Chapter Twenty-Four
Georgina spent the short drive back to Marine Parade mentally preparing herself for what lay ahead. She would tell him the truth, and face the consequences, come what may.
She entered the villa fully intending to call Teddy into the receiving room where they could have a frank discussion. Teddy was intelligent, reasonable. He might not like what she had to tell him, but, together, they could come up with a plan to move forward.
She hoped.
Mr. Danvers greeted her in the foyer, looking as unflappable as ever. “Welcome home, Lady Arlington. I trust you had a pleasant visit with your lady friends?”
She sent him a brilliant smile as she removed her bonnet, thinking of how she’d nearly sacked him, when, in truth, she would be forever grateful to him for his selfless act in daring to aid Teddy even though it could easily have cost him his livelihood.
“Indeed. Very enlightening. Where might I find Lord Arlington?” she asked, peeling out of her traveling gloves.
“Lord Arlington opted for a late morning swim, ma’am. He departed some fifteen minutes ago.”
“I see.” Lambasting herself as a coward for the small surge of relief that flooded her at the respite, she made for her desk to do what she did best.
She would write out her thoughts to better articulate her reasons for doing what she had. It was crucial he understand she had not set out to deceive and entrap him.
Settling behind her desk, she removed the ribbon ’round her neck holding the key to her private cabinet and unlocked the rolling door, then withdrew her notebook containing personal anecdotes, lists, appointments, and such.
Picking up her quill, she flipped to the first blank page and wrote in a heavy hand, what I did for love. She sat back, reread the five words, then underlined them. Twice.
Then she began her list.
Point one. I learned only a wife could take possession. No, that didn’t sound right. She scratched out the last two words and added overrule a parental figure’s decision to commit his son to an institution.
Point two. I fully intended to reveal the truth to Teddy the moment we departed Bell Haven.
Point three. Upon discovering Teddy’s need for his medicine, and his simultaneous revulsion toward same, I made the command decision, for his own good, to maintain the ruse of our having previously married so that I might have some sway over him to convince him to take his regular doses.
Point four.
She stared at the paper, and willed herself to come up with an explanation for how she’d ended up engaging with Teddy as his wife in every sense of the word. Something other than her own fleshly desires overriding her good intentions and common sense.
“Hullo, darling.”
She glanced up to see Teddy, lounging in the doorway, hands gripping the two sides of a towel he’d slung over his shoulders. She’d been so wrapped up in her note taking, she hadn’t heard him come in.
His brown hair, which had developed a decided tawny cast thanks to his frequent ventures outdoors, was once again in need of a cut. It was damp from his recent dip in the ocean and slicked back and looked exactly right alongside the becoming bronzed complexion.
Wearing a lazy grin, and eyeing her in that way he had that said he was contemplating doing all sorts of naughty things with and to her, he fairly stole her breath.
“Good morning,” she said, in a rush. She closed the notebook with a decisive thump and blindly reached for the cloth to dry the nib of her quill.
“I was disappointed when I awoke to find you gone from our bed.” He sauntered toward her. “Then I remembered your early morning meeting with your special book club friends.”
“Yes, I arose, practically before the sun and decided to take a walk along the shore.”
“I see.” He veered toward the sofa where they’d made passionate love yesterday morning and her insides shimmered with longing. Before she made a conscious decision to do so, she rose and started toward him.
He sprawled atop the sofa, long legs stretched out before him, gaze drifting over her in a now-familiar, possessive manner. “May I say how becoming that particular shade of yellow is on you, my love?”
Her heart stuttered in her chest. My love.
Stop it. It was just a point of phrase. It probably didn’t mean what she wanted it to mean.
Probably.
“Thank you. I’m glad you like it. Er…Teddy, I wanted to talk with you about something rather delicate.”
“Oh?” He sat up, one thick brow arched, and peeled the towel from ’round his neck.
“Yes. Er…how did you sleep?” How did you sleep. Really, Georgina.
His caramel gaze lowered to his boot tips and a frown puckered his brows. “Funny you should ask.”
As she’d merely been hedging, his reply caught her off guard. She reached the sofa and lowered to perch on the cushions, careful to keep some distance between them, lest her ability to think straight vanish.
He folded the towel, eyes on his task. “I have had several dreams of late which…” he shook his head in dismissal, but went on, “which strike me as rather odd because…forget it. It does not signify. Tell me of your morning.”
