Thomas Dorrill dismissed the footmen with a negligent wave and gave Georgiana an assessing perusal. His eyes, a rheumy grey and nothing like Ethan’s, made her skin crawl. “She’s a good one, duke’s daughter or not. She’ll do.”
“Leave, Thomas, and don’t come to this side of London again. You don’t belong here.”
“And you do?” Mr. Dorrill gave his grandson an evil half-smile. “Wedding and bedding her won’t make you any better in my eyes, boy. Don’t you forget it.”
“Bastard,” Ethan growled. The muscles of his back and shoulders rippled, his free hand lay clenched against his thigh. The one holding the pistol did not waver.
Georgiana gathered Delilah’s reins in one hand and prepared to slide from the saddle, no matter how inelegantly. She wanted this undesired courtship to end, but not because her suitor was taken up on charges of murdering his own grandfather in the middle of Rotten Row.
“I’ll have my way, boy. You should know that by now.” Thomas Dorrill gave Georgiana a none too respectful bow. “I fear I must go, Lady Georgiana. I am expected at Baron Turnbull’s for luncheon. He and I have business to discuss.” He returned his attention to Ethan. “Clem Peabody will be joining us.”
“Go to hell, Thomas, and don’t spare the horses.” Ethan released the hammer on his pistol and dropped it into his pocket just before he spun on his heel, and stormed to where Pumpkin stood munching grass at the side of the Row. He flung himself into the saddle and scooped up the reins. He rode up to Georgiana, who turned her horse to come alongside his. Behind them, she heard the barouche rumble away in the opposite direction.
“You broke his cane,” Georgiana observed.
“He has others.” Ethan’s tanned face carried a white underglow.
“You really should not have broken it. You might have need of it the next time you fall from your horse.”
“You are a cruel woman, my lady.” The tension went out of him. Most of it. And the pale wash faded.
“I wish you would stop ‘my ladying’ me, sir.” She guided Delilah beneath the shade of nearby trees, not certain why Ethan had decided to venture off the Row on the way back to the gates. He drew his horse closer to hers and raised a hand to capture a few strands of hair that had escaped her smart little riding hat.
“Stop being so damned proper,” he said as he cupped the back of her head and drew her closer, “and I might.”
“Oh,” was all she managed before he kissed her. Fiercely. So fiercely, it knocked her hat askew. Not to mention her thoughts, her sense of balance, and any chance of ladylike indignation. His lips took, they marauded and demanded, and she had no choice save to demand in return. She grasped his face between her hands, nipped at his bottom lip. Something she’d done over and over in her dreams. He groaned, teased her mouth open with his tongue and tempted rather than plundered as she expected. He slid his tongue along hers, then slowly caressed the roof of her mouth, withdrawing enough to suck the cleft of her top lip into his mouth before releasing her as suddenly as he’d begun.
“Shall we join the others?” He maneuvered Pumpkin back onto the hard-packed dirt.
Fortunately, Delilah was all too eager to pace along at the older horse’s side. Georgiana sat stunned, the reins barely held in her gloved hands. What the devil? Her lips tingled. Her entire body sang with a hummed tune of the same phrase again and again, frustrated and lost for what came next. They came upon Abigail, Matthias, and the footman, Dickie, sitting patiently on their horses at the gate leading out of Hyde Park and onto Park Lane. Only then did Ethan turn to Georgiana, a curious expression on his face, half bemusement and half utter confusion. That made two of them.
“Well enough, Captain?” Dickie inquired.
“Aye, Dickie. Take Matthias and the ladies home. I’ll contrive to return Pumpkin to my brother’s stables as quickly as I can.” Ethan turned to Georgiana as if to speak, but she beat him to it.
“Abigail, if you will conduct Captain Dorrill’s two horsemasters home, I shall escort him to his house and bring Pumpkin back to Eleanor’s, after which, Dickie, you may escort Mrs. McCormick to her home and then me to mine.”
