Chapter 23 #2
“Lady Georgie, glad you are so anxious to see me! I didn’t realize you knew I was here.”
“I didn’t. I thought...” The ludicrous sound of Charles Harley aping a proper butler spared her the need to reply.
“Mr. Mallet will see you.”
The declaration forced Georgiana to troop around Heyworth, still grinning like an idiot, to the stairs. With every wary step upward, she reviewed what she should say to the upstart above.
“How dare you proceed without my permission” seemed to her correct but colorless.
“You, sir, are no man of honor.” Too pompous.
“You’ve wounded me, sir, with your perfidy.” Too dramatic.
“You are a worm and no man.” Too Shakespearean.
By the middle step, she prepared to argue ad hominem. “Your man, sir, is a trumped-up monkey and no proper servant” Not fair to Harley.
“Damn it, Andrew, what were you about?” Better.
“Where the devil have you been?” Definitely not.
“Oh, Andrew, how could you? I thought we were partners.” Worst of all. She would not show weakness.
Her last thought just before the door opened on the top step was “You reprehensible son of a horse thief, you stole my life’s work!”
“Ah, Lady Georgiana, you didn’t have to come to offer your gratitude in person.” Andrew stood in the center of the room. He was laughing.
“Gratitude? You insufferable toad! For what should I be grateful?”
“The work, my lady. The fine gold letters, the linen paper, the gilt edges. Didn’t you receive it?”
“You know I did. You arranged it without me—and you took credit.”
“Arranging your work was, I admit, a mistake.” He looked serious but only for a moment.
“No harm done. I came to my senses. Five hundred copies sit patiently in John Bailey’s storage room awaiting your decision.
Sell them, burn them, give them away. The work, as you say, is yours to do with as you wish.
As to credit—” His confusion would have been endearing if it wasn’t patently false.
“I fear you are mistaken. I’m not a Lady of Scholarship. ”
“Not that, you fool. Your name is on the cover, not mine!”
She caught the twinkle in his eye. “My dear Lady Georgiana, I didn’t realize you wished to have your name on the cover. You gave me the impression you wished your identity to remain anonymous. Does this mean you plan to sell the books?”
“You have Jamie Heyworth running tame in your parlor. You might as well stand in the street and announce my work to my parents.”
“Normally, yes, I agree. The very voluble Major Lord Heyworth would serve as a town crier, but in this regard he has been quite mum. He seems to enjoy the subterfuge. I believe he enjoyed tweaking your brother Richard—at least until the latter gentlemen made his own inquiries and inserted himself into the plot.”
“Richard knows?” It was a gasp of outrage.
“I fear so. We discussed it and—”
“And the two of you decided what was best for me.” Fire roared in her heart. She expected it to flame out of her eyes.
“Am I to understand that you wish to take full credit?” He was trying to change the subject. “That’s easy enough to arrange. A word or two in the right ear, and all of London will know.”
“No! I, that is, no.”
“Well, you may want to wait until there has been some reaction, a review or two perhaps, before you decide to take credit.”
She didn’t answer.
“You do plan to publish?”
Georgiana stared at the lace on her slipper, unable to raise her eyes from her feet, unable to formulate an answer.
Several silent moments passed before he said, “It is quite good, you know.”
She did not look up.
“It is fine work,” he went on, his voice a caress. “You can be proud.”
She looked up to find him inches from her, uncertain when he had moved so close.
“You did brilliantly.” He closed the final distance and took her mouth in a gossamer kiss that barely touched her body, yet seared her to the core.
Names flew to her mind: “Toad,” “Wretch,” “Traitor,” “Thief,” but the erratic heartbeat, engendered when his embrace turned her insides to molten iron drowned out the voices in her head. All that reached her mouth was “Andrew. Oh, Andrew.”
He pulled away and attempted to speak. She found the puzzled expression on his crooked face endearingly sweet, but she needed him, needed to draw him back, needed his closeness. When her hands began to tug at his shirt, he helped her free it, opening himself to her exploring hands.
She disposed of her pelisse; his jacket landed near it.
His waistcoat, and then his shirt were gone.
When they reached the bedroom door, strong hands yanked her gown from her shoulders.
It slithered to the floor and lay in the doorway.
His trousers fell inside the room, quickly followed by his small clothes nearer to the bed.
He was gloriously naked, but she still wore her stockings and underclothing when he rolled her under him on the bed.
His mouth took her breast through the delicate lace chemise, while his hands found the opening in her pantaloons.
By the time she realized he wouldn’t wait to remove the rest of her clothing, she didn’t want him to.
The fierceness of their joining was as much Georgiana’s doing as his.
She knew he would pull back if he thought she wanted it, but she wouldn’t let him.
Weeks of separation and confusion were pulverized by the pounding need of this moment.
One shattering moment later Georgiana lost all sense of her surroundings in the exquisite moment of release.
She felt him continue to move in her, hard and fast, while she slowly regained awareness.
She experienced the moment of his pleasure and his own release in full awareness; the joy of it overwhelmed her.
Her own satisfaction in watching him transformed by desire rocked her.
Tears stung in her throat and rolled down her cheeks.
This moment, this private, special moment belonged to them. She wished he could leave it at that.