Chapter Thirty-Two
The distant crowing of a cockerel roused Georgie from the deepest slumber, and she sighed in contentment. After four blissful nights in Harry’s bed, it no longer surprised her that he was propped on one elbow smiling down at her. Neither did it surprise her that she was naked and fully exposed to his gaze from the waist up. He adored her naked, and Georgie, scandalously, adored being naked for him.
As it had every single morning since they had been intimate, and before he left for the dockyard a little after sunrise, his heated gaze devoured the sight of her in the dawn’s early light. First her messy morning hair, which didn’t feel quite so horrid now that she knew he had a penchant for red. Then it dropped to her breasts, and then her sleepy nerve endings instantly awoke when he slowly tugged away the sheet to rake his stare over the rest of her.
Like Eve tempting Adam, she stretched languidly, knowing full well it only kindled his lust further and that within another minute he would be inside her, and within five—or less—he would take her to heaven again. It never took long because he played her body like a virtuoso. Fortunately, for both of them, once was never enough. Especially after she snuck into his bedchamber as soon as the house was fast asleep.
Now that Ada and Tom were back, she usually gave it an hour before she crept along the landing. Their first coupling was also fast and greedy but oh, so satisfying. The second was always more relaxed—until it all got too much to bear—but that second time was when they took their time and tortured one another. She was pretty certain that there wasn’t an inch of her body he hadn’t kissed, and while she had been diligent in last night’s hunt, she had found nowhere new to kiss him either. So instead, she had kissed him there until he had come undone and he had returned the favor. It had felt decadent and naughty and she had loved every single second of it.
She loved making love to him almost as much as she loved him, but as their allotted time together ticked swiftly past, she was coming to dread every morning despite its passionate start. Each time the sun rose, it signaled that they were another day nearer to saying goodbye.
He sensed it too, although by tacit agreement neither of them had mentioned it, because frankly, what else was there to say? When he had to sail away and she had to let him.
His gaze was intense as he traced the shape of her face, as if consigning it to memory. He had done similar yesterday before he had kissed her, a myriad of emotions swirling in his dark eyes, which ran the gamut from lust to regret. Yet this morning, he was concentrating so hard searching her eyes that there seemed no sign any kiss was forthcoming.
“Is everything all right, Harry?” She ran her palm over his cheek, marveling at the raspy feel of all the dark stubble that had grown overnight, while trying to turn the mood playful. “Or did I wear you out last night after I insisted on that third time?” When she had awoken him from a deep sleep to ride him in the small hours.
Oh, how liberating and exhilarating it was to have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to behave so wantonly for a man who fully appreciated that hitherto-unknown aspect of herself!
He stared deep into her soul, his dark brows meeting in consternation as he traced his finger over her lips. “You need to know that if you ask me not to sail away, I won’t.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.” His smile was wistful and a tad martyring before he placed a kiss on her nose. “If you ask me not to sail away, I won’t.”
“If you want me to give you an excuse to turn your back on the bloody Boadicea, I won’t do it, Harry!” She pushed him away to sit, angry and hurt that he was trying to put her in that untenable position. “And it is grossly unfair for you to ask!”
“Why?” He had the gall to look surprised at her offense. “We’ve got just days left, Georgie, so I figured one of us had to say something to fix things, and it clearly wasn’t going to be you.” He looked offended, as if she should have already wept at his feet and begged him not to sail away days ago. “At least I am trying to think of a solution to our problem. Trying to find a way to make us work.”
“And your solution is to ask me to ask you not to sail away?”
“I had hoped you might be pleased that I would do that because you might love me too!” He surged off the bed and stalked to where his clothes were neatly hung on the stand in the corner that formed part of Cuthbert’s makeshift cage, then snatched up his breeches. As if that was his cue to get up, the puppy yawned, stretched, then bounded out to lick his master’s ankles. “Clearly I was mistaken, and you actually do not care at all that I am prepared to make that sacrifice!” In a temper, he hopped as he fought both legs into the garment. “Which is good to know!”
“I do not want you to make any sacrifices!” She grabbed her own robe and shoved her arms into it. “I have been explicit about that since the very beginning of this.” She waved her hand at the rumpled bed, as that seemed like the safest way to categorize what they had—they were lovers. Albeit temporarily. “I went into this affair with no expectations and no agenda and you know that!”
“And no inconvenient feelings either, apparently.” He yanked on his shirt, then used his cravat to punctuate the air. “It did not go unnoticed that my one declaration of love was met with deafening silence!”
Of course it had been! This situation was difficult enough without having to bare her heart, and she wasn’t fool enough to believe words uttered in the heat of passion. Especially when he had reiterated repeatedly his need to sail away and the detrimental—catastrophic—impact to his career of not doing so. She understood what the navy meant to him and accepted this was all they could have instead, and in doing, had gone into this with her eyes wide open. She had thought he understood the parameters of their brief foray into passion too. After all, he had been the one to set them and he had certainly never tried to chafe against them before today. Yesterday, for pity’s sake, he had brought home all the maps and charts for the Boadicea’s first training maneuvers to show the children over the dining table. He would be sailing her to Calais and back in precisely twenty days with a skeleton crew and, he had proclaimed with great fervor, he didn’t care if the layabout shipwrights had to work through the night before to get her ready.
Now, suddenly, this morning, he would apparently give all that up.
If she asked him to!
As much as St. Joan was tempted to throw the candlestick at his unreasonable, thick head, she wrestled her away and spread her palms, placating. “I don’t understand why you would want to spoil our last days together with futile recriminations and arguments? Why you would want to tarnish our otherwise lovely memories? You know that I don’t want to fight with you about it, Harry.”
