ball Friday, and then you will have all the time in the world to get used to the idea."
Georgina rather suspected "all the time in the world" would consist of the month or so it would take to make the wedding preparations, but she had no quarrel with her mother. Dolly Hanover had no thoughts of her own as far as her daughter could discern. There were times when her mother took to her room and drew the curtains closed and didn't come out for days, but those times when she was out and about, she agreed with whatever her husband told her. If George said it was time for their daughter to be married, then it was so. Georgina knew her father was the one she needed to talk with about her doubts, if only to keep her mother from fretting into collapse.
Unfortunately, her father wasn't giving her time to question. When Georgina descended the stairs to the front hall, Peter was already there, removing his hat and behaving as one of the family. He glanced up and saw her before she could retreat, and she was forced to smile and greet him.
He really was amazingly handsome, she told herself as he took her hand and squeezed it. A European gentleman would have kissed her, but Peter was all midwestem propriety. He made an appropriately innocuous comment on her appearance, greeted her mother, and returned to his business discussion with her father. Georgina grimaced and swept past him to the parlor. So much for romance.
She didn't think she was a wildly romantic person, but there ought to be something more to this marriage business than a handshake and a bit of flattery upon occasion. She felt as if she were somehow being deprived of something that was owed to her.
It was quite probably some fault of her own. When her classmates had been swooning over some male acquaintance or another, she had been out galloping through the park with the man in question. When her friends had confessed their passion for some romantic young man, Georgina had been assessing him and finding him lacking. Men were men. She just couldn't recognize any of them as the superior beings they preferred to think themselves. If the truth were told, she found most of them downright boring.
She gave Peter a look from the corner of her eye as he took a seat between her and her father. She couldn't call him boring, she supposed. He fairly vibrated with an incandescent energy that made his every movement a thing of power. He spoke with force and command and intelligence. Even her father respected his opinions. he was only five years older than herself, yet he could command the interest of his elders. Unfortunately, he didn't command much interest from her.
Sighing, she gazed around the ornate parlor and waited for the call to dinner. The business discussion bored her to tears. She knew there was some relation between her father's factory and Peter's stores, but she wasn't much concerned about the connection. Actually, Peter didn't own the stores yet. They belonged to his father.
Thinking about Peter's father gave Georgina the cold shudders. There was a man with no conscience, one whose only concerns were his wealth and his ability to acquire more. If he were the model of Peter thirty years from now, she knew this marriage was a mistake.
But once the call came for dinner, Peter was all that was attentive. He led her to the table, held her chair, asked about her travels, and made no further mention of their impending nuptials. She would have been flattered had she not felt his interest was forced.
Remembering her conversation with the cowboy earlier, Georgina allowed the conversation to go on without her. Mr. Martin's interest hadn't been forced. She had behaved her absolute worst, and he had seen right through her. Why couldn't there be more men of her acquaintance who would actually listen to her as he had?
She had never even asked him why he had come to Cutlerville. If she had her choice of places to go, it certainly wouldn't be here. Cowboys belonged on the open range with wild horses and buffalo and other creatures of nature. Perhaps he had come for medical treatment for his injured leg.
"Georgina, you aren't listening," Peter whispered gently, prodding her back to the moment. "Your father asked you a question. Are you ready to set the date yet?"
Rounding up her straying thoughts, Georgina pursed