Chapter 2
Awakening
Ren had to admit to a mild fascination with the crook in Georgiana Harrington’s front tooth, a slight imperfection in an otherwise stunning face.
He’d spent the better part of twenty-four hours, blood still firing in his veins, imagining parting her bee-stung lips and sliding his fingertip across it.
Followed by his tongue. Then, well, the rest.
The unexpectedness of her was tantalizing—when he’d been numb for years.
Watching her fall to her knees before him, damp silk clinging to curves no one in England, or the bloody world, could challenge, her eyes a liquid mix of hazel and gold in the mist as she gazed up at him through the thick sweep of her lashes, left him dizzy for a few seconds.
The truly captivating part was this: she’d been easy, even kind, with Henry.
His son liked her, and had talked of nothing but Lady Georgiana all evening as Ren put him to bed.
He was long used to getting society side-eye for bringing him along, as most people ran in the other direction when they encountered a child at a house party.
But his father had been uninvolved, unloving, truth be told, and Ren had no intention of following that model.
Where he went, Henry followed.
The looming question in his mind? How had he missed this exquisite young woman in the cavalcade trotted before him? A brash chit he believed he’d heard called George.
She looked nothing like a George.
Ren set his cue, frowned at the angle, and struck badly enough to confirm his thoughts were nowhere near the table.
The billiards room glowed amber beneath a row of lamps, their light pooling over green baize and catching on cigar smoke and the rims of abandoned glasses.
Half a dozen gentlemen lingered at the edges in loose knots, their conversation a low murmur beneath the occasional clack of ivory.
Across the way, the party’s host chuckled at the horrid shot with the comfort of a man who knew he was about to win twenty pounds on his game.
Anthony Vale had no title, but he had shipping contracts, foundries in Birmingham, and enough ready capital to make half the peerage swallow its disdain.
His house party was the most popular of the summer season.
Ren, who’d long ago ceased pretending that dignity alone could support a dukedom, had been in business with him for going on two years.
In the process, they’d formed an uncommon yet solid friendship.
And though it was unusual with a wager in place, Ren was elsewhere entirely.
He was out there on Vale’s sodden lawn, on his knees before his unexpected find.
Or she before him. Georgiana Harrington’s bodice clinging with merciless fidelity to breasts a weaker man might have written sonnets to.
That crooked front tooth tucked against her lip.
The shape of her mouth as she laughed. Hell.
He could picture sliding his hand around her ankle, drawing her a step nearer, fitting his palm to the generous sweep of her hip, discovering whether her soft little gasp would turn sharp when he took her mouth with his.
“Are you planning to take the shot tonight, Your Grace, or merely stand there staring holes into the baize until it ignites?”
The remark cut clean through his fantasy. Ren blinked, cue in hand, to find his friend watching him with lazy amusement from the opposite side of the table. A rookery lad through and through, Anthony never referred to him by his title unless he was trying to get a rise out of him.
“Another shot like that and I shall eagerly relieve you of twenty pounds,” Anthony drawled, his pale gray eyes glowing in the lamplight. “Who is she?”
Ren hooked his cue beneath his arm and reached for his tumbler.
Anthony stocked the finest brandy in England, he decided as it rolled down his throat.
He couldn’t believe he was considering mentioning Georgiana when he never discussed such things in crowded salons.
Only chaps with female difficulties did that.
Cheerless chaps, when everyone knew, dukes had their pick.
“Damn, I was joking, but I think you’re really gone off your senses over some chit for the first time in our association.”
Ren stilled, staring into his glass. He could feel the frown tugging on his lips. “Is that a Limehouse way of saying besotted?”
Anthony leaned over the table and pocketed a ball with the ease of an orphan who’d once played to put food in his belly. “I was thinking more along the lines of provoked—of the lusty variety. Besotted makes the situation sound fatal.”
He was provoked; his cock had been at half-mast since the veranda incident.
But this thing with Georgiana Harrington was…
something else entirely. A nagging sense of inevitability lodged low in his spine.
He hadn’t been off-kilter over a woman since Jane.
Which had only lasted until just after the wedding, when he realized she desired the title, not the man.
Becoming a duchess had been her life’s ambition, he’d come to find.
After giving birth to Henry, her affairs had been notorious.
Ren glanced over his shoulder, assessing the room. It was nearing midnight, and the remaining lot were unsteady on their feet. Ardsley was insensible on the settee, his long legs sprawled over the arm; Weatherford looked to be minutes away from the same in the armchair before the hearth.
Ren was a private man, his business his and his alone.
But he valued friendship. A rare gift in their world.
Uneasy with the notion of saying any of it aloud, Ren sipped his brandy and fiddled with his cue until Anthony’s sigh cut through the hush.
“Your silence is killing me, Your Grace.”
“There is someone interesting,” Ren murmured, circling the table before lining up a shot that went wide.
“How interesting?” Anthony studied the angles, and sank one ball cleanly into the corner pocket. Then another. Mercifully, it brought the game to a close.
Ren popped the cue into the rack with a firm snap. “Enough for me to talk.”
Anthony tossed his cue atop the table and strolled to the sideboard.
“This calls for the good stuff.” Fishing a ring of keys from his waistcoat pocket, he unlocked a narrow cabinet and drew out a squat crystal decanter of cognac that had likely cost a small fortune.
Rather than pour it, however, the scoundrel crossed to the window, wrestled the sash open with unnecessary drama, and climbed onto the terrace as if escaping his own house.
A moment later, he poked his head back inside, lifting the decanter in one hand and beckoning with the other.
“On, then. We don’t want those witless pups to hear about her.
She’ll be chased halfway across England if they know a duke’s sniffing around. ”
Even though it was absurd, he agreed. If anyone knew Ren was interested, Georgiana would suddenly be the most sought-after woman at the party.
