I didn’t write back.” Georgie grabbed the candlestick out from under her arm and jabbed it angrily in his direction. “You need to go away.”
“I won’t leave without you.”
“He’s mad,” she said to herself. “He is stark, raving—”
“Mad for you,” he finished. He smiled, and all she could think was—what a waste of straight white teeth. By any measure, Freddie Oakes was a handsome young gentleman. The problem was, he knew it.
“I love you, Georgiana Bridgerton,” he said, smiling that too-confident smile again. “I want you to be my wife.”
Georgie groaned. She didn’t believe that for a second. And she didn’t think that he believed it, either.
Freddie Oakes wasn’t in love with her. He just wanted her to think that he was so that she’d let him marry her. Did he really think she was that gullible? Had he had such previous success with the ladies that he thought she’d fall for such obvious bunk?
“Is that your cat?” he asked.
“One of them,” Georgie replied, pulling Judyth back. The silver gray cat was hissing loudly now, her little paws pinwheeling through the air. “She’s a very good judge of character.”
Freddie seemed not to get the insult. “Did you get my second letter?” he asked.
“What? No.” She plunked Judyth down on the floor. “And you shouldn’t be writing to me.”
“I memorized it,” he said. “In case I arrived before it did.”
Dear God.
“Freddie,” she said, “you need to go before someone sees you.”
“My dearest Georgiana,” he intoned.
“Stop! Now.” She twisted her head to look up at the sky. “I think it’s going to rain again. It’s not safe in that tree.”
“You do care about me.”
“No, I was simply stating that it’s not safe in that tree,” she retorted. “Although heaven knows why I bother. Only a fool would climb it in this weather, and I could certainly do with fewer fools in my life.”
“You wound me to the quick, Miss Bridgerton.”
She groaned.
“That wasn’t in the letter,” he explained.
“I don’t care what was in the letter!”
“You will when I finish reciting it,” he said.
Georgie rolled her eyes. God save her.
“Here is what I wrote.” He cleared his throat in that way people did before a grand speech. “It distresses me more than I can say that I have not heard back from you.”
“Stop,” she begged.
But he sailed on, as she knew he would. “I bared my heart to you in my letter. I wrote words of love and devotion and heard only silence. I can only believe that you never received my letter, for surely you are too gentle-hearted and lovely to wound me with silence.”
He looked up expectantly.
“I already told you I got the first letter,” Georgie said.
This deflated him. But only momentarily. “Well,” he said, in the sort of tone one uses when deciding to ignore logic and fact, “I also wrote: I am sorry if I frightened you with my ardor. You must know it is because I love you so desperately. I have never felt this for another lady.”
Georgie let her forehead fall into one of her hands. “Stop, Freddie. Just stop. You’re embarrassing both of us. But mostly you.”
“I am not embarrassed,” he said, placing a dramatic hand over his heart. The motion caused him to sway, and Georgie gasped, convinced he was going down. But he must have had a better grip on the tree than she’d realized, because he remained solidly in his perch, legs wrapped around the long branch that stretched toward her window.
“For the love of heaven, Freddie, you need to get back down before you kill yourself.”
“I’m not getting out of this tree until you agree to marry me.”
“Then you should consider building a nest, because that is never going to happen.”
“Why are you being so bloody stubborn?”
“Because I don’t want to marry you!” Georgie jerked to the side as first Judyth, and then Blanche hopped up onto the windowsill. “Honestly, Freddie, can’t you find someone else to marry?”
“I want you.”
“Oh, please. We both know you don’t really love me.”
“Of course I—”
“Freddie.”
Judyth hissed. Blanche followed suit, but Blanche always did whatever Judyth did. At that point Cat-Head jumped up, and now there were three hostile cats in a row, all glaring at Freddie.
“Fine.” His mouth came together in a hard line, and his entire demeanor changed. “I don’t love you. I don’t love anyone. But I do need to get married. And you’re the best woman for the job.”
“One would think the best woman for the job would be a woman who actually wants