Chapter 7
Georgie was standing outside the door to the Chinese salon trying to screw her courage to the proverbial sticking post when the sisters’ maid trotted up and took a moment to consider her, head tilted like a curious bird, her hands filled with the ubiquitous knitting she did for the village poor.
“Got yourself in the suds, did ya?”
All Georgie could do was nod. She didn’t need to ask how Preston knew. Preston knew everything almost before it happened.
Preston nodded right back, her greying blonde hair not moving an inch from its ruthless bun.
A comfortably plump fifty, Preston had been assigned to Georgie and her cousins on their seventeenth birthdays when they came down from what she and her cousins fondly called the Last Chance Academy, where they had allegedly learned the basics of being a lady.
Preston’s job had been to polish the edges and watch for trouble.
Too bad she hadn’t been at the ball tonight.
“Is he at least easy to look at?” the older woman asked, considering the door much as Georgie was, as if she could discern his features through wood.
Georgie shrugged. “Compelling,” was all she would allow, even as her heart picked up speed again in anticipation of seeing him. Her ridiculous heart that didn’t know what was good for it.
Blast him.
“Well, you’re not gettin’ anything done standin’ here. Wait much longer and yer auntie will be goin’ in before you do.”
An excellent point.
Taking a last moment to wipe her damp palms against her skirts and draw in a steadying breath, Georgie opened the door and stepped through to find the Marquess standing over by the display case in the corner, hands clasped behind his back, head bent forward, evidently perusing the collection of jade dragons that inhabited the shelves.
“Exquisite,” he said without turning.
She stopped inside the door, hand still on the latch. “My parents are well-traveled.”
Finally, he turned, wearing a half-smile. “And you? Are you well-traveled?”
That caught in her chest like a shard of glass. “Not as much,” was all she would admit. She would not tell him of her dreams delayed that involved time on the Continent, the subcontinent, maybe a continent to the west. Dreams she had only recently allowed to crystallize.
“Won’t you have a seat?” she asked as Preston carried her knitting over to the conveniently placed chaperone’s chair by the window.
As if on cue, there was a scratch on the door.
“Come,” Georgie said, approaching the scarlet settee and easing down as if she were practicing etiquette back at school.
The door opened to admit Reems and two perfectly turned-out housemaids laden with tea fixings. Flipping his tails, Coleford sat in the opposing settee and laid his hands on his thighs. Beautiful thighs. Horseman’s thighs. Strong, sinewy hands.
Blast him.
“Or would you prefer something stronger?” Georgie asked on seeing Coleford’s raised eyebrow. She didn’t even wait for an answer. “Reems?”
The butler silently retreated to the corner where her father kept the room’s supply of spirits and measured out a tot of brandy.
Georgie saw Coleford open his mouth to possibly decline and ignored him, focusing instead on the ritual of tea.
A plate of little cakes for him, one for her.
Her own cup of tea prepared to her exact specifications.
At least she could control that, she thought, proud that her hands didn’t shake as she dropped in a lump of sugar and poured in a bit of milk.
She still had no idea what she wanted to say, except that she wanted to tear at his hair and scream epithets for not letting go in time to prevent this. For making that kiss so all-consuming she had found herself in this position at all.
Coleford accepted his snifter from Reems with a nod and waited as the butler ushered the maids out.
Georgie gave her butler a smile. “Thank you, Reems. That was kind of you all.”
Preparing tea at two in the morning. Because they were a civilized family. Reems bowed the maids out, and Georgie took a sip from the cup from the second-best Sevres china.
Coleford took his own sip of brandy, his eyes going wide.
“Your parents traveled to France quite a bit as well?” he asked, lifting the glass to peer into the rich golden depths of the liquor.
He had taste, did the marquess. That brandy was twenty years old.
Georgie wished she had the nerve to pour her own.
“No,” she said. “My second brother is a smuggler and two cousins run guns.”
Well, at least she got his attention. She almost laughed. He actually spent a moment considering her words.
“You can find them plotting their next run up in the nursery,” she finally conceded, taking another sip.
She earned a bark of laughter for it and hated him even more right then for sounding so gleeful and delighted. Because he made her want to smile, too.
“How did you get me alone before your father had his way with me?” he asked.
She took a sip. “I tied my aunt to the servants’ stairs and barred the front door.”
