Chapter 10 #2
“There have been some developments in the case I am investigating, new very important questions,” he said very quietly. “We need answers, and it is my job to find them as soon as possible.” His smile grew sad. “My boat leaves in two days.”
Her first instinct was to tell him not to worry. That she would take care of everything. That she could handle whatever needed to be done while he was gone so he could face his task with a clear head and heart. It was, after all, what she had always done. What had always been expected of her.
Not this time, she decided. She might do as she always did—she would, of course—but she could not think of one reason to sound happy about it. It would serve him right if she told him exactly what she thought. At the top of her voice. While dragging her fingernails across his face.
She never would, though. She was too well-trained.
But oh, for a seething hot minute, she was tempted.
“What?” he nudged, his expression just a bit whimsical.
She scowled, wishing she didn’t already like him.
But what could she do, really? What could she ever have done?
“Husband, I believe it is past time to drink a surfeit of champagne.”
He dropped a kiss on her forehead and one on her knuckles. “Wife, I believe I will join you.”
Grey was assured that the wedding breakfast was a classic Packham celebration.
If that was true, he was shamefully grateful he was escaping in two days.
He couldn’t imagine how Georgie not only withstood the cacophony but seemed to relish it.
She had children crawling all over her, at least two older women grilling her about something, and house staff dropping by to check with her about some preparation or another.
Her gleaming mahogany hair, usually so sleek and tidy, was coming a bit undone, and she had what looked like a raspberry jam stain on her beautiful white dress.
And she was laughing. He wasn’t sure he had ever heard her laugh.
And no more than an hour or so earlier he could have sworn she was near violence.
Even so, even with the laughter and gleam in her eyes, oddly enough, she sat there like the eye of a hurricane, the only calm in the room.
The center around which all else spun. It was her special gift, he thought, a sense not so much of tranquility in the madness, but of a lodestone which drew everything to it. He wondered if she even realized it.
He was fascinated by it, by her. He wanted to be pulled into her orbit, to let her calm him as she did the little ones too enlivened by too much sugar and too many co-conspirators to settle.
He wanted to see what that magic could work on a man who had seen and done too much and was about to head off to face more.
He selfishly wanted her to focus all that magic on him.
Was he selfish enough to wish he could convince her that it might be fun to delve beneath that air of calm she wore like a protective cloak to find the furnace beneath?
He knew it was there. He had tasted it on her lips, heard it in the rasp of her breath as they had kissed, traced it with his thumb across the furious pace of the pulse there at the base of her sleek throat.
He could strip that cloak bare; he knew it.
He could waken the sleeping sensuality that had scorched him the two times he had kissed her.
Gods and little green fish, but he wanted to be inside of her.
He wanted to hear her scream his name, wanted…
Grey dragged in a ragged breath and looked off before he gave himself away even to the children. Maybe he could talk her into leaving. Surely, they had spent enough time entertaining all the Packhams. Tossing back his latest glass of champagne, he headed her way.
He’d only made it three steps when a young man stepped into his path.
Blast. Georgie’s brother. It had to be. He had those same green, green eyes and that broad forehead.
Thirteen, maybe fourteen years old, his limbs still out of proportion to his thin torso, ankles, and wrists visible beyond the hem of his suit, and shoes completely outsized for his age. He was frowning with intent.
Grey ruthlessly reined in his previous aim. He wasn’t getting to his wife as soon as he thought.
“My lord...” The boy began, his voice balanced perilously close to breaking.
“Grey,” Grey corrected him, trying not to notice that beyond the boy, Georgie had her head back laughing at one of her cousins, baring that delicious white throat. Taunting him without even knowing it.
The boy blinked, assessed, and gave a nod of concession. “Grey. I am Georgie’s brother Harry.”
Dragging his attention back to the task at hand, Grey held out his hand. “Not an archangel?”
The boy’s face cracked into a quick grin as he took it and shook. “No, sir. By the time they got to me they were down to Zachariel, and my mother drew the line. But I am Georgie’s oldest brother here. Our brother Michael is still on the Continent.”
Grey nodded. He knew exactly where brother Michael was.
Harry cleared his throat, took a look at his overlarge shoes, and sucked in a breath. “As the oldest brother here, the duty falls to me to speak to you.”
Grey badly wanted to smile. He knew better. There was nothing more devastating to a young man’s pride than to be laughed at for what he considered to be a serious matter. Quashing his less elevated desires in order to focus on the matter at hand, Grey settled for a single nod.
The boy nodded back, dislodging a thick lock of hair the same color as Georgie’s to fall across his forehead.
He swept it back and took another breath.
“I know the circumstances of this marriage,” he finally said, voice squeaking only a little.
“And I understand the need for expediency, to protect Georgie’s good name. ”
Grey nodded again.
Finally, the boy gathered the courage to meet him eye-to-eye, and Grey was impressed with the determination he saw there. Suddenly Harry Packham looked older than thirteen.
“You haven’t had time to realize how special my sister is,” Harry said.
“Or how her family feels about her. But since Michael isn’t here, I am the one who will tell you that if you hurt my sister in any way, physically, emotionally, or mentally, I will probably not act the gentleman about it.
” He shrugged. “I’ll probably kill you.”
It was Grey’s turn to blink in surprise.
Not a thirteen-year-old at all. Not only for the excellent defense of his sister, but the suspicion that he really meant what he said about killing Grey.
Grey had survived the last ten years by making lightning assessments of situations and characters.
Without a doubt, he knew this minute that Georgie was so precious to this boy that he would act without any remorse at all.