“Yes, my lady,” Dickie replied with a great deal of alacrity. He grabbed the bridle of Matthias’s pony and led it out onto Park Lane. Abigail followed, staring hard over her shoulder at Georgiana. The look on her face said it all. Have you taken leave of your senses?
“And who shall escort you from my home back to my brother’s house in St. James Square?” Ethan inquired as they turned their horses down Park Lane toward Grosvenor Street.
“I assume you have a footman or two loitering about your abode, Captain.” She emphasized his rank; needed to do so. Captain Dorrill was a man she might ignore, if she tried very hard. Ethan, however, was another matter entirely. He’d kissed her in the middle of Hyde Park and had he not ended it she’d still be there drinking in the fire and fury that was this man.
“I shall introduce you to my butler and then you can decide how much loitering my footmen are allowed.”
“Formidable?”
“Frightens the hell out of me.”
A street sweeper, a boy younger than Matthias, cleared the way for their horses. His swift use of a sparse broom rid the way of horse droppings and other debris in a trice. The captain tossed him a sovereign.
London came to life in stages, with the subsequent music of life and commerce reaching the bastions of good society last. The street vendors’ cries announced the arrival of their carts long before they were seen. Footmen hurried up and down the pavement in the service of their masters. Maids returned from their early morning visit to the city’s myriad markets. And everywhere, heads turned when Georgiana and the privateer captain passed by. Georgiana did not blame them. Ethan Dorrill was as like the other gentlemen who traveled Grosvenor Street as a lion was to a housecat.
“I doubt much frightens you,” Georgiana offered as they stopped their horses in front of a handsome townhouse. He tossed the reins to the lad who’d appeared as if out of thin air in front of the house and slid out of the saddle, his dismount much improved, though not perfect. He came to Delilah’s side and lifted Georgiana slowly down from the sidesaddle. She braced her hands on his shoulders and kept them there even after her feet touched the pavement.
“Only a fool is never frightened. Or perhaps a madman. Which am I?” Ethan cupped her elbows, exerting barely enough pressure to steady her and draw her ever so slightly closer.
“I shall reserve judgement until I see your house.” The thin, breathy tone of her voice annoyed her.
“My house? What has my house to do with anything?” He allowed his hands, his ungloved hands, to slide down her arms. He grasped one of her hands and settled it into the crook of his arm to lead her through the gate and up the steps to where a staidly attired butler stood with the door open.
“You can tell a great deal about a man from the state of his house,” Georgiana declared as she stepped into the foyer, past the bowing butler.
“Can you, Townsend?” Ethan asked the butler as a footman stepped forward to take Georgiana’s riding crop and gloves.
“Indeed, sir. As I have told you on a number of occasions.” Hands clasped behind his back, posture erect, expression utterly unreadable, the man of middling years and greying hair had no fear of speaking his mind to the master of the house. Georgiana smiled.
“Traitor,” Ethan muttered. “Lady Georgiana, may I make known to you, Townsend, the most opinionated butler in all of London. Townsend, Lady Georgiana, whom I am trying to court in spite of the efforts of everyone around me to thwart it.”
“My felicitations?” The question in Townsend’s tone earned a scowl from his employer. Georgiana decided discretion was the better part of valor. She stepped toward the closed double doors to the right of the foyer.
“May I?” she asked, hands on the door handles.
“By all means.” His panicked expression was almost comical, especially as he turned it on t
he butler, who evinced no emotion at all.
Stepping into Ethan’s downstairs drawing room was akin to stepping back in time. A very clean and polished time. A very worn and crooked time. The few settees, chairs, sofas, and tables carefully arranged about the room would have been the height of fashion—fifty years ago. And true to young Matthias’s statement, many of the pieces had newly carved legs mixed in with the old, which resulted in some items listing as if sinking into the ocean of faded and repaired carpets. Shadows on the rubbed wall coverings indicated where paintings had once graced the walls.
“My grandfather bought the house, but never lived here,” Ethan offered as he stood in the doorway and gave the room a leisurely perusal.
