The Duke Is Mine - Eloisa James [78]
Georgiana walked past her, into the corridor. “You’re always too emotional. We were given a task. We could do it badly or well. I chose to do it well. You allowed emotion to get in the way of achievement.”
Olivia followed and caught her hand. “Georgie!”
“Yes?” Her sister’s eyes were cool.
“Are you angry at me?”
At that, they softened. “No, not in the least. I’m angry about the fact that I was trained to be the wife of a duke. Even if I had been trained to be the wife of a scientist, it wouldn’t be good enough.”
“You want to be the scientist.”
A jerky nod. “I enjoyed talking to the duke. But at the same time, I felt such resentment that I could have choked on it.”
Olivia leaned forward, kissed her cheek. “You could study anything you wish, Georgie.”
Her sister shrugged, an unrefined gesture that revealed more than words that she was on the verge of cracking under the strain.
“I mean it!” Olivia continued, closing the bedchamber door behind them. “What on earth do you need a university for? Everything is printed in books, and we can get whatever books you want to read.”
“You mean, you and Rupert?”
“Exactly. And we could ask a professor to come from Oxford, or Cambridge. We’ll pay him to teach you anything you can’t get from the books. You’ll learn like lightning, Georgie.”
“I could.” Her voice rose. “I really could.”
“After you marry Sconce, you can buy whatever books you wish, not to mention discussing the ideas with him. It hardly need be said that neither Rupert nor I can provide you with any sort of serious intellectual conversation.”
Georgiana started down the corridor but paused. “I know I told you he was perfect, Olivia, but he’s not. There’s no spark. None.”
“Perhaps, over time?” Olivia said, forcing the words out.
“I thought . . . I truly thought that when I met the ideal man I would feel something. A wish to be with him. Passion, love, whatever you want to call it. At first, I believed that’s what I was experiencing with Sconce. I do like talking to him. But I don’t wish to call him by that ridiculous short name of his, Quin.”
“You don’t like his name?”
Georgiana began walking down the stairway. “It sounds like a piece of fruit to me, a quince by any other name.”
Olivia stared at her back, pushing away the liquid, joyful feeling of relief that was flooding her entire body.
“And even if his appearance wasn’t a cross between a zebra and a quince,” Georgiana said over her shoulder, “he doesn’t look at me the way he looks at you.”
“He doesn’t . . .” Olivia said weakly.
Georgiana turned around at the bottom of the stairs. “I’m not stupid,” she pointed out, unnecessarily. “I may have wanted to marry Sconce before I came to know him better. But even if I did still wish to marry him, which I do not, I am not a bone you can throw to him simply because you feel too guilty to act on your own feelings.”
“I don’t think of you as a bone!”
Her sister’s eyes sharpened. “If you want him, Olivia Lytton, take him. He’s a duke, for goodness’ sake. You have a chance to make Mother and yourself happy. Rupert will come back one of these days, and his brain won’t be any more powerful than when he left this country. What on earth are you waiting for?”
“Rupert,” Olivia said weakly. “I can’t betray Rupert.”
“You would betray Rupert if you gave Lucy to a passing tinker. Personally, I think it’s unlikely that he would grieve for more than five minutes over the prospect of not marrying you.”
“I thought . . .” Olivia’s throat swelled. “I thought it would betray you.”
Georgiana’s smile was brilliant. “If I wanted him, I would have dueled you for him. Rapiers at dawn. But I don’t.”
Olivia snatched her into a hug, careful not to muss her hair, and said, “We’ll dower you, Georgie. You know that.”
“Yes,” Georgiana said. She looked happier than she had in years as they walked in the door of the ballroom. “You had better do that. Because in case you’re wondering, I am not going to step into your shoes and marry Rupert. I still feel queasy thinking about