He was still smiling. “Should you be the one I list my assets for then?”
“I know your assets. Two young girls and at least four estates with no money to support any of them. Oh. And ermine robes that are perfectly useless for day-to-day wear.”
“And all my teeth,” he retorted, displaying them for her.
She nodded. “They should come in handy for gnawing on roadside roots and berries when you run out of funds.”
“But….”
He stopped just short of saying what they both knew he was thinking. But he wouldn’t. Not now. Not with her dowry and her portion of Grandmother Breslin’s inheritance. The pressure in her chest swelled.
“Would you like to rail at me now?” he asked, more gently than she could have credited.
Georgie admitted she stared at him. “What?” She even forgot to be polite.
His smile was rueful. It was still breath-taking, damn it. “For what it is worth,” he said, “I’m sorry.” He gave a brief look back at his drink, then faced her again, which impressed her too much. “It is not how I would have had this happen.”
She wished again she could manage to raise a single eyebrow. “This?”
He sighed. “Your aunt neatly removed our options. If we aren’t married, you will be ruined.”
“And how would you have rather it happened?”
He shrugged. “I would have asked you like a gentleman.”
She didn’t even hesitate. “And I would have said no.”
That seemed to surprise him. “Why would you do that?”
For a moment all Georgie could do was stare at him. “Are you truly that arrogant, or simply that oblivious?”
He tried another smile. “I have all my teeth and five houses, actually. One is a horse farm in Ireland.”
“Then you should have proposed to Charlie. I have my own teeth and four houses of my father’s I can visit.”
“Visit. Not be in charge of.”
That got a very dry laugh out of her. “You think so? You have obviously never been the oldest daughter of a busy earl.”
“Don’t you want your own home?”
Down went the teacup. Up went Georgie. She had no idea why. She simply needed to move. She’d forgotten that if she stood so did he. They ended up almost nose to nose.
And blast it, he stood too close. She could feel that odd energy spark again. She was suddenly beset by an urge to get closer. To rediscover that thrumming heat that seemed to live in his hands, his mouth.
She saw his nostrils flare, just a bit; his eyes darkened. So he felt it, too.
“This is not the time to get into the hard facts of women and ownership of homes,” she said. “Suffice it to say that the matter of a home is not high on my list of frustrations.”
“Then what is?”
She glared at him. “You never thought to ask me if I wanted to get married.”
Again, he seemed sincerely bemused. Setting down his snifter, he returned to the fray. “What else is there?”
She couldn’t help it. She laughed. He must have heard that it wasn’t an amused laugh, because he frowned.
She tried to calm herself. “You truly have no idea.”
“Of what?”
She briefly closed her eyes, but that didn’t help. She could still smell him, that sharp pine scent. She could feel him, like standing too near a fire. “How did you come by the marquessate?” she asked.
She seemed to have flummoxed him again. “You know perfectly well. My cousins died.”
“Which means you had no notion of ever assuming the title.”
“Not one.”
“And your father was an army man?”
He was looking completely confused. “Well, he bred horses for the army, but that’s as close as he came.”
She nodded. “Then why aren’t you breeding horses?”
His grin was perfectly comfortable. “I’d be shown out on my ear. To tell the truth, my sister’s husband is better at the task than even my father. My contribution is to ride one of our stallions around and make other officers want a horse just like him.”
“Then how did you end up in the army? Are you the second son?”
“Only son. Four sisters.”
“Then why the army?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been army mad since I can remember. Finished my studies and took my chance. If it weren’t for this blasted title, I’d still be there with the gentlemen of your family.”
She nodded, focused a moment on the darkened windows. “And no one thought to say to you, you are the son of a horse farmer, and that is the only thing you have a right to be until the day you die. Because it is your only choice.”
That seemed to merit silence. He shook his head and took a step forward. “I don’t understand. Are you telling me there is something you’d rather do than marry?”
“Almost anything.”
He opened his mouth and ended up closing it again. “You’d rather be a spinster aunt? I have not heard many positive assessments of that vocation.”
“Most of those women didn’t have a choice. I do.”
“And you’d rather live without a family? Without children?”
She realized she was about to shout. He expected a pat answer. He expected what every man expected to hear. Of course, I want children. Children of my own I can nurture and guide and teach. Heirs, which is what is important.