“No, please. What were you going to say?”
He slanted her a long look. “I see places we’ve been, according to the anecdotes you’ve shared, but, things aren’t ever quite how I would have imagined. Of course, they’re just dreams. Not exactly memories.”
“Perhaps, if you gave me an example,” she suggested.
He unfolded from the sofa, towel gripped in his hand. “I should deliver this downstairs to the laundry,” he muttered, eyeing the open door.
She rose, hand outstretched toward him. “Give it to me. I’ll take care of it. What about these dreams seems off?”
He ceded the wet towel with obvious reluctance. “Darling, I don’t wish to upset you.”
“You won’t.”
“I have had several dreams in which my interaction with Lady Catherine seems, how can I put this?” He eyed the ceiling as if seeking inspiration, and Georgina’s stomach sank.
She had wanted to come clean with him, she reminded herself. This—he and Catherine—was part of that.
He frowned at her, gaze troubled. “The two of us do not seem…er…that is, I know you are not overly fond of the woman, and I wondered if, perhaps, I might have…” He cursed under his breath and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Did I have a dalliance with the woman? Did I betray you and my closest friend, Drake? I really must know.”
Resignation filled her. She lowered onto the sofa. “Come, sit.”
“Oh, dear. That bad is it?”
“Not like you might think.”
“I can’t imagine why I would have done something so foolish as to jeopardize not only my friendship, but the loss of your affections.”
She sent him a gentle smile. “You could never do that.”
Teddy rejoined her and lowered to sit beside her. Close enough their thighs brushed. He ran his knuckles over her cheek. His fingers were chilled from his recent swim in the frigid waters, no doubt, and she shivered.
“How I ever managed to win you is beyond me,” he whispered.
Drat. The backs of her eyes stung, that quickly.
Alarm sharpened his features. “Here, now. This is precisely why I did not want to discuss this. Nothing is worse for me than your tears, darling.”
She blinked them away. “What tears? I got something in my eye.”
A knock sounded on the doorframe.
Georgina and Teddy both glanced toward the room’s entrance to see Mr. Danvers hovering there.
“Yes, what is it?” Teddy asked.
“There’s a travel coach that’s just turned into the forecourt. I’m informed Lady Arlington’s mother is the passenger.”
Georgina surged to her feet. “What?”
“Calm down, darling. It’s not the magistrate, come to take you away,” Teddy soothed, his expression amused.
“Teddy, stay here. I will see to this.”
“I beg your pardon,” he said, no longer sounding the least amused. “I say, hadn’t we better start informing people of our…”
But she did not hear the rest of what he said as she darted through the chamber, past Danvers, and all but flew down the stairs.
She could not allow her mother to enter.
She could not be permitted to see Teddy here and to know how they’d been living.
If she knew, if anyone knew—aside from her friends and the household staff—his ability to go on with his life as if none of this had ever occurred should he so choose would cease to exist.
She opened the front door, stepped out, and shut it behind her, then hurried toward the coach. Its door was ajar, its stepped placed. Any minute, her mother would descend.
Georgina climbed the steps to block her mother’s exit. “Mother, hello,” she said, gasping to catch her breath after her mad flight. “What on earth are you doing here?”
Her silver-haired mother looked taken aback—and rightfully so. “Can’t a mother call on her only daughter without raising an eyebrow?”
“Of course, but, didn’t you receive my missive? I can’t receive visitors, presently. I’m behind in my current manuscript. I’ve promised Gwen, and…”
“Well, I never.” Her mother draped the back of her hand over her forehead in dramatic fashion. “Placing your career before your own family.”
“I’m not. That is—”
“Your work shall have to take a back seat, Georgina.” She interrupted, suddenly all business. “As it happens, I have not come for a holiday, but to collect you. Your father wishes to see you.”
She blinked. “What do you mean, ‘wishes to see me’? If this is about acquiring funds—”
“It is not.” Her mother smiled coolly. “You’ve made your stance on providing financial support quite plain. In point of fact…” She broke off and tsked in annoyance. “Dear, must we discuss this like a pair of highwaymen staking out a crossroads? I’d like to attend to my toilette before we set off.”
“Set off?” Georgina aped. She glanced behind her at her villa, trying to determine if she could keep Teddy out of sight for her mother’s brief visit.