“No. Of course you don’t.” He snatched up his boots. “Or fight for us either!”
He was halfway to the door when she caught his arm, aiming for diplomacy while St. Joan leaked regardless. “Do you honestly think that you are being fair to expect me to be the one to ruin all your plans? To thwart your destiny? To scupper your career? To force you to make the ultimate sacrifice?” All variations of his damning words this past week, although she could tell from the rigid set of his jaw they failed to hit their mark. “Then, no doubt, to have you forever resent me for it? What sort of an us would we be then, Harry? Apart from miserable and trapped?”
“I have to go to work.” He tugged his arm away. “You know where to find me if you can find it in your hardened heart to change your mind.” He growled at her as if she had just murdered Cuthbert. “I shan’t hold my breath!”
She let him go.
What else could she do when he was so determined to be unreasonable?
As she had got into the habit of doing these last few days, she made the bed in case Ada noticed that both sides of it had been slept on, then carried the subdued puppy to her own room just in time to hear the back door slam as he left the house. St. Joan wanted her to remain angry, but all she felt was sad, as this felt like the beginning of the end. Some strange compunction made her wander to her window and watch him stalk away, and that too seemed significant, as soon it would be for the last time.
It had to be after this morning.
No matter how tempted she was to beg him to stay—she had been a ball and chain around a military man’s neck before and knew how toxic and destructive such resentment could be. Despite their best efforts to ignore it, it was already happening, and they were already both unhappy and failing to mask their mutual resentments. Already, it was all turning into one big, seething mess that was only destined to get worse. Especially as there was no compromise which suited them both. If she asked him not to sail away, he lost, and if she stayed with him and he didn’t, she did. Therefore, surely it was better to have loved and lost than to experience love die. And it would die a lingering death once the bloom was gone and resentment drove a wedge between them.
Why couldn’t he see that?
Or perhaps he did, and he’d lashed out in frustration because it was the one problem that even he, the Royal Navy’s eternal fixer, could not fix.
Georgie spent the morning flying kites on the beach with the children while Norbert and Cuthbert frolicked in the surf. As she was still technically their governess, Georgie tenuously linked the activity to some mathematics and tried to keep her smile despite the constant, dull ache in her chest.
“Come along, all of you!” Felix was making a meal out of packing up his kite, purposefully dragging his feet in the hope that he and Norbert would be left to follow behind because he was desperate for some freedom. As Harry hadn’t taken him to Plymouth with him today, Felix was also put out. She could hardly tell him why his uncle had left in a huff, so the poor lad was convinced he had been cast aside just as things on the Boadicea were getting interesting. “If you are quick, I will buy you all a cake from the baker’s—so long as you keep it a secret from Ada, of course. You know how annoyed she gets if anyone dares eat anything to spoil their lunch.”
“Can I have a currant bun with icing on top?” The mention of cake was all it took to earn Felix’s compliance, so she nodded. While it was tantamount to the same out-and-out bribery she had chastised Harry for, Georgie was inclined to spoil them all a little before she had to leave.
“Only if you keep it a sworn secret from your uncle too when we meet him here later.”
For the first time, she was dreading Harry’s homecoming, as it seemed another fight was inevitable unless he had had a complete change of heart during the day.
Somehow, she knew that wasn’t likely because when Harry thought he had found the way to solve a problem, he was always relentless in the execution. The speed with which he was getting the bloody Boadicea shipshape was proof of that. Anyone who got in his way was ruthlessly flattened into submission, and woe betide them if they weren’t. But she really didn’t want to have to keep fighting with him, and he, for whatever well-intentioned but misguided reason, did. What had happened this morning had been brewing for days and they had both been stupid to think that they could ignore it.
When you played with fire, you always got burned.
They were seated on the seawall outside the bakery, finishing off their clandestine cakes when the morning post coach arrived. It had barely stopped when Norbert began to sniff the air, then bolted to run excited circles around the conveyance. Georgie dashed after him to stop him terrorizing the unsuspecting passengers with his exuberant brand of affection, and then stopped dead when a tall brunette alighted.
The woman was so similar to Harry around the eyes and in her coloring that she could only be his sister. The way Norbert threw himself at her and licked her beaming face confirmed it.
“My darlings!” Still swamped in giant dog, Lady Flora Pendleton opened her arms to the three dark-haired cannonballs rushing toward her, with happy tears running down her pretty face. “Oh, how I have missed you all!”
Behind her, a similarly beaming and distinguished gentleman caught Grace and tossed her in the air before he hugged her tight.
With a lump in her throat and feeling like a spare wheel, Georgie kept her distance from the emotional reconciliation until Lady Flora glanced her way, then tilted her head when she noticed her watching. “Hello?”
“My lady.” She bobbed a curtsy. “I am Miss Georgina Rowe. The temporary governess your brother hired to help him look after the children in your absence.” The word temporary physically hurt as she choked it out because it decisively stamped the end on this chapter of her life.
“I must say, you are not at all what I expected.” Lady Flora’s smile was warm, friendly, and curious. “When I learned my stickler of a baby brother had hired a governess, I imagined a fierce, humorless old maid with slate-gray hair and beady little spectacles.” She chuckled in disbelief. “I never in a million years expected him to employ someone who looks as personable as you. Is he ill?”
“He was desperate,” said Georgie, smiling back, already liking Harry’s sister a great deal, “and beggars cannot be choosers.” Noticing that Lord Pendleton was trying to organize their baggage with the coachman and needing something to do to prevent the tears prickling her eyes from falling, she rushed to his aid. “Why don’t you leave me to sort all that out while you catch up with your offspring? I know they have a million things to tell you. We have all had quite the month.”
It was certainly one that Georgie would never forget.