But perhaps that was all it had been: a glimpse, a brief moment when two souls had connected. Not enough to draw any declarations of love or, and here her traitorous heart skipped a beat at the very thought of it: marriage.
“Yes,” she found herself saying, “quite safe.”
Ask me to stay, Florence begged him silently. She looked at him, really looked at him: the man whom she had given her heart to, whether she had intended to or not. Here was the man to whom she was completely lost, the man who meant more to her now than anything in the world.
She knew, in her heart, that if he asked her at this very moment not to go, she would stay. After all those weeks of worrying and thinking about whether it was right for her to return – after finally deciding Italy was the best place for her, it just took a few hours with Lord George Northmere to change her mind and heart.
He was not like anyone she knew: sensitive yet strong, protective of her and yet impressed with the fire in her. He had not been able to hide that passion from his eyes; how could she have mistaken it?
A seagull swooped over their heads, and Florence shook hers a little. This did not seem real. Could they really be leaving each other, after such a melding of bodies and souls? Why did he not speak? Did he really have no wish to see her again?
Could two hearts be so entwined as their bodies were, and yet within hours, walk away from each other?
9
“I will speak to the captain for you.” Lord George spoke suddenly into the silence between them, but still did not meet her eye.
She stared at him. Perhaps it was far easier to watch the glint of the sunlight on the water as it rushed towards the dock, than meet her gaze. “Speak – speak to the captain?”
He did not need to look at her, see the furrow of her brow, to hear the confusion in her voice. She could barely hold back, but waited for him to speak.
“I am sure that after a brief conversation, I will be able to broker an agreement, gentleman to gentleman, to reduce your travel costs.”
“Reduce my – my travel costs?” Florence stared at him in confusion. What did he think of her? “My dear man, I am not so poor I cannot afford my own travel: how did you think I was going to pay for it in the first place?”
A breeze blustered through the dockyard, and the shouting of men was deafened for a moment as Florence herself felt deafened by his silence.
“I may not be as rich as you,” she said curtly, and this, finally, seemed to draw his gaze towards her, “but I am quite capable of making my own way in the world, grazie.”
“I did not mean – ” Lord George spoke hastily, but then he cut himself off and stared down at her, a flash of an emotion she did not recognise moving across his face. “I just thought it would be helpful, that was all. It is clear you do not have copious funds, and – ”
“Copious funds,” Florence repeated. “Clear? Sì, quite clear.”
They had only been inches apart, close enough to touch, to embrace, but now she took a step backwards and laughed.
Lord George swallowed, and moved towards her but she continued away from him. “Do not take offence, Florence, not when it is not meant.”
“Miss Capria to you,” she said, and she saw the hurt in his eyes now, a pain deep and yet so far away from her. “Perhaps you are richer than me, bene, that does not mean I need your charity.”
“I just – I thought you were not leaving.” His words were not pleading, nowhere near, but they did contain just a little hint of sadness.
Florence found her heart softening, despite herself. Here, then, was the emotion that had been lacking before. It was still there: that connection they had, that they had experienced so wantonly, that they had relished in just hours before.
She glanced up at him through her dark eyelashes, and saw that heady mixture of strong confidence and self-consciousness. Here was a man, the ideal of the Italian: bold and courageous, with raw emotion threatening to overwhelm at any moment.
“You said last – last night,” said Lord George, drawing closer to her, causing that heart, that treacherous heart, to start beating faster again. “You said you would not leave England. I hoped – thought, I suppose, that you would stay.”
“Stay?” She breathed.
A pressure on her hand: it was his own, and it was resting on hers in a way that made her spine tingle.
“Stay,” he repeated, his dark eyes pouring into hers.
Florence found her breathing was shallow now, and rapid, completely out of her control. Perhaps it was his presence, perhaps the firm grip of his hand that hours ago had been caressing every part of her, perhaps the overwhelming – and welcome – idea that he was asking her to stay.
But was he? She blinked as she considered that handsome face, and tried to think. Had he asked her directly, or had he just . . . said it?
“Lord George,” she said, shakily, “are you asking me to stay here in England?”
She watched him swallow, and her heart slowed once more.
“Staying is certainly an option,” he said in a deep voice. “One that I would like you to consider.”
Florence dropped her gaze. “So you are not asking me to stay. You are merely pointing out staying here is a choice that I could make. Not that you would . . . would like me to make it.”
If only she could see inside past those dark curls, and into Lord George Northmere’s mind. He was thinking, and thinking hard, but his thoughts were so rapid he did not even seem to have the power to transfer them to his tongue.
“It really is your choice,” he said finally. “Of course I would like it if you stayed, but you must make the decision for yourself.”
It was only at that moment, as his words rang in her ears and a few men passed them on their way to their day’s labour, that Florence understood what she had been hoping for.
A proposal of marriage was unlike anything she had expected to receive on that blustery Tuesday, but since last night – since she had opened herself to him, lost all thought of consequence and just laid herself bare to desire; then he must have known what she had wanted. To be with him all the days of her life. To be with him all day and under him every night. To be his wife.