“Did you not hear me? Your father is…ill, and he wishes to see you.”
“Ill? How? What has happened?”
“Oh, I’m glad to see you nurse some small amount of affection for your poor parents.” She sniffed. “Bartholomew has contracted a lung infection. The doctor assures us it is but a seasonal illness that will pass, but one never knows, does one?”
Georgina backed off the carriage steps. She did not like to think of it, but her father was getting up in years. “I’ll gather my things. In the meantime, Mr. Danvers will escort you to the retiring room and then settle you in…the library until we depart.”
She rarely used the library. It was small, and lacked the charm of the large receiving room as its windows faced the street. But there would be no sign of Teddy within their four walls.
“Very accommodating,” her mother groused with evident sarcasm.
“I won’t be a minute,” Georgina threw over her shoulder, already dashing toward the villa’s front doors, leaving her mother to lumber down the steps with the assistance of her groom.
Once inside, she found Mr. Danvers in the foyer. After instructing him how to see to her mother, she ran up the stairs to the first floor.
A quick glance told her Teddy was no longer where she’d left him. She searched the dining room, then peeked into the library—it would be her luck for him to have ventured there, today.
He was not in the library.
Skirts in hand, she trotted up the stairs and headed for the guest chamber housing his things and his sketch equipment. She knocked and waited for his “come” before entering to the welcome sight of Teddy, shirtless, and in the process of stripping off his pantaloons.
His body was beautiful. Tanned and lean, muscles carved from his frequent ventures in the ocean.
Naked, he straightened. “What has your mother to say?”
She leaned against the door, closing it, and blurted, “I have to go to London. Mother informs me my father is ill.”
He cocked his head and sent her a perplexed frown. “You mean, we have to go.”
“No, just me. You must stay here.”
At the frost forming in his eyes, she explained. “I do not believe this is the time to make a formal announcement about our…” She could not bring herself to say the word. “Us. Not with father ill and…your condition unresolved.”
His face went devoid of all expression. “I see. Of course. What need have you of my assistance? You, who so admirably manage everything and everyone in your life.”
He turned his back on her and stalked to the wardrobe, jerking it open. The looking glass on the cabinet door before him revealed a muscle in his jaw, rapid-fire ticking.
“I do need you, Teddy.” She had no idea how to make him understand—especially as she had not yet told him the truth.
He sent her a sardonic look over his shoulder. “You need my body. You need my touch. You do not need my meddling. Do I have that right?”
Her face went instantly hot. “That is not fair.”
Remorse flashed in his eyes. He snatched a fresh, white shirt from the wardrobe and shrugged into it, then faced her. “I apologize. That was crude of me.”
She shook her head, her insides twisting with guilt.
“It was. My only excuse is I grow weary of living this half existence. I’m a husband, but not.
I’m a viscount, but not—I’m not managing my lands, not overseeing investments, not appearing at Parliament, not doing a bloody damned thing aside from playing at art, frolicking in the sea and, whenever possible, bedding my enticing wife.
” A brief smile flickered over his face at the last. Then he sobered.
“I’m meant for more than this, Georgina, and sometimes I fear I’ll be stuck in this purgatory for the rest of my days. ”
She could no more keep from going to him than she could will herself to stop loving him. Wrapping her arms around him, she said, “Perhaps, after I return, we should consult with another physician to see what else might be done to aid your memory’s return.”
His gaze dipped to her mouth. “Perhaps.” With a mock sullen air, he returned her embrace. “I do not like the notion of spending a single night without you, wife. How long do you suppose you will be away?”
She sent him a tremulous smile. “I shall return this very night, if at all possible.”
He barked out a laugh that warmed his eyes. “You can spare your poor father an evening or two. But do not lend him money to cover his gambling debts,” he cautioned. “Indeed, I would not be surprised if this whole thing is but an elaborate scheme intent on separating you from your money.”
“I shall be extremely cautious, my lord.” She leaned forward and ran the tip of her nose over his supple chest, still bared to her thanks to his unbuttoned shirt. “In all seriousness, I am rather fond of the baron. I do hope to find him on the mend.”
“Of course,” he murmured. Then he sighed. “I take it, I’m to hole up in here until you and your mother depart? We wouldn’t want her to see me and get the wrong idea, would we?”