Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
The door slammed shut.
“Why the long face, you rascal?”
George’s head snapped up, but it drooped down again when he saw who it was.
“What are you doing here?” He asked bad-temperedly. “I thought you would be too busy at Lady Johnston’s ball?”
His elder brother strode across the library and threw himself gracefully into an armchair, his legs dangling over one of the sides.
“Well, I had had my fill of dancing by the time young Rebecca came along, and when I discovered she was engaged to dance with young Simon for the rest of the evening, I gave it up as a lost cause.”
George stared at the fire in the grate instead of his brother. When he had told his housekeeper he had wanted to be alone, she had insisted on bringing him a large brandy – and now, it seems, she was perfectly happy to let his brother through to disturb him.
“I want to be alone,” he said, the phrase dull on his tongue, he had repeated it so often that day. “Apologies, Luke, but I am simply not up to company this evening.”
He did not need to look up to see the smirk. “Teresa turn you down, then?”
“What?”
His brother laughed at the swift reaction, and George scowled at him. “Why are you here, really, Luke?”
The Marquis of Dewsbury shrugged. “When I recommend a dearest family member visit a courtesan, dear boy, do you think I am going to let the matter rest there? Oh no, it is my duty to see how the visit went!”
“You just want the gory details,” George muttered, turning his head back to the fire and loosening his cravat from his neck.
Luke grinned. “You bet I do.”
George rolled his eyes. It had been exactly this way when they were children: George desperate for solitude in a house thronging with people at all times, and Luke had relished teasing his little brother.
“I have no wish to talk about it,” he muttered as a log fell in the grate. “Please, Luke. I . . . I am not feeling well.”
Luke stood up lazily, and looked around the room for the brandy. Finding nothing but a whisky decanter, he strode over and started to help himself. “Now then, that sounds a little like lovesickness, if you ask me.”
George did not answer. All he could hear was Florence’s words ringing in his head: “I cannot change my plans simply because I got lost with you, and neither can you, I see that.”
What had he done – had he thrown away the best chance of happiness he was ever to see, and just for the sake of propriety?
“Your silence suggests I am right.”
George shook his head as Luke made his way back to his armchair, but as he sat down, he affixed his younger brother with a rather more serious look.
“You did not fall for Teresa, did you? You have to understand, George, you are just one of many for her, and you cannot – ”
“It is not her,” George intercut.
Luke stared at him for a moment. “Then – by God, then who?”
The flames seemed like a much safer place to look, but each tongue of fire that crept up the grate reminded George of the locks of hair that flowed freely across the mattress when he had laid Florence down, completely naked, ready for him, welcoming him in.
It was too much. He turned away, and saw his brother had a look of genuine concern on his face.
“George, you know you can confide in me,” Luke said quietly. “I know I jest worse than the Regent himself, but we are brothers.”
George snorted. “Not that that has meant much to some people.”
His brother rolled his eyes. “Enough. It is time you, Tom, and Harry started to have a conversation about that, but this is not the time. Tell me about her.”
There was no way to prevent it. George smiled as he remembered that ridiculous meeting, of her tottering over the edge, almost falling into the Thames – of the mob that grew after their fight, of the flight around the docks, and finally, getting hopelessly lost and finding shelter in the smallest of rooms, that would soon hold the greatest of joys.
“Her name,” he said eventually, “is Florence. I met her at the dockyard, whilst looking for Teresa – who, by the way, is almost impossible to find.”
“It does not appear to have prevented you from an interesting evening,” remarked Luke.
George smiled, and finally the happiness and pain that Florence had sparked in him leaked out.
“You know, I think it was the most interesting night of my life. Florence is Italian, you see – fiery temper, do not cross her, take it from me – and we had to take refuge in a . . . well, I think you would call it a hovel.”
“A hovel?”
“It was more of a servant’s room, but it was dank, and small, and yet fit for purpose. All we wanted to do was hide whilst the mob ran out of energy outside.”
Luke stared at his brother as though he had never seen him before. “Good God man, that sounds terrible! Did the Bow Street Runners come and swiftly disperse them?”
George shook his head. “No, we were there all night.”
“This is the most perfect moment I have ever known. I could never have known how this would draw us together. I feel closer to you than I do with anyone in England.”
Luke smiled broadly. “I would never have thought it of you, George; you seduced her, did you not?”
It seemed ridiculous to attempt to lie, so he replied, “Yes.”
His glass of brandy was beside him on a small table, and he drew it to his lips. Perhaps the fire in his throat would distract him from the pain in his chest at the thought of that incredible night.
“My word, but that is – George, I am impressed!” And Luke looked it. Eyes wide open, smile still there, he stared at his brother in amazement. “I never thought you would be the one to tup a girl in an alley!”
“It was not like that!” George said sharply. “Florence is no girl you pick up off the street, she is practically a lady in Italy – and it was not an alley. Florence is – speaking with her was like no one else I have ever . . . do not speak of her like that.”
Silence fell between them for almost a minute as the two men stared at each other; one angry and hurting, the other merely intrigued.
And then Luke’s smile faltered. “Oh, George. You fell in love with her.”
“Is it any wonder?” George said stiffly. “I tell you, England does not hold the like. She is everything I could ever – witty, passionate, beautiful, Luke, so beautiful that at times it hurt to look at her. And when we made love . . .”
His voice trailed off as his eyes were dragged, unconsciously, back to the fire. It was almost like looking at her, that untamed fire.
“So when will I meet her?” Luke asked jovially. “Before the wedding, I hope.”
