Otters and Obstacles
Chapter One
August 1818
As Georgiana Morland slid open the barn door, she could hear the sounds of the horses moving and neighing, the men working and talking… but she could not hear her otters.
They knew the sound of the door, and the sound of her footsteps. On any other day, she would be able to hear their excited squeaks as she approached the stall where her cousin had caged them after banishing them from the house.
Her steps quickening, she strode to the door of the stall, only to find it standing ajar.
Empty.
Even the straw inside and the tub that held their water was gone, the floor swept clean.
“Looking for something?”
Georgie whirled to see her cousin John standing behind her. Could his face form any expression other than a sneer when he looked at her?
She glared at him. “Where are they?”
“That’s none of your concern. They—like everything else on this estate—belong to me now. And since they were my property, I disposed of them.”
The world went gray, and Georgie grabbed for the stall door as she swayed. She only vaguely heard the clang as the bucket in her hand fell to the ground, spilling the meat and fish scraps she had brought from the kitchen across the floor. Cursing, her cousin leaped backward to prevent the flood from getting on his polished Hessians.
“There’s no need for such emotion, cousin,” he sneered. “This is why no man in the county is willing to marry you. Even leaving your mixed blood aside, they all know your damned otters mean more to you than any man ever could.”
Georgie could barely hear his cutting words through the whirling in her head. Her father’s death and her cousin’s inheritance of the estate had taken everything she loved from her. Even her beloved pets, raised by her as orphaned pups after they had been given to her father by the Prince Regent himself four years ago, were not to be spared from her cousin’s ravages.
A hand came under her elbow, and she turned her head to see the head stableman steadying her. She took a deep, horse-scented breath to steady herself and then straightened with a nod of thanks.
She had no time to faint.
“You’re a fool, cousin,” she said. “What will you tell the keeper of the Royal Menagerie when he next writes to ask about their health?”
John shrugged. “They are exotic animals living in England. I’m sure he’s accustomed to having the Regent’s specimens die unexpectedly. Besides, I merely entrusted them to someone else. Your father’s friend Mr. Sloane.”
The name echoed in Georgie’s head, but she could not recall what it was about Mr. Sloane that would make him a suitable recipient for the otters, even in her cousin’s devious mind. Something nagged at her, but John was still speaking.
“Now that you will not be wasting your time on those animals, you will have plenty of time for the schoolroom. The children are eager to continue their lessons with you.”
Georgie kept her face impassive. John had brought four children with him when he inherited the estate, all of them equally as selfish and spiteful as him and his wife. He had dispensed with their governess and declared Georgie would earn her keep by taking her place. Six months of that had already left Georgie with bruises from the unruly children and a sick sense of depression knowing this was to be her life from now on. Her cousin refused to release her inheritance to her, and she had little recourse to force it from him as she could not hire a solicitor with no ready money. Knowing she still had her otters to care for, something she could love that loved her in return, had kept her going. Until now.
“Go back to the house, cousin,” John said. “Your pupils await.”
Georgie spun on her heel and stalked back to her room, her mind turning the name of the otters’ recipient over and over in her head. The name was familiar to her from her father’s correspondence. She knew it, and knew she knew it, but could not remember why until she closed her bedroom door behind herself.
Mr. Sloane was an elderly clergyman close to her father’s age who lived in rural Yorkshire. She had only met him once or twice at most, though she had read his letters to her father. He shared many of her father’s interests in exotic animals. Only…
Only…
He was even more fascinated with the new practice of taxidermy.
Georgie’s stomach rebelled, and she barely retrieved the chamber pot from beneath her bed before she was thoroughly sick.
Still shaking, she sat next to the bed, knees drawn up so she could rest her forehead on them. She and her father had hand-raised Bonny, Betsey, and Buttercup from sickly pups to mischievous adults, their care proving a welcome distraction from their grief after Mama and Freddy had died. The constant upheaval of the household had kept them on their toes, and observing the animals had provided fodder for many a letter to the Linnean Society in London, letters her father had been compiling into a book when he died.
Papa had even promised that Georgie’s scientific illustrations of the otters would be part of the book, which was simultaneously thrilling and embarrassing. In the wake of her father’s unexpected death, she had not thought to look for the manuscript until after John had arrived to take possession of the house and its contents. She feared it and her illustrations had been consigned to the same bonfire where her cousin had burned her father’s scientific notebooks, which he found to be useless.
She ought to have known her cousin would be able to devise a torture for her worse than merely killing her pets. He probably planned to have the clergyman send them back once he was done so she would have to look at them on the mantlepiece, dead and posed into a hideous semblance of life. He wouldn’t even know the proper placement of Bonny, the matriarch.
No. She could not allow it to happen.
Georgie set her jaw. She would rescue her otters from Mr. Sloane. Even if she arrived in Yorkshire to discover she was… was too late, she would never willingly return to her cousin’s house. There was nothing for her here but drudgery and cruelty. There certainly was no loving family.
Traveling alone as a young woman would leave her open to insult, or worse. And it would limit her options when it came to retrieving her otters. No gentleman would be willing to turn valuable animals over to a strange woman who arrived on his doorstep.
But if a young man arrived, and had impeccable proof of being the owner of said otters …