Ethan rolled onto his back and dragged her atop his body. “Have you been pillaged, my lady?”
“Wonderfully so, thank you very much.”
“My pleasure. But you are a woman of many treasures, Georgiana. In and out of bed.” Her delectably pert breasts plumped against his chest and his cock stirred in anticipation.
“There is no need to say such things. I have surrendered. I’d wave a white flag, but I neglected to include a single white thing when I decorated this room.” She lay her head on his shoulder and sighed.
“I don’t want you to surrender. I want you to… I want you to…” He closed his eyes. What the hell did he want?
“To what?” she whispered across his chest.
“To be yourself. And to be my wife.”
“Who else would I be? And after tonight, I have no choice but to be your wife.” Her tone, one of resigned hope, irritated him. Worse, it made him sad. He slid from beneath her and sat up, the silken bedclothes pooled at his waist. He propped his forearms along his thighs and shook his head.
“I want you to be the woman who put my butler in those ridiculous clothes. The woman who asked me to go riding while knowing full well I’d spend most of my time on my arse in the dirt. My arse is black and blue thanks to that lady. My head is constantly spinning. I wake up every morning with a rampant cockstand and no idea what the day might bring, and it is all due to the lady who doesn’t give a damn what others think of her.” He turned to look back at her, her lips swollen from his kisses and her brow knitted in consternation. “The woman who came to me in the middle of the night with no idea why.”
Silence stretched and filled the library. He had the prize he’d set out to win. He didn’t understand his reluctance to send Townsend for a special license, marry her, and tell Thomas Dorrill what to do with his threats and blackmail. With a rustle of bedclothes, Georgiana scooted up to sit next to him. She’d tucked a length of fabric around her like a Roman toga. She tucked her arm through his but didn’t look directly at him.
“I want to write books,” she said, the words tumbling out in a rush. “Like Mrs. Radcliffe and Miss Austen. I started writing stories when I was a child. I have a trunk full of them locked up in my dressing room.” She squeezed his bicep and then kissed it. “Right next to the trunk of books a certain stubborn gentleman sent to me.”
“Eleanor told me you loved books. Matthias declared them a fair gift, even if they weren’t soldiers or raspberry tarts.”
“I have never received a more perfect gift, Ethan.”
With his free hand, he turned her face toward him and tilted her chin up just enough to meet his eyes. “Neither have I.”
“I won’t have to make choices with you. When I am with you, I am free. You’ll allow me to write? And even try to have my books published?”
“I won’t allow you anything. I will stand back and watch you do whatever it is you care to do, so long as you will allow me to do so. Anything you wish. Anything at all, so long as you do it as my wife.” Ethan meant it. Saying the words settled into his soul like a benediction. A terrifying and exhilarating benediction.
“You won’t mind having a wife who is an authoress?”
Her wondrous expectation threatened to break his heart. “Certainly not.” He bumped against her. “Once the public begins to read your books, I fully expect to be able to retire and live as a kept man.”
She swatted him. Her palm landed against his nipple. She rubbed her hand over it, which elicited a hiss of pleasure from him. Her eyes shone with a decidedly sensual light. “Even if my books are a bit…wicked?”
“How many of these books did you read?” He pushed the tomes in question off the bed and guided her back against the silks and cushions.
“All of them,” she said with a siren’s smile.
“There’s my lady,” he said as he stripped her makeshift toga away. “There’s the woman I want.”
***
Ethan awoke with a start. He sat up and a disgruntled mumbling drew his gaze to the figure sleeping at his side. Georgiana. The past few hours came back to him and could not help the idiotic grin splitting his face. He rubbed his eyes and ran his palm over his chin. Dawn had not yet stolen over the rooftops of London, but the promise of sunrise was visible out the window at the far end of the library.
Tap-tap-tap.
Who the devil was tapping at the doors? With a last look at his sleeping betrothed, he retrieved his banyan from the floor and donned it on the way to answer the quiet knocking. Betrothed. A word that might have terrified him even a month ago. Now, it tasted of possession and wonder and utter disbelief all at once. He cracked one of the double doors to reveal a somewhat urgent appearing Townsend.
“Townsend?”
“I am terribly sorry, sir, but you have a visitor.” The man was actually wringing his hands. This did not bode well.
“At this hour?”
“Yes, sir. I tried to dissuade him from staying. The new footman allowed him into the house. I would never—”
“Is it her father?” Even as he said it, Ethan discounted Addington giving a damn about his daughter so long as it didn’t interrupt his gambling and whoring.
“Her… No, Captain. It is Mr. Dorrill. Your grandfather.” Townsend stepped back and bowed his head in contrition.
“Hell’s teeth.” Ethan stepped out of the library and closed the door behind him. “Where is he?”
“Your study, with a footman posted outside the door. I do apologize, sir.”
“Next time, give the footman a pistol. I find them quite useful when a snake slithers into the house.” Ethan strode down the stairs and down the short corridor to his study. A visit from Thomas was the