Chapter 13 #2
She finally was able to grin. “My little sister named her. Said she looked like a Lucy, although I’m not quite sure how a bay Arabian mare translates to Lucy.”
“Probably an easier name for her to remember. Anything else of great import?”
She couldn’t be anything but honest. “Not that I can think of right now. Will you be able to trust me to make the best decisions while you’re gone?”
This time his smile was gentle. “I would not have married you and trusted you with our girls if I didn’t, Georgianne.”
“Georgie,” she instinctively retorted. “The only time I’ve been called Georgianne is when I’m in trouble.”
He nodded. “I’ve already sent the notice to my banker so he knows you are to draw on my account.
All bills are to be sent to him. I’ll give you all the pertinent information when we go back home tomorrow.
Both the lawyer and estate agent will stop by as well so you may meet them. Will that suffice?”
For a moment she was swamped with a feeling of panic.
Was she really ready for this? Certainly she took on much of the responsibility of running her own house, but this was different.
There she had the support of well-loved staff, who watched out for her and filled in when she couldn’t manage everything.
Could she truly walk into an established household that was going through its own upheaval and not fall flat on her face?
She didn’t have a choice, did she?
Doors were closing in again, even as they opened, and she fought that feeling of suffocation.
But then he reached across the table and took her hand. Just that. And he smiled, that wonderful warm smile that lit his eyes and offered his complete support.
“We have time, Georgie. Whatever doesn’t happen now, we can manage when I get back. And that is when we can focus on you. All right?”
She battled the sting of tears. He was such a good man. He was trying.
She nodded and squeezed his hand back. And knowing that they had a meal to finish, turned back to what Georgie was certain was a delicious dinner.
Georgie decided she was very proud of herself.
She made it all the way through dinner without decorating her dress in the food she might have dropped from distraction.
She even managed to thank the staff for a lovely dinner, leaving them smiling.
Leaving her blushing, as she strongly suspected that they considered themselves responsible for the coming evening.
She even let Grey lead her away from the table, her hand on his arm and his other hand covering it.
“Why do I suspect that if we do not go immediately upstairs, we will severely disappoint the Wrens?” Grey whispered as he led her from the room.
Georgie was able to smile. “It is difficult enough to be responsible for my own success. I am not so comfortable being responsible for theirs.”
He leaned closer so that she could catch the wind-and-sea scent of him. “What about mine?”
She almost tripped. “I imagine you’ll let me know.”
That made him laugh. “I believe we will do very well, Georgie.” That statement would not have been so evocative if he hadn’t been stroking her hand as he said it, if he hadn’t matched his pace to hers as they neared the stairs.
Georgie couldn’t help herself. She grinned up at him. “I’ll let you know.”
She was coming to count on that soft rumble of laughter in his chest. She found herself wanting to lay her hand against it, just to feel the vibrations, to lay her head against it to better hear it. To hear it and his heart, which she realized was accelerating again.
“I believe, lady wife,” he murmured, guiding her up the stairs, “that we might save the arbor for another day. I have an overwhelming hankering for acting like I’m at Gunter’s. The staff might not understand.”
She wasn’t sure she did. It didn’t matter.
His words set off a firestorm inside. The growl of his voice settled low in her belly where those new sensations had been plaguing her.
She was so tempted to ask him what they were.
He already knew she was inexperienced. Surely he would understand her trepidation.
In the end, she couldn’t. She simply nodded and climbed the stairs toward the small bedrooms they had been allotted.
“You might want to send your maid to dinner herself,” he said. “Braxton will surely keep her company.”
Well, there went her breath again. Too clearly she could see what that would mean. “You sent him away?”
“I have long since learned to disrobe all alone. Besides—” He leaned closer again, spilling chills down her neck. “I suspect we can manage quite well without them.”
And all Georgie could do was nod again. More than her palms were suddenly damp. Her breathing had gone a bit short. And Grey kept stroking her hand, back and forth, back and forth, sending shivers racing up her arm and beyond, even making her breasts pucker.
She came so close to asking if they couldn’t postpone the next few moments. So close. But then they reached the door to Grey’s room, and he turned to her.