A sharp pain stabbed through George’s heart again, and he sighed. “You will not be meeting her.”
“Oh, now come on, George, I promise I will keep my hands to myself!” Luke’s protestations fell silent as he watched his brother’s face. “There is not going to be a wedding, is there? God’s teeth, George, what did you do?”
“What did I – what did I do?”
“You cannot tell me you did not offer marriage.”
George flushed. “It was not – it was a great deal more complicated than that, Luke!”
His brother swore quietly under his breath. “George, you meet a woman who you say is your ideal match, you spend a supposedly heady evening of lovemaking and conversation, and then you abandon her at the docks the next morning and come home to be morose?”
“I told you, ‘tis complicated,” George returned, glancing at his brother as he said, “At this very moment, she is on a ship to Italy.”
Luke sighed and shook his head. “I would have thought you could stop her, if you had wanted to.”
George flinched at the memory of his own words. “Of course I would like it if you stayed, but you must make the decision for yourself.”
“No, I do not think so,” George said firmly, and the lie bit into his soul. “She was determined to go.”
Luke took a large gulp of whisky, and then affixed his eyes on his brother.
“George Northmere, you absolute fool. Any woman willing to open herself up like that – emotionally, yes, as well as with her body – is worth keeping. Worth pursuing. You know where she is, and you know where she is going. What the devil are you doing here?”
Florence’s lungs were filled with salty air, but the headache that had dogged her all day persisted, and she raised a heavy hand to it as she looked out across the sea on the deck.
Surely it would disappear soon; perhaps when they were in open waters. She had not realised just long the Thames was, how much time it would take for them to reach the ocean. Even now, they were still hugging the coastline of this wretched country.
“Where are we?” She asked a passing shipman, who bowed his head before he answered.
“Just outside Dover, my lady, picking up some supplies before we head out to sea.”
He did not stay long enough for her to question him further, but his words were sufficient. Dover for supplies, and then Italy bound: as far away from Lord George Northmere as it was possible for her to be.
The thought of him wrenched her stomach, and she drew her pelisse around her more tightly. Try as she might, it seemed absolutely impossible to ignore the frequent thoughts that led her back to him.
Perhaps if he had been less handsome. Perhaps if he had been more sure of himself; a brute, rather than a man with great sensitivities, obvious compassion, and a clear desire for her.
For every part of her.
Florence shook her head. This was madness, madness! He had said one true thing in that terrible argument on the dock: they had only met days before, and who decides to marry a person they had only just met?
An image of herself in her favourite blue gown at the church steps with George, beaming at her, standing in a high waisted jacket and top hat, flashed through her mind.
Her traitorous heart leapt. No, that was beyond unlikely. Had she not essentially asked him to marry her? A shameful thing – and if she was honest with herself, far more like her mother than she would care to admit.
“You feeling well, my lady?”
The gruff voice of the captain sounded behind her, and Florence turned to smile wanly at him. “Quite well, thank you. A little headache perhaps, nothing more.”
He grunted, and joined her in leaning at the handrail of the deck. “ ‘Tis a beautiful sight, Dover. I am not surprised you wanted to see it; last look at home, that is.”
“Your home, signore,” Florence said with a smile. “My home is before us.”
The captain nodded. “Aye, I remember now. ‘Tis a shame you cannot find a home here, in England; best place in the world, if you ask me, and I have seen rather a lot of it in my time.”
Florence smiled. The patriotism of Englishmen was indeed to be found the world over. “I have not found much joy in England, sadly.”
The arching of her back, the slow but steady movement of his hands, the tingle of his fingers as they caressed her body –
“Now that is a real shame,” came the captain’s voice, breaking into her memories.
“Yes,” said Florence, hardly listening now. The memories of George’s words were echoing in her mind still, but now she came to think of it, they were more full of love than she had noticed at the time.
“I am asking you to stay.”
The way he looked at her: hungrily, and not just for her skin but for her mind. Those conversations, baring themselves to each other, far more naked and vulnerable than when he had gently taken her into his arms and made love to her.
“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever known.”
And if she was honest with herself, Florence knew the emotions stirring in her own breast were not just pain, and hurt, but care, and devotion, and . . . love.
She loved him. She loved the deep emotion he felt, she loved the wit that sparkled when he felt sure of himself, and she loved the awkwardness he descended into when he felt wrong-footed.
She loved Lord George Northmere – she loved him, and she was standing on a ship about to take her hundreds of miles away from him!
“Captain,” Florence said quickly, turning to her companion. “I – I have to stay. I need to stay here, in England. I do not want to go to Italy anymore.”
And that was the truth. Her joy was all in England, and what did she have in Italy: memories, painful ones at that, and family stories. She could not live with stories, and stories would not make her happy.
Nothing and no one could make her as happy as George.
“Ah, ‘tis like that, is it?” The captain smiled at her. “I must warn you, my lady, this is the last ship going to Italy I know of for many months. If you disembark now, it will be many moons afore you have the chance again to – ”
“I will take that chance,” Florence said firmly. “I was completely lost when I boarded this ship, but now . . . now I know exactly where I need to be.”
There must have been something in her gaze that convinced him, because the captain nodded slowly and barked out an order immediately acted upon.
“‘Tis a long way back to London,” the captain said hoarsely as he stood with her on the Dover dock, handing over her luggage. “Are you quite sure you know the way?”
Florence beamed. “Not the faintest idea, I am afraid, but I am sure someone will be able to point me in the right direction. I cannot be lost, really. I will find him.”