Courting The Forbidden Debutante. Laura Martin

compared to me you are an expert.’

      ‘They don’t have events like this in Australia?’ she asked.

      Sam smiled. Of course people socialised in Australia—there were a few taverns Sam liked to frequent and he was sure some of the daughters of the wealthier landowners liked to pay visits to one another, but he couldn’t imagine the hardened men and women of Australia sitting through a musical recital. It was enough to make him nearly laugh out loud.

      ‘I’ve never heard of one,’ he said.

      ‘Perhaps you could introduce the idea when you return.’

      ‘I’m not sure my reputation could withstand it.’

      ‘Reputation?’ Lady Georgina asked.

      ‘Just as it is important here for you to maintain a certain image, it is the same for me back home. I can’t imagine trying to gain the respect of any of the landowners if I suggested we sit down and listen to some classical music.’

      He’d lose all credibility and be laughed out of the region.

      ‘I can’t imagine,’ Lady Georgina said with a frown.

      Sam had known his life in Australia would be of interest to people here in England, just as they were interested in the exotic animals brought from overseas to the menageries for the public to ogle at. Not many men made it back from Australia and certainly not any who would move in the same circles as Lady Georgina.

      ‘The people are coarser, less refined, even those who own great swathes of land. There is much less of a class system, the divide comes between those who have been transported and are still serving a sentence and those who are free men, able to take what work they choose.’ Luckily for him, he thought. In Australia there was no shame in being a self-made man—in fact, coming from a background as a convict and building yourself into a success was what most men strived for. ‘Life is harder, there is no question about it, and more basic. Even the wealthiest people live in simple homes and will go out to work every day. There is no idle life.’

      ‘You must find it very strange here,’ Lady Georgina said, ‘where the men spend their time playing cards and attending their gentlemen’s clubs and the women play the piano and go to balls.’

      ‘That’s the beauty of visiting somewhere else,’ Sam said. ‘You get to experience a different life, a different way of doing things.’

      Lady Georgina sighed and looked away and Sam wondered if he’d struck a sore spot. In many ways Lady Georgina had it all—wealth, a good family name, every physical comfort she could desire—but what she did not have was freedom. After being locked up and condemned to transportation, Sam knew more than a little about a lack of freedom. Now he could choose to go anywhere in the world, he was his own master. Lady Georgina would never experience that. She was destined to spend her life under the control of another, for now her father, and once she was married, her husband.

      Sam started to try to convey that he understood some of that frustration, but his words were lost as a small man entered the room and their hostess for the evening clapped her hands for everyone to fall silent.

      ‘Good evening,’ Mrs Hamilton said. ‘It is my pleasure to introduce to you Signor Ratavelli, master musician and kind enough to grace our humble little gathering with his presence.’

      There was a smattering of polite applause as Signor Ratavelli took a bow, then sat down behind a piano at the front of the room.

      With no musical inclination or training even Sam knew from the very first note this man was talented. Normally he had little interest in music—it had not played a major part in his life. There had been no music in his simple but comfortable home in Hampshire and there certainly had been no music in his life after transportation save for the occasional work songs sung by the convicts to try to keep morale up. Nevertheless he felt a little of the soft melody seeping under his skin and found that despite himself he was enjoying it.

      Turning to Lady Georgina, he regarded her for a few moments. She was completely entranced, watching the small musician through the gaps in the rows of people sitting in front of them, occasionally having to crane her neck to see.

      She looked beautiful like this, her lips slightly parted, her cheeks suffused with colour and her eyes sparkling with interest. Easily he could see why she was considered the catch of the Season, even without her family connections and hefty dowry.

      With his head half-turned to look at her he felt eyes burning into him from somewhere behind. Discreetly he turned, trying to keep the movement as subtle as possible, to see a man of about thirty glaring at him. Puzzled, Sam nodded in greeting, unable to help himself despite knowing it would anger his unknown observer further, then turned back to face the front.

      No doubt it was one of Lady Georgina’s many admirers, upset that he did not get to sit with the object of his affection.

      The first half of the musical recital had lasted for nearly forty minutes and Sam surprised himself by enjoying all of it. When the last note died away he clapped along with everyone else, wondering what the men he employed on his farms would say if they could see him now.

      ‘What did you think?’ Lady Georgina asked, leaning in towards him a little to be heard over the swell of conversation now the music had stopped.

      ‘I enjoyed it,’ Sam said, rising quickly as he saw Lady Georgina’s mother glance at her daughter and frown, unable to extricate herself from the brilliant job Lady Winston was doing at keeping her talking. ‘Would you care for a drink?’

      ‘That would be lovely. I’ll accompany you. I need to move around after forty minutes of sitting still.’

      Just as he had hoped. He offered her his arm, glancing quickly back over his shoulder, expecting the man who had been staring at him throughout the performance to be bearing down on them, but finding no one there.

      After collecting two glasses of wine, they moved on to the large terrace. The doors from the music room had been thrown open to combat the stuffiness in the room and, despite the cold weather, many of the guests had moved outside for a breath of air.

      ‘You’re shivering. We can go back inside,’ Sam said as they reached the edge of the terrace.

      ‘No, it’s a beautiful night.’

      Together they both glanced up at the sky where the night was clear and a few stars visible along with the brilliant white of the crescent moon.

      ‘I’m sure the skies are much different in Australia.’

      Sam thought of the endless expanse of darkness, which on a clear night was lit up with hundreds of stars. When you were out in the wilderness it could feel overwhelming, but beautiful all the same. Again he noted the slightly wistful note in her voice, the dreamy way she looked as she imagined the country he now considered home. If he wasn’t very much mistaken, Lady Georgina was an adventurer at heart, trapped by the suffocating conventions of society.

      ‘I notice a difference when I’m at home in Hampshire,’ Lady Georgina said. ‘The skies are darker, somehow, and the stars brighter.’

      She shivered again and quickly Sam shrugged off his jacket and started to place it around her shoulders.

      ‘I couldn’t...’ she protested.

      ‘You’re cold. It’s only a jacket.’

      Looking around to see if anyone was watching, he saw her run the fabric of the jacket through her fingers as if deciding whether it would be wholly inappropriate to accept the gesture.

      ‘Surely one of your many admirers has lent you his jacket before,’ Sam said with a grin.

      ‘I don’t ever step outside with anyone,’ Lady Georgina said.

      Sam raised an eyebrow and eventually she corrected herself.

      ‘I don’t normally step outside with anyone.’

      He