“I can see why,” Georgiana said as she walked past him back into the foyer and climbed the stairs to the first floor. His boots made an awful racket as he ran up the bare marble stairs to catch up to her.
Threadbare Aubusson, which might have once been bright blue, stretched down the main corridor. Georgiana went from room to room, opening doors on some sort of parlor, what might have been a music room if the battered Broadwood grand piano and harp missing most of its strings were any indication, and a dining room containing a three-legged Chippendale dining table and five mismatched chairs. All the while, Ethan strolled next to her in silence. She wanted to know what he was thinking. More than that, she wanted to know why he’d moved into this house and left it in this state—neat, clean, but patched and repaired, as if he deserved no better.
Patched and repaired. A person might live their life in that fashion. No one knew that better than Georgiana.
“Would you like to see the library?” Ethan swept his arm toward the double doors at the end of the corridor. “Or perhaps you’d like to inspect the second floor, where the bedchambers are.” His roguish grin made him devilish handsome. Too bad that grin did not reach his eyes.
Something in her chest began to ache.
“The library will do,” she said briskly and tried her best to outpace him down the corridor. He smelled too good, the mix of horse and leather and some sort of sandalwood soap, teasing her body into a Catherine wheel of sensations and emotions she did not understand. Strength emanated from him, yes, but beneath it something in him called to her, a sorrow and hurt she recognized, for she fought it every day.
He stepped in front of her, his arm brushing her shoulder as he threw the doors open wide. Heat from a cheerful fire wrapped itself around her. Opposite the doors a black marble fireplace and mantel presided over an expansive hearth. Carved gargoyles supported the mantel, made more macabre by the perfectly polished marble. The furnishings matched those in the rest of the house save for a large mahogany desk before a tall stained-glass window at the far end of the room. A tall-backed leather chair sat behind it and two newer, wine-colored, brocade-covered chairs sat before it.
Georgiana stood in the middle of the room and turned slowly in a circle. The walls were lined with bookcases, more than half devoid of books. She walked to the nearest filled shelf and plucked a book from it.
“I don’t think you want to—” Ethan strode across the room, his hand outstretched to take the book from her.
“What on earth!” Georgiana shrieked, even as she turned the book this way and that and stepped away from Ethan’s seeking grasp. The book was a collection of exotic prints of men and women in sexual congress. At least, she believed it to be. Heat crawled up her neck and she had no doubt her face flushed a brilliant red. He finally succeeded in wresting it from her grasp and returned it to the shelf. “That is a wicked book, sir. Surely, your grandfather did not—”
“The only books my grandfather reads are account books.”
“And you, Captain? Have you read these books?” Someone needed to bank the fire. The heat had increased by leaps and bounds in the last few minutes.
“I may have read one of them.” He ran his finger along the spines of the books on that particular shelf. “There are only a dozen or so like this. The rest are in French or Italian. Thomas probably sold off the more valuable ones.”
“One?” Georgiana ran her finger across the books’ spines just as he had. A quick glance at the pad of her finger confirmed her suspicions. “There is not a speck of dust on these books, sir. Someone has read all of them.”
He wrapped his fingers around her hand and drew it close, as if to inspect her upraised finger. “The maids are very diligent.” He rubbed his thumb against the palm of her hand.
“You allow the maids to dust your wicked books?”
“Perhaps it is the footmen who dust in here. You have a smudge.” He licked the forefinger of his free hand and ran it over the pad of the finger she’d run across the books.
Georgiana shivered. “What are you doing, Captain Dorrill?”
“Ethan. My name is Ethan, and I wish to make certain nothing from my wicked books has rubbed off on you.” He drew the end of her finger into his mouth and gently trapped it there with his teeth.
“You… I…” Georgiana’s wits had gone lacking. No other explanation sufficed. She stared at him, at his lips, far too luscious for a man. She should pull her hand away, slap his face, run from the house until her wits returned and she regained the power of speech. She did none of it.
