Compromised for Christmas (The Jennings Family #1)

39. Georgiana

39

Georgiana

G eorgiana froze in the doorway of her husband’s study.

Her husband smiled fondly at the woman, and Georgiana’s stomach flipped over.

“Thank you so much for your services, Mrs. Tremayne. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

What the bloody hell? Her heart pulsed maddeningly in her throat.

The woman reached forward and lingered— lingered . Georgiana ground her teeth. Which was unfortunate, because the woman just whispered something, and Georgiana couldn’t hear it over the grinding of bone against bone.

She cleared her throat, lips pressed tight together.

Their gazes shot to her, and her husband’s eyes lit up. And then promptly faded as his eyes grew wide. He glanced at the woman standing across from him. Fitz’s eyes grew wider. Panic, clear as glass, written all over his face.

“I believe I will take my leave,” the woman said, stepping back. She dipped a curtsy to Georgiana. “Mrs. Jennings,” she murmured, her gaze downcast.

Georgiana stepped stiffly into her husband’s study and allowed the woman to pass. She had the powerful urge to do something ridiculously childish like stick her foot out and trip the woman. She took a breath. But she would speak to her husband first. And then, if things were as dire as they appeared, she would trip him instead.

“G-Georgiana,” Fitz stammered. “I-I-I…” He swallowed, a blush rapidly coloring his freckled cheeks.

Her heart sank. This could not be good. Her mind was spinning. Going to all the worst possible places. Places that made the assumption that this woman was his mistress. That he was thanking her for her—Georgiana’s hand shot to her roiling stomach. She blew out a slow breath.

“Who was that, Mr. Jennings?”

His face fell. “Fitz, Georgiana. C-come now, we don’t need to revert to f-formalities.”

“Who?” she asked quietly.

He looked at the ceiling. “She—urm. Well, you see. I s-suppose”—he grimaced and met her gaze again—“she’s my mistress.”

And there went Georgiana’s heart. Thump on the wooden floor of her husband’s study.

He hurried from behind his desk to stand before Georgiana. “I realize now I shouldn’t have asked her here.” He wrung his hands in front of him. “I promise I won’t ever have her visit here again.” He smiled hesitantly at her.

Was that supposed to bring her some comfort? Because it felt like he just took his foot and stomped on her heart, the one lying on the study floor.

He frowned at her, his gaze darting between her eyes.

“Are you well, Georgiana?”

She blinked at him. “Am I well?”

He nodded slowly.

“Am I well ?” Her voice rose to a painful pitch, and he jumped. “You-you were just with your mistress. Who you paid for her services . And the reassuring response you provide me with is that you will visit her instead of her visiting here.” She stared at him incredulously. No, she wasn’t bloody well.

His eyes widened. “Oh! Oh .” He laughed nervously. “No, n-no, Gigi. I am horrible with w-words,” he stammered and shifted side to side on his feet. “This is a misunderstanding. I was not paying her for those kinds of services. Not in the way you th-think.” He stilled in his shifting and took a deep breath. “I enlisted her help.” He glanced away, his blush running down his neck, stark against his snowy-white cravat. “Her, ah, tutelage. She has been teaching me some things in the bedroom, certain proclivities that I think you desire.”

Georgiana went numb. Her brain stopped working. All she could hear was a dull buzzing.

“I was visiting her for you.” He smiled widely at her and lifted his eyebrows expectantly.

As though those words fixed everything. He was practicing sex with his mistress…so that he could do those things with Georgiana. That was supposed to make her feel better . She gaped at him. Gawked. Gurgled, even. She had no idea how to respond to that. She was too busy watching her heart bleed out into the grains of wood on the floor.

She wasn’t sure what hurt worse. The fact that her husband had slept with another woman. The fact that he was fool enough to think she would appreciate the fact. Or the fact that she had been dim-witted enough to have hoped their marriage would be one of fidelity and love.

Which only sent something searing and sharp shooting through her. Because she hadn’t hoped for those things. Not until her stupid bloody husband had made it seem like it was what he wanted to. Not until her stupid bloody husband made her feel all these stupid bloody feelings for him.

“I thought you had dismissed her. I do not understand why you would go to her—” She swallowed and inhaled a shuddering breath. “Why couldn’t you have come to me?”

“Because I realized on Christmas that—”

“On Christmas?” She cut him off, her voice sharp. “ She was your urgent business? You left me on Christmas. To run to your mistress.”

His smile dropped. “W-well.” He shuffled his hands like he was balancing weights in front of himself. “It wasn’t on Christmas. I didn’t visit her until two days after.”

She blinked at him. Well, that was much better. A couple of days after Christmas was clearly much bloody better . Wait. That was where he had been when she’d arrived at an empty town house? Instead of being home to greet his new wife. He had been in bed with his mistress. Her pathetic heart gave a pathetic flop on the floor. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic.

“Gigi… please say something. Are you still upset—”

“Mr. Jennings, your family has arrived and is waiting out front for you,” Pemberton’s droll voice cut into the study.

Georgiana smoothed her skirts. “We should go. We do not want to keep the rest of the party waiting.” She fell into step behind the butler, not glancing back at her husband. Dear Lord, how was she to hide the impact of this—this bomb her grenadier of a husband had just dropped—while attending their first supper party as husband and wife? This was going to be torture.

He hurried to catch up to her, falling into stride. “You still do not seem well, Gigi.”

She looked straight ahead. “Let us not discuss in front of the servants,” she said softly, tightly. “After the supper party.”

But there was only one thing she wanted to do after the supper party. And that was to curl up in her bed and cry.

Her husband had slept with someone else.

And as effective as a grenade, it destroyed her.