry, and he'd only get into trouble. And besides, the stranger raised the club and looked as though he were fully capable of making good on his threat. So Rakes ran."
    Ruth came to a full stop this time. And then she said, "The stranger was Giles, of course. That was the first time I saw him. He went to kneel by the dog Rakes had been beating, and I went up and offered to help. The poor thing was so badly hurt, it was half frantic with pain, ready to snap at anything that came near. But between the two of us, we managed to get it wrapped up in my cloak and Giles' coat, tightly enough that it couldn't bite us or thrash and do itself another injury. Giles was swearing by the time we'd done, calling Rakes names under his breath. But then he recollected himself and looked up at me and said he must beg my pardon for bad language." Ruth's lips curved in another small smile. "And I laughed, I remember, and said that I should thank him for saving me the trouble of saying the words myself. Then Giles said he thought he could carry the dog on horseback, if I could take the horse's reins--because he was a stranger in this part of the world, and his mount didn't know the roads any better than he did. So I asked where he was going, and he said Pemberley. And I told him I was governess there."
    Ruth fell silent again, her grey eyes distant. And then she shook her head and looked back at me. "And that was how Giles and I met. I told him our gamekeeper at Pemberley could help with treating the dog's hurts, so we brought the poor thing there together. And then after that ... after that Giles would make some excuse to get away from the rest of the house party at night, after dinner--that he had letters to write, or wanted to get an early start in the morning. And I would slip out and meet him, and we'd go for walks by moonlight."
    "Why didn't you--" I stopped myself before I could finish the sentence. Though it didn't matter, because Ruth finished it for me.
    "Why didn't we marry?" Her lips twisted again. "Because Giles wasn't just Giles Tomalin. He was Lord Giles Tomalin--the younger son of the Duke of Clarion."
    I didn't say anything, but something of what I felt must have showed on my face, because Ruth shook her head. "I know what you're thinking--orphan, penniless governess seduced and abandoned by a scion of the upper classes. But it wasn't like that. Giles wasn't like that. He did ask me to marry him. I turned him down."
    "You turned him down? But why?" I couldn't keep the astonishment from my voice. Ruth had been in love with Lord Giles--it had shown in every word she'd spoken. And I couldn't believe that the man who had written the letter in her hand had not been in love with her, too.
    As though she'd picked up my thought, Ruth looked down at the folded paper and then let one hand rise and fall. "Because he was Lord Giles Tomalin. The younger son of a duke, whose family surely wished him to make a better match than a penniless, orphaned governess whose father had been an equally penniless clergyman. You know as well as I do what a scandal it would have made if he had married me. He would have lost all standing in society."
    "Maybe he wouldn't have cared," I ventured.
    "Maybe." Ruth pressed her eyes shut a moment, then opened them again. "That was what he said--that he didn't care. But how did he know that, really? His whole life, his family, friends, everything he'd been brought up to--all