Chapter Thirteen #3
His playfulness slipped a moment, and there was something about his countenance that tugged at Georgie’s chest. It happened so quickly, for a moment she thought she’d imagined it.
He led her away, through the crowd, toward a table where a pair of gentlemen were engaged in what looked to be an intense game of backgammon. Watching over them was one of the staff—a tall thin woman dressed in male clothing. Around her neck was a red cravat.
“Excuse me,” Tom said, gesturing to her scarf. “We are in search of just such a garment for this game.”
“Please,” Georgie said. “I shall return it as soon as the hour chimes three.”
“I can give you mine in its stead,” Tom said, giving the lady his warmest smile.
“Very well,” she said, then began untying her cravat, and placing it in the basket, before accepting Tom’s.
Georgie’s excitement at seeing the first item in her basket was interrupted by the flash of his open collar, and the exposed skin at his throat.
“Well,” she said, turning away, perfectly aware of the heat creeping up her cheeks. “That’s one.”
“Another twenty-nine to go,” he replied, giving her a sly smile. “And then you get to pick your husband.”
Was that expectation she heard in his voice? Or just her imagination. Whatever it was, it made her heart do a little flip inside her chest.
Not long after the cravat, they added a lorgnette from one of the ladies involved in a rather intense game of whist, a fan with a painting of two hounds in the ladies’ cloakroom, and a yellow glove, courtesy of Georgie herself.
There were several items that took no time at all.
A man’s pocket watch. A pink hat with a pearl top.
Some were more scandalous. A lady’s garter.
Those they collected quickly, adding to their total.
In the garden they found a sprig of rosemary and a bird made of blue and white Dutch porcelain.
They moved through the ladies’ gallery and the cloak room, and Georgie was pleased to see the list was halfway complete before the first hour was done.
She was feeling quite optimistic about her prospects, until they’d reached the more difficult items on the list.
A book that references the moon in chapter two.
“Where would we find books? I imagine Mrs. Dove-Lyon has some, but her office is out of bounds,” Georgie said.
“There are books in the gentlemen’s study,” he said.
“And the ladies’,” she replied. “Where do we look?”
“Your prize,” he said. “Your choice.”
Tom cocked an eyebrow, then offered his arm.
Expectation crackled in the air, and Georgie berated herself for hesitating even a few seconds.
It was only an arm, for heaven’s sake. An arm covered in linen and wool at that.
Still, the moment she took hold of him, the sensation of solid muscle mixed with the scent of his perfume, it would have been so very easy for him to lead her anywhere.
“Let’s try the gentlemen’s,” she said.
He led her down a labyrinth of corridors to the gentlemen’s study, the scent of tobacco and leather greeting her as they walked in.
It was empty save for a gentleman behind the bar.
Several large bookcases lined the walls, and Georgie’s excitement began to crest as she was confronted with the prospect of searching hundreds of volumes.
“This is going to be impossible,” Tom said, similarly scanning the shelves next to Georgie, nodding at the list in her hand. “We could look for a hat pin with a bird on the end. Surely to heaven that would be easier.”
She rolled her eyes. “That is literally looking for a needle.”
“But this is not a haystack.”
“We have to find a book referencing the moon,” Georgie said, releasing his arm to examine one of the shelves up close.
She ran her fingers along the spines, studying the gold print along some of the spines.
“There might be something here on astronomy don’t you think? Galileo maybe? We could start there.”
“Could be poetry,” he said. “The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur’d.”
She smiled. That he still enjoyed poetry pleased her. He’d always been the more romantic one of the two.
“We could split up, and I could go to the ladies’ quarters,” she said. “I believe there are some volumes there as well.”
He looked down at her, his expression unreadable. “Are you so eager to leave me?”
The melancholy landed like his tone—soft, yet brittle. It left her feeling much the same.
“You are the one who left,” she said, speaking as matter-of-factly as she could manage. Would that old hurt ever leave her?
Without his cravat, she could see his throat swallow back any emotion he did not wish to betray. “What choice did I have?”
“You are a man, Tom,” she said with a sigh. “And a steward’s son. You had choices.”
“You told me that I had no chance. That I had overstepped my boundaries.”
“I had no choice,” she said.
He opened a book, idly looking through the pages. “You could have come with me.”
“And do what?” she said. “Do you have any idea what my father would have done to your family if he’d discovered you had made an offer for me? If I’d gone off with you?”