Suzanne Robinson by Lady Dangerous

so it was difficult to judge whether her pallor was due to frailty or powder. He regretted leaving her, for she needed someone who could stand up to the duke for her. She was still in mourning for his older brother, though he’d been dead for three years.
    “You must help me deal with your sister,” the duchess said.
    Jocelin glanced at Georgiana, who was thumbing through the pages of
The Times
with a deliberateness that warned him of trouble. She lifted her head and gazed at him over the gold rims of her spectacles.They had both inherited the Marshall black hair and startling green eyes.
    “Don’t smirk at me, you little curse,” he said. “What have you done?”
    “Nothing, Jos, nothing at all.”
    “It will be the death of me, her come-out,” the duchess said on a moan as she waved her scent bottle under her nose again.
    “Mother, she’s too young to come out.”
    The duke spoke up. “Nonsense. Next year she’ll be eighteen. The perfect age to marry. Not too young to have some judgment, not too old to be guided by her husband.”
    “It’s not her age,” the duchess said. She touched her handkerchief to her lips, and tears made her eyes glassy. “It’s what she’s planning.”
    The duke poured a cup of coffee and brought it to his wife. “Now, now, Delia, you mustn’t listen to her. She only says such things to set you in a twitter.”
    Jocelin marched over to his sister and planted himself beside her on the sofa. Plucking the newspaper from her hands, he tossed it on the floor.
    He turned her to face him and said, “Out with it. What are you about, little curse?”
    “I don’t want to come out, Jos. I don’t want to get married and have to obey every whim of some strange man, go where he wants to go, do what he wants to do, sit at home while he carouses at his clubs and plays with …” Georgiana glanced at her mother. “Other ladies.”
    Jocelin stared at his sister. “Where did you learn about such things?”
    “Don’t spout that superior-male drivel at me, Jocelin Paul Marshall.” Georgiana pushed her spectacles back up the bridge of her nose and sniffed.“Married women have no rights. Just look at Mother. She can only buy things if Father approves, read things he finds acceptable.”
    “But it’s only proper that she be guided by his judgment,” Jocelin said. “She wouldn’t know how to decide such things for herself. She’d come over faint at having to deal with business affairs and politics. A woman’s mind is a delicate thing, unsuited for such heavy matters.”
    Georgiana gave him a disgusted look. “I’ve solved the problem though.”
    “What problem?”
    “The problem of having to marry. I’m going to marry an old man.”
    Jocelin grinned. “How old? Twenty-five? Thirty?”
    “No, you simpleton. Eighty or ninety.”
    “Eight—that’s not funny.”
    “I’m not joking,” Georgiana said. She leaned down and retrieved the newspaper.
    Jocelin watched her calmly flap the paper out between her hands to straighten it. He knew Georgiana. Once she decided upon a course, she could seldom be diverted from it. He still winced when he remembered the time she decided to ride his cavalry horse to church. Women! Women were one of the few subjects upon which Jocelin and his father agreed. He didn’t want to think about how much this small point of accord meant to him. Early on Jocelin had witnessed his mother’s dependence upon Father, her helplessness in the face of the roughness of the outside world. She needed protection. Women in general needed protection, sometimes from their own impetuous natures, as with Georgiana. It was onething for a man to flout the conventions, another for a woman. He glanced suspiciously at his sister.
    “And just why have you taken it in your head to marry a man who could die at any moment? Oh.”
    Georgiana looked up from the editorial she had been reading. “Exactly. While he’s alive, he’ll dote on me and give me what I want, and then