Swinging out the window behind his host, he found Anthony lounging against the brick balustrade, the bottle braced on his thigh.
Moonlight silvered the terrace flagstones, and the night carried the scent of clipped grass, damp earth, and the nearby garden’s roses.
In the distance, he heard the grating sounds of the pianoforte performance they’d dodged.
His friend held out the decanter without another word.
Ren settled in beside him. The cognac rolled over his tongue like amber fire, rich and impossibly smooth. Certainly the best he’d ever had. “Where did you get this? It’s bloody brilliant.”
“A privateer with loose principles and excellent taste. Better you know no more.” Anthony laughed at the startled expression on Ren’s face and reclaimed the bottle. “Rest easy. I only involve you in the respectable ventures.”
They passed the cognac back and forth until Ren’s head grew murky, and his friend began to hum beneath his breath.
He figured this was as good a time as any.
He’d lay odds neither of them would recall the conversation in the morning.
“I had an interesting encounter with Lady Georgiana Harrington yesterday.”
Anthony’s humming deepened, shadowed by a ragged laugh.
“Do tell, because I’m suffering through a bit of a sluggish streak myself.
Diana left me for that prig Bellington. Claimed she never wanted to wed again, and that our relationship was just the thing, but he asked, and damned if she didn’t accept.
I never figured to get cast aside for a penniless baron with the conversational powers of boiled mutton. I suppose I’m back on the hunt.”
Ren took a generous sip, knowing he was going to be very sorry come dawn. “It’s the damned title they want.”
With a sigh, Anthony lifted his gaze to the darkened sky, stars breaking through the clouds like diamonds set in velvet.
The matter of the late, duplicitous Duchess of Dunmere—who’d died after a short illness years ago—was a sensitive one.
“I keep tabs on the attendees of my gatherings, Ren, mostly for the prospect of future business. I wish I could say there was an ounce of good intention behind it, but there isn’t.
Anyway, beautiful women”—he shrugged, the motion coming off a little lonely to Ren—“are the icing on the cake, pyrotechnics, if you will, and the reason I have such high rates of acceptance among society gentlemen. It certainly isn’t me.
The Harrington chit has a horror of a mother, do you know?
I made the mistake of inviting that old dragon to my masquerade ball last spring and witnessed quite a scene between her and two of her children.
There are four or five of them. Maybe six, an insane number.
Lady George, as she told me to call her, was standing up for her sister, a shy girl I believe has since snagged the Duke of Salcombe.
Guess I felt sorry for her, hence the invite this summer.
And she’s beautiful, so that works with my purposes. ”
Ren growled with more menace than intended, “Spare your sympathy. I saw her first.”
Though of course, he hadn’t.
Chuckling, Anthony reclaimed the decanter only to find nothing left.
“Calm yourself. She’s here to work, believe it or not.
Her late father apparently set each of his daughters to some posthumous task, and Lady George drew the most absurd of the lot—pairing off two poor souls for connubial bliss.
So she’s forever darting about with folios in hand, lurking in drawing room corners, and observing everyone as if she means to rearrange the whole county before Michaelmas.
Looks like a bluestocking when she’s anything but.
She’s a bloody matchmaker. I told her I was delighted to allow her devious plotting if she left me out of it. Matrimony is not for me.”
Ren flattened his hand atop the balustrade to stop the world from shifting on its axis. He hadn’t had this much to drink in ages. “You’re friends. You and Lady Georgiana.”
Anthony turned to him with a crooked smile. “You say that like it’s an impossibility. I’ve female acquaintances. Mostly lightskirts, and the here-or-there mistress, a pretty widow in the village, but I’d say we’re friends of the only-friend kind.”
Well, I don’t, Ren thought, a zing of jealousy pinging through his belly.
When he hadn’t been jealous of Jane. Not once, not ever.
“I can see from the rabid look in your eyes. Gorgeous trouble, my friend,” Anthony drawled, and turned to stretch out atop the cracked brick. His gentle snores rang through the night seconds later.
Gorgeous trouble, Ren repeated as he climbed through the parlor window, ripping his trousers on a loose nail in the process.
The library down the corridor was deserted, the air touched with beeswax and aged, leather spines.
Laughter lived somewhere else in the manse, but not here.
Here, there was only the hush of the room, the glow of banked coals, and Ren, drunk enough to lower himself onto the settee with care and still miss the cushions by a mile.
He stacked his hands on his belly and stared at a dent in the ceiling. He’d not been interested in a woman—really interested—in a long time. Although a fellow duke’s sister was not the place to play. But, God, the girl was stunning.
He’d also never let anyone near Henry before.
No one he’d wanted to devour on sight, in any case.
Nonetheless, he didn’t need a duchess. He was too old for courting, too old for her.
Anthony would laugh himself insensible to hear such nonsense from a man not yet in the ground, but the fact remained.
Ren had performed the matrimonial lunacy dance once and never planned to again.
Georgiana Harrington was bright-eyed, soft temptation, and dangerous possibility, and Ren had no business wanting any part of her.
She’d find someone better, someone who hadn’t given up on love.
Still, if Anthony Vale could be her friend, he could too.
And Ren knew just the couple to set before her, assistance in completing her father’s task.
They only needed a nudge in the right direction, a ducal nudge, as it were, one of the more potent forces in society.
He could offer them up as a tidy solution to her absurd assignment, because it was harmless—and she was the first spark to ignite the air around him in forever.
It was much better to place himself at her side in the clear light of usefulness than stand there and yearn like a fool.
Better yet, it would keep him occupied through what promised to be another deadly dull folly of a summer.
That was as far as he got with his grand plan before sleep overtook him.