Chapter 12
Keaton slammed the library doors behind him and stood with his back to them.
He let his head fall back and closed his eyes.
Of course, it was a redundant gesture, but he still felt the need to do it when he was tired or overwhelmed.
The smell of old paper, glue binding, and leather covers suffused the air.
Overlaid on them was the gloss of varnish on wooden tables, floor, and bookshelves.
Polish was the next layer, and finally, the tang of wood smoke from the large fireplace.
He savored the deep silence. A cabinet clock ticked in one corner of the room, and the fire cracked and spat. But otherwise, there was a deep silence.
“Thank you, great-grandfather, for building this library out of stone and as a separate wing to the rest of the house. Thank you for my cathedral of solitude,” his half-whispered, half-breathed words were a solemn prayer to his ancestors.
He pushed away from the doors and strode confidently into the room, putting out a hand to touch a table, then a bookcase, knowing where each would be and gratified to find them exactly where they should be.
Miss Roseton has clearly not had the chance to find this room yet and rearrange it.
Thoughts of Georgia brought the bitter taste of regret. He frowned, and, as his concentration was disrupted, bumped into a chair.
“Damnation!” he roared, almost falling.
He kicked out, sending the chair screeching across the old wooden-block floor. Then he stood, breathing hard between gritted teeth, trying to recover his equilibrium.
“That damnable woman is too far under my skin,” he muttered, taking deep breaths.
It was not her presence in the house that was so distracting. It was the prospect of her absence that had disturbed him. It should not. There should be a sense of relief and anticipation of a return to the status quo. It bothered him that he was reluctant to return to that so soon.
Georgia’s appearance in the room was presaged by the sound of her hurried footsteps. Keaton sighed, hearing her trundle toward the library. He turned to face the doors and counted his last few seconds of silence before they were thrust open with the force of a gale.
“Oh, there you are! Keaton, I have received a letter from my cousin Amelia Vexley at Silverton Hall. She has asked for my help. I must go to her at once.”
Keaton frowned. “We are to dine with my uncle this evening. He has passed on the invitation to you, no?”
“Then you will have to apologize. This is more important.”
He jerked his head back. “It is most certainly not.”
He heard Georgia come closer, followed the sound of her footsteps, then heard her voice.
“How can you say that?” she demanded, a note of stridency in her voice.
“Because it is true?” He was genuinely perplexed. “She lives with her mother and father, does she not?”
“Well, yes, she does.”
“And do they pose any risk to their daughter? Might they harm her in some way?”
There came no reply from Georgia, but he could imagine that she was shaking her head.
“I cannot see non-verbal gestures,” he said, testily.
“No,” Georgia said sharply.
“Then what trouble can she be in? Is she at home?”
“Yes! But I cannot know until I go and talk to her…”
“Out of the question. We will dine with my uncle in a few hours. There will be a select handful of others present, and we will have the chance to repair the damage from the fallout at the White Conduit House.”
“I am not going to dinner with Lord Swinthorpe,” Georgia insisted.
“We are,” Keaton followed her voice, confident he was directing his replies to her face.
She sounded like she was pacing. He thought for a moment and oriented himself, then strode to a chair and sat. He was inch-perfect, which gave him some satisfaction. Georgia, however, was harder for him to keep track of, and it began to irritate him.
Does she not appreciate how one holds a conversation with a blind man? I do not expect her to know without learning, but she has had plenty of opportunities. Is this insolence or rebellion, perhaps?
“Will you keep still!” he finally snapped.
“When I am agitated, I pace,” she replied quickly.
Then he heard the sound of a chair scraping across the floor before being thumped down in front of him. She sat.
“Why do you refuse?” she asked from close by.
There was no perfume now, merely the clean smell of soap. It was somehow even more alluring, and Keaton sat back, trying to keep his mind focused and sharp.
“Because you and I have a task to perform. We made an agreement.”
“We did. Does it still hold, or do you wish to go back on it?” she challenged.
“I am willing to uphold my part of the pact and have Aloysius Thorne take on the job of discovering your brother’s fate.”
“Are you, though? Your uncle seems to think differently.”
“That is not what he said.”
“What he said? How do you know what he said to me and when?”