The laugh that she forced sounded hollow and harsh, even in Florence’s own ears. “I will need a great more security before I give up on returning to my homeland, my lord!”
She removed her hands, and the moment was over.
“Security?” Lord George blinked at her, utterly lost. “What kind of security?”
Mio Dio, marriage was so far from his mind than even when presented with it as an option, he was completely lost!
“It is of no matter,” Florence said haughtily, though her throat hurt from trying not to cry. “I will speak to the captain now, and organise my things to be brought here directly. I no longer have any need of your assistance, Lord George Northmere. Good day.”
“Good . . . good day?”
She barely caught his words on this breeze as she had taken three steps towards the ship in question – but where she had hoped to hear remorse, or even (dare she even admit it to herself) words of love, she was to be disappointed.
“You are leaving then? You are actually going?”
Florence turned on her heels and stared at him. “What?”
“I just,” said Lord George, and his voice cracked with emotion that finally met the surface. “I tried to convince myself I was not the reason why everyone left: my parents, my brothers, Honoria. And yet here you are, leaving me!”
“Going, not going, staying, not staying!” Florence almost exploded with frustration. “What business is it of yours? I asked you for your opinion, you refused to give it, and in that moment, you forfeited any right to demand I act in any particular way!”
She stared at him, and noticed his fists were clenched; perhaps in anger, perhaps in frustration, she could not tell. She did not know Lord George Northmere well enough to discern.
Few did. George tried to bottle down t
he confusion and the desperation to keep her with him, and fought the pathetic desire to beg her to remain with him. Had he not said all he could?
“I am asking you to stay.” The words had tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them, and a sense of relief washed over him as he did so. At least now she knew how she had touched his heart.
But for some reason, there was nothing but bitterness on her face.
“Stay. That is all you can offer me, ‘stay’. George, I want . . . surely you can see I want more?”
There was a stain of pink on her cheeks now, and the wind tugged at her hair, drawing a curl across her face that masked her embarrassment.
George stared at her. Could she be asking him to . . . no. “What can you possibly expect of me?” He spluttered. “Marriage? I have known you but one day, what madman does such a thing?”
“It is not so strange,” Florence shot back, and George felt a stirring within him, a flutter of hope, of confusion, of desperate longing and acceptance that he can never have her – a medley of pain and pleasure he could not decipher. “But evidently, no. You do not wish it.”
Now was the moment, George knew, to speak up. To say that throwing caution to the wind and ignoring convention, of finding his hope and happiness in her forever would be his delight, that he loved her.
Loved her. Did he love her? Was this raging passion love, or was it just lust? How could he tell? Could he really commit himself, forever, to a woman he had met less than a day ago, on a hunch?
The flicker of joy in Florence Capria’s eyes died. “I see.”
Panic flooded his lungs. “No – no, you do not!”
“‘Tis of no matter,” she said dully. “I cannot change my plans simply because I got lost with you, and neither can you, I see that.”
George didn’t have the words. “No, no I do not mean – but I also do not mean – Florence, wait!”
The woman that sparked such intense emotions in him was walking away, and in a desperate moment of panic, his hand shot to his pocketbook.
If he could not be with her, at least he could provide for her.
“Here; here take it.” One inelegant movement tried to place a ten pound note into her reticule, but she shook him off.
“Have I not told you before? I do not want your charity.”
Exasperated, he tossed his head. “You know full well I do not intend it as charity, it is more a – a sign of my goodwill, I suppose, from friendship. From gratitude, for last night. . .”
At first, Florence did not entirely catch his meaning. She stood there silently, her hair unpinned and freely flowing down her back like a waterfall, the cold breeze chilling her hands as the realisation of what he meant chilled her heart.
“Your pity and your misplaced gratitude for what happened last night,” she spat, that Italian temper that she saw no reason to hide now rising up through her throat leaving a bitter taste and overcoming her tongue, “are not wanted, my Lord.”
She turned, barely able to see, completely unable to think, just able to feel. The ship seemed to sway before her, or was that her own luggage moving side to side? Was he really trying to –
“Florence!”
But she was on the gangplank now, and she was moving quickly, and the captain’s hands were reaching out and in a split second she was aboard, ready to disappear, ready to leave this wretched island, once and for all.
“I suppose I should know better!” His words rang out into the morning air, and Florence winced to hear the bitterness and hurt in his tones. “No woman of good reputation would ever get lost with me; you must be a courtesan after all! Here, Miss Florence: your earnings.”
And then banknotes, fluttering and cascading in the air, great shrieks and shouts from others walking up the dockyards, and the ship moved, and as Florence was taken away down the Thames she did not look away from the tall man with the strong shoulders and tormented eyes.
10
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 eventuall
y, “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.”
Ravishing Regencies: The Complete Series: A Steamy Regency Romance Boxset Page 7