He released her finger and cupped her elbows to draw her body flush against his. “Unless, of course, you would like for something to rub off on you.” His voice, a dark river of sin, flowed over her, through her.
“I will leave the wicked books to you, sir. I suspect they have already rubbed off and then some.” She licked her lips. His eyes widened, a sudden slight movement, and then he was kissing her, his hands splayed across her back, his lips taking her mouth like the reputed pirate everyone believed him to be. Over and over he kissed and nipped. Georgiana fisted the thick, soft hair hanging down his back. Her body sang, heat suffused her limbs, and then a languor like nothing she’d ever felt before took over.
Oh no! No, no, no!
She released his hair and pushed against his shoulders. “Th-that is quite enough of that,” she gasped as she stepped back and smoothed the skirt of her riding habit.
“Are you certain?”
“Quite. You, Ethan, are more wicked than any book and twice as dangerous.” She stepped around him and headed for the library doors.
“Perhaps I merely need reforming.” He took her arm and escorted her down the corridor.
Georgiana’s head swam. This was not going as she’d planned. The more she tried to push him away, the more determined he was to press his suit. She didn’t want to marry him. She didn’t want to marry anyone. She didn’t want kisses that made her forget her name. She didn’t…
‘Perhaps I merely need reforming.’
An idea began to form in her mind. Reforming a man like Ethan Dorrill was an exercise in futility at best and entirely too enticing at worst. But there were worse things a woman might do to a man.
“Actually,” she said once they reached the foyer and a footman came to hand her the riding gloves and riding crop the butler had taken from her. “I’d much rather reform your house.”
“My house?” His dubious tone told her she’d have to use a bit of finesse.
“Surely you cannot expect to bring a wife to this house as it is. It wants a complete redecoration, from top to bottom. I could not possibly consider your suit without it.”
“I see,” he mused. Townsend, at his post by the door, nodded vigorously. Ethan rolled his eyes at the loyal, but opinionated, servant. “And do you have someone in mind to take on this task?”
“I’m quite certain I could do it, with help from your sister-in-law perhaps? And, of course, I would have to have your carte blanche with furniture makers, rug makers, drapers and any number of other merchants to complete the task.”
“I see.”
Why did he keep saying that, and with such an odd tone, too?
“Of course, if you cannot afford to redo the entire house, we might—”
“A week, a fortnight, at most.” She flashed her sunniest, most innocent smile. And felt like the veriest heartless wretch. No matter. She had no choice.
He studied her. What did he see? Georgiana’s heartbeat slowed to a thud, thud, thud she was certain he must hear.
“Very well. Reform my house and have the bills sent to me.” He turned to the butler who opened the front door for Ethan to escort her to her horse. “Do you hear that, Townsend? Lady Addington is to have free rein to redecorate the house. Does that please you?”
“It does indeed, sir. Thank you, my lady.” He offered a deep bow.
“This does not bode well for me,” Ethan muttered as they went down the steps and toward the little wrought iron front gate. “You have already corrupted my butler. After a fortnight, I will not be safe in my own house.”
A familiar figure on horseback appeared at the corner and started up the street toward them.
“Nonsense. It will be wonderful. Shall we ride out again tomorrow morning?” The boy who had been walking Delilah the entire time Georgiana was in Ethan’s house brought the mare to the edge of the pavement. Ethan lifted her effortlessly into the sidesaddle and adjusted her foot in the stirrup. The rider drew up beside them.
“I look forward to it,” he managed to say without a hint of sarcasm or even a wince.
“Look forward to what?” Abigail, drat her interfering soul, said from atop her gelding.
“Riding out tomorrow morning,” Georgiana snapped. “Why are you here, sister?”
“To escort you home, of course. Daniel sent me and a groom.” She waved behind her and as she said, a young man in a groom’s simple but sturdy attire sat on a grey gelding a little ways down the street. He tugged his forelock. “We’ll ride home together and then Daniel will send you home in the carriage.”
“How thoughtful of him,” Georgiana said, not bothering to hide her true feelings.
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