Georgia suddenly sounded suspicious. Keaton sighed, running a hand over his forehead.
No, I owe her nothing. I do not need to reveal secrets any more than I must allow her into my heart. Damnation, but how does she always contrive to smell so intoxicating?
It served as a powerful distraction, making Keaton aware of her body, of Georgia as a woman. She was out of his sight, but he could not put her out of his mind.
“It is irrelevant what my uncle thinks. Only what I think. I am Duke.”
“And your word is law.” She had a tone of mockery in her voice.
“Yes,” he snapped.
“You cannot stop me from going to Silverton,” she started.
“It is evening. You could walk, but it is a long way and the roads are unsafe after dark.”
“I will take the risk to help my cousin.”
Her voice was suddenly closer, forcing Keaton to orient himself to her new position. He fought a flash of irritation.
“I cannot allow you to do that. It is out of the question.”
“Try and stop me.”
He heard her footsteps moving away; the smell of the soap lingered in the air, tantalizing, a memory of the woman who had moments before stood so close that he might have touched her.
“Fine. If I accompany you to Silverton, will that satisfy you?” he conceded with a sigh.
The footsteps halted. Keaton heard the swirl of a skirt; she had turned back to him.
“Yes. And I will attend the dinner with Lord Swinthorpe on our return, assuming all is well with Amelia. But if all is not well…”
“We will burn that bridge when we come to it, I assure you.”
Georgia laughed. The sound had a musical quality but also a husky note that Keaton found very attractive.
It communicated a knowingness that was appealing in a woman, speaking of an awareness of feminine mysteries.
Not that he had any reason to think of Georgia as being worldly, but the notion was an alluring one.
“Then we will go at once,” he said, decisively, “let us get this nonsense over with.”
He strode across the room, his mind sharpening as he recalled the layout and steered himself unerringly around furniture.
A part of his mind heard Georgia breathing, expected her to be standing, waiting for him to approach, and judged the opportune moment to stop and raise his crooked arm.
Her hand slipped through it, and she chuckled.
“Something funny?” he asked, coldly.
“Your performance. You ought to be on the stage.”
Keaton started for the door, stopped a yard from it, and reached for the bellpull to summon a servant. He stepped through and waited for the summons to be answered.
“You mock the hard work of a blind man to adapt himself to his environment.”
“Oh, please. You must at least admit you were simply flaunting just then,” Georgia protested.
“I do not… flaunt,” Keaton replied with ice in his tone.
He did not like even a hint of mockery, and Georgia could have a very irreverent tongue in her head at times.
Keaton sensed the approach of a servant and recognized Rutherford by his particular gait.
He waited for the butler to hail him and then became annoyed at himself.
The only reason he had not addressed Rutherford by name before the man identified himself was to avoid further comment by Georgia.
I must put her in the proper place. It is wrong that I am conscious of what I do or say now. She is a wife of convenience. Not a true wife. A very inconvenient wife, in all honesty…
Again, the thought occurred to him that he could rid himself of the inconvenience at the cost of prolonging the scandal from that evening at Almack’s. Again, as he had done in his conversation with Edric, he delayed the decision, pushing the thought aside.
“Ready the carriage to carry Her Grace and myself to Silverton Hall at once,” he ordered.
“Thank you,” Georgia whispered as they walked to the front door of Westvale Manor, Rutherford having departed to carry out his master’s orders.
“I merely wish to end the argument and procure your cooperation.”
“And I am grateful.”
“Then all I ask is that you recall that gratitude when it is required this evening.”
Again, that low laugh. Keaton heard his own words, recognized the double meaning. The sound of the carriage wheels told him the conveyance had arrived outside. He smiled despite himself.
“That was not innuendo,” he whispered, lips twitching.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Georgia replied with a smile in her voice.
As the carriage began its journey, Keaton winced at a particularly brutal bump. Georgia gasped as another jostled them. The cushions were old and thin—the braces intended to cushion the ride were not as effective as they had been when new.
Keaton braced himself with a hand on the roof and put an arm about Georgia instinctively to protect her from excess movement.
“My best carriage was the one that suffered the accident today,” he explained, “this one has not seen service since my father’s time. It is less than ideal.”