Ginny by M.C. Beaton

romantic!”
    Cyril’s brain worked with the rapidity of a trapped rat. In a flash he saw that if he said he had meant to abduct Ginny and not her, the spurned Annabelle would go back to the party and let all sorts of cats out of the bag. His allowance for the “bringing out” of Ginny Bloggs would be taken away from him. Lord Gerald would see to that. He hated Ginny Bloggs as he had never hated her before. He felt sure that somehow she was behind this mistake. He wished Tansy had agreed to come along. He wished any number of things, but the fact remained, there was only one way to get out of it.
    “Y-you must f-forgive me, Annabelle,” he said. “I must have been mad. Let me take you back to the party.”
    “Yes,” whispered Annabelle, looking at him from under her lashes. “Please, let’s. This is all so romantic, but it would be nice now that we know our feelings for each other to do things in the orthodox way. You—you may kiss me, Cyril.”
    She shut her eyes and puckered up her lips and Cyril, trying to deposit a brief kiss on them, found himself held in a viselike grip as he was enfolded in an ardent if inexperienced embrace.
    “Daddy will be so pleased,” murmured Annabelle, and Cyril heard a noise in his brain, exactly like the slamming of a prison door.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Ginny seemed unaware of the uneasy atmosphere at Courtney following the picnic.
    She had declared herself thrilled at Cyril’s surprise engagement announcement and had presented the happy couple with a handsome dining service.
    Cyril had pinned all his hopes on the bishop. Surely Annabelle’s papa would not wish his only daughter to be married to a penniless manabout-town. But it appeared that the bishop was heartily glad at the idea of getting his spoiled and domineering daughter off his hands, and had counseled a speedy engagement. Cyril’s protest that he had no money to marry was met with an indulgent smile and the comment, “There’s lots of work around for chaps like you.”
    The conspirators were each sulking in their corners. Tansy had decided that both Cyril and Jeffrey were useless, Cyril blamed his engagement on both of them, and Jeffrey was recovering from having overturned the carriage in a ditch on the road back from the Bloomington’s estate and having slept in that ditch in a drunken stupor until the moon came up. And the sight of Barbara fluttering around Ginny and helping her with arrangements for a grand ball made them all want to strangle her first and Ginny afterward.
    Lord Gerald rode over one wet afternoon to find the large house strangely silent. Alicia had driven out with Peter Paster. Lord Gerald had protested at Alicia seeing so much of Peter, to which Alicia had replied, “Oh, you just don’t know what it’s like. Ginny’s really very sweet, but she keeps saying the most awful things to Peter and he gets so mad, I just have to get him away from the house to keep the peace.”
    Gerald had demanded to know why Peter stayed on as a house guest if he disliked his hostess so much, and Alicia had blushed and stared at the floor. Alicia seemed to be doing a lot of blushing these days, he reflected grimly.
    Harvey informed him that Madam was in the study and Gerald said he would announce himself.
    He opened the study door and paused on the threshold in surprise. Ginny had been bent over an invitation list. An old-fashioned pair of steel spectacles held together with ginger-beer wire were propped on her small nose, and the startled gaze she turned toward Lord Gerald was sharp and intelligent. Ginny quickly removed her glasses and fastened the old vacant stare on him.
    Why, she must be as blind as a bat!
he thought with a strange feeling of tenderness. Then he remembered his mission and hardened his heart.
    “Your men are building a summer house or sort of gazebo thing on Nepp’s Field,” he said.
    “Yes, it’s going to be extremely pretty,” said Ginny. “It’s actually a sort of eighteenth-century