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however, that she felt safer than she had in a long while. So, perhaps the magic wasn’t quite destroyed after all.

 
    Four
    By the time the group returned to Henrietta Street it was well past time for tea, and pleading a headache, Georgina went to bed early. There was no sign of the man in the back garden, and when she awoke the next morning, she was refreshed and ready to start the day.
    Concerned that her time away the day before might have left Lady Russell without entertainment, Georgie hurried up the stairs after breakfast to check on the older woman.
    Her employer, however, had not been bored in the least by Georgie’s absence. When she reached Lady Russell’s sitting room, Georgie found her engaged in a lively debate with her elderly sisters while they all three worked on needlepoint. Since Georgie had never been very good at needlework, she was thankful that it was her mistress’s sisters and not herself who had been co-opted into the activity.
    “So you see, I have survived quite well without you, my dear,” Lady Russell said, looking much better than she had in weeks despite the fact that her gout-ridden foot was still propped on a stool. “Go off and enjoy yourself while my sisters are here. I vow, when I was your age I could think of nothing more dull than to be confined in a drawing room with three elderly ladies doing needlepoint.”
    “I am hardly a debutante, Lady Russell,” Georgie argued, appreciating the old woman’s kindness but not wishing to shirk her duties. “I am quite content to keep you company while you ladies chat and sew. Even if I am not any good at it. The sewing, I mean.”
    “It’s not that she wishes to make you feel unwelcome, Mrs. Mowbray,” said Lady Ayers-Ricker, who shared her sister’s tendency to forthrightness, “but there are certain matters we wish to discuss that might be … unsuitable for you to hear.”
    Unsuitable? Georgie tried to figure out what Lady Ayers-Ricker meant. Then realization dawned. “Oh, do you mean childbirth and things like that? I assure you, I am quite familiar with such things. Life following the army quite relieved me of any squeamishness I might have had on that score a long time ago.”
    “Not childbirth, Georgina,” Lady Russell said with a glare. “Other things.”
    Georgie stared at the older woman, trying to figure out what could possibly be more squeamish-making than childbirth.
    Then it dawned on her in a horrible mental image that she would not wish upon her worst enemy.
    All three sisters saw her expression and laughed. Georgie felt her face redden.
    “I see now you understand,” Lady Slade, the third and youngest of the Callow sisters said with a grin. “It never fails to amaze me how shocked young people can be to learn that they were not the ones to discover lovemaking. It’s as if they think they all sprang forth fully grown from the cabbage patch.”
    “In that case,” Georgie said, ignoring the chuckles of the three elderly ladies, “I will leave you all to your sewing and perhaps visit the lending library. Have you need of anything while I am there?”
    “Not at all, my dear,” Lady Russell said with a wave of her hand. “Be off with you. And for goodness’ sake, enjoy yourself. There are any number of amusements here in Bath if you would but allow yourself to partake.”
    Shutting the door behind her, Georgie hurried away as if pursued by the hounds of hell. How was she supposed to guess that three elderly ladies would still be interested in discussing such things? She was not yet thirty and had no desire to discuss the matter. With anyone. Much less other ladies.
    She’d never told another soul—not even Isabella and Perdita—but she didn’t see what all the fuss was about when it came to sexual congress. When she’d agreed to marry Robert she’d been eager enough for his kisses. But she’d soon learned that the act itself left her feeling embarrassed and uncomfortable. There had been times when