And probably do it with a fair bit of competence.
“Harry,” he said, quite seriously. “You are quite right. I haven’t had the time to learn what I want to know about your sister.
But I do know that it will be my greatest honor and pleasure to spend my life correcting that lack.
I am already awed at her devotion to you all, her good sense, her humor, her patience.
If I do hurt her, I will deserve whatever punishment you mete out. ”
If he thought that would be the last of the threats, he was as wrong as assuming he could winkle his wife away for some time alone.
One by one, various children waylaid him and promised dire retribution if he hurt their Georgie.
Then the aunts, an uncle named Samson Packham, who evidently was married to Lady Charlie’s mother, Lady Clevedon’s intimidating twin, and who ran the estates—who also had a bad habit of slapping a fellow on the back and smiling while mentioning shooting accidents—the twin aunt herself who just glared, and finally both of the other kings.
“Don’t bother,” he told Georgie’s cousin Charlie, his hand up. “I’ve already been threatened by everybody here but your mother’s pug.” He motioned to the bright hue of her hair. “If that is any indication, at least three of them belonged to your family.”
She gave him a gimlet glare. “So long as you got the message.”
If he hadn’t by the time he’d gone through all hundred-twenty-seven Packhams crowded into these rooms, Georgie’s mother came along to put a coda on the message by patting him on the cheek like one of her children.
“You’ll do fine,” she assured him with that serene smile of hers. “Fine.”
He couldn’t help it. “Because if I don’t?”
Her smile grew wider and less serene. “We’re not called the Mad Packhams for nothing.”
He had already figured that out. There was nothing left to do but nod and smile.
He finally ran out of patience, lobster patties, and champagne and headed over to dig Georgie out from under the various Packham progeny. Evidently he had one more confrontation to make it through, though.
He had set his champagne flute down on a table by the back doors where he could envision escape, when a boy of about seven marched up to him as if on parade, holding the hand of a wide-eyed little girl in a spring-green dress.
“I’m Geoffrey, sir,” he said with a very adult bow, which Grey found himself returning. “This is my sister Emily. You were with the First Royal Dragoons?”
It took Grey a second to follow the sudden shift of subject, even as the dark-haired little boy bounced a bit on his feet and young Emily watched with wide eyes as she sucked her thumb.
Grey accorded the young man every dignity. “I still am for a bit, yes.”
“And you were at Torres Vedras and Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz?”
Grey wasn’t sure whether he was impressed or worried. The boy even had the pronunciations down. “I was.”
The boy’s eyes lit like jack-o-lanterns. The little girl, standing quietly by, sucked that thumb and nodded, as if she knew of what he was speaking.
“Will you tell me of them?” Geoffrey asked, coming up again on his toes. “My brother Michael will not. He won’t talk of any of it, which I consider ever so unfair. I must get all my information from Georgie.”
Grey found he wasn’t surprised by either fact. He didn’t want to talk about it either. And he was quite certain Georgie did know everything young Geoffrey had been taught.
“Horse mad or army mad?” he asked with a small smile.
The boy grinned like a pirate. “I shall replace my brother Michael as the family military man when he has to come home and be earl.”
That almost broke Grey’s composure. He wondered if the current earl knew that his bloodthirsty progeny already had him planted. “I see.”
“I was hoping to speak with someone who had gone up with the Forlorn Hope at Badajoz, but, well…”
“Sorry. Dragoons don’t seem to have the necessary skills.”
Thank a merciful God. He could still hear the screaming.
“What did you do there?”
Grey never would have called the Dowager Countess an angel, but she certainly saved him then.
“Not today, you barbarous little monster,” she snapped, waving her cane at the boy, as if pushing him off. “The Marquess must go now. His bride awaits.”
She gave him a look that said whether he wants to or not. Thank God and little fishes, he thought.
He gave her his best non-threatening smile. “Thank you for letting me know.”
She was scowling, but her eyes twinkled. “Your girls will stay with us for tonight. Give you two a chance to get to know each other.”
Which meant she already knew about his change of plans. He suspected it would be pointless to ask her how.
More importantly, she was encouraging his time alone with her granddaughter. His body reacted predictably to the offer. Alone with Georgie Packham, the focus of her prodigious attention. Maybe he could convince her of her mistake after all. Maybe she would enjoy a bit of seduction...
He got a swat from the cane across his shins to remind him of his manners.
“Thank you, my lady,” he said with a very proper bow. “I’ll be off then, shall I?”
“Excellent idea. On your way, you might ask Georgianna what she and I discussed the other day.”
Grey was considering a follow-up question, but she was already turning to her young grandson. “Come along and harass your tutor. That’s what we pay him for.”
Reaching down, she took not only young Emily by the hand, but Geoffrey, Grey suspected so the boy wouldn’t go running after him demanding stories.
But the boy surprised them.
“Sir? One more thing.”
Grey stopped just short of sighing. “Yes, lad.”
“Take good care of my sister.”
Good God, did every Packham have murder on their minds? It said something that the dowager didn’t even blink.
“Or you’ll kill me?”
The boy’s grin was complacent. “Oh, no sir. I’m too short. I’d never reach you.”
Grey couldn’t help laughing. “Finally, somebody who is thinking this through.”
The boy shrugged. “I’d put fleas in your bed.”
After that, all Grey could do was look over to his new wife, who was hugging Amelia. “Wife?” he called. “I fear we must leave before your family does me in.”
Considering the fact that the Archangels hadn’t even had a chance to throw in their threats, he wasn’t quite sure he was joking. For the first time he wondered if it might be safer for him in France.