And he smiled. And that smile took the rest of the stuffings out of her knees.
“Don’t tell me you are nervous,” he said, that smile melting more than her knees.
It seemed pointless to lie. “Dreadfully.”
He lifted her hand and kissed it. “Then we’ll have to do something about that. Since you’ll be letting your woman go for dinner, don’t you think we can help each other from now on?”
What exactly was she supposed to say? “Can I help you first?”
That widened his grin nicely and deepened the anticipation in her chest that felt like dread.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
She was amazed at how quickly he set up the next act of this little play.
Stepping into Georgie’s room, he smiled at Minta and suggested she look for Braxton in the servants’ hall.
Then, after Minta had received Georgie’s permission by way of a mute nod and retreated toward the servants’ stairs, he guided Georgie into his room.
Well, Rob Glenn’s room, which was decorated in an aggressively masculine theme of oak paneling and dark blue walls filled with paintings of birds.
Oddly enough, it seemed that the birds were watching them and weren’t happy about the intrusion.
Georgie looked around and shook her head. This was going to be stressful enough.
“Why don’t we move on to my room instead?” she asked.
Grey gave one last distracted look around and reclaimed her hand. “Unless it’s all pink ruffles, it has to be better than this.”
It was better. In fact, it was very nicely decorated in soft spring greens, blues, and rose. It soothed rather than challenged. Georgie led Grey inside and let him close the door.
“Much better,” he pronounced with a decisive nod. “Now I can focus on more important things than whether that heron back there will poke me in the back with his beak.”
Georgie’s giggle was a bit breathy. She still had hold of Grey’s hand and suddenly didn’t know what to do with it. With him. With herself. Her grandmother had assured her she would know what to do. Her grandmother had been wrong.
It was up to Grey to set the tone. He wasted no time doing so. “Would you like the room light or dark?” he asked, lifting his free hand to cup her face.
She swallowed. “I don’t know.”
He leaned down and gently met her lips with his own. “Personally, I would love to enjoy the sight of your loveliness. But as you have said, I’m not brand new to this.”
Another swallow. An instinctive stretching of her neck to welcome his gentle touch. “It feels a perilous decision to make. Can we just move forward and see how we do?”
He dropped another kiss, this longer, more thorough, his hand cupping the back of her head to him as he explored her mouth. “I knew I could count on you for common sense. Do you think we’re wearing too much clothing?”
“I think you could certainly dispense with that tight jacket…maybe your neckcloth?”
Another kiss, this one nudging her lips open a bit to feel his tongue stroking the seam. She was truly having trouble breathing now. And oh, how her breasts ached. Could she ask him to touch them? To hold them so they didn’t feel so suddenly heavy?
“And you won’t mind my loosening the ties at the back of your dress?”
She shook her head. He smiled and she wanted to lick his lips in return. Instead, she watched him shed that sleek blue jacket and toss it onto a chair before the fireplace. He held out the edge of his neckcloth that trailed out of his arrangement. “Would you like the honor?”
She caught her breath. She had undressed her little brothers.
She had never come so close to a grown man.
Certainly not one who looked intent on swallowing her whole.
Even though her hand trembled, she reached up and took the end from him, and then took the other end, and began to unravel the knot.
As she did that, he reached around her to find her ties.
Too easily, she thought in distraction. Too cleverly. He had indeed done this before.
And then she couldn’t think at all, because she pulled off the line of linen from around his neck to open a V in his shirt.
And there she came across his throat, that same little dip he had sipped from on her.
And below it, curls of dark hair, and oh, she wanted to touch them, winnow her fingers through them to learn their texture.
She wanted to yank that shirt over his head and find out what the rest of his chest looked like.
Was it as muscular as it seemed? Was his belly flat in a way that invited her to explore?
“You can, you know,” he said with that same smile of invitation.
She startled and looked up at eyes that suddenly seemed black and languorous, hot. Mesmerizing.
“Can what?”
“Pull off my shirt. It will have to happen sooner or later. After all, I have your dress and your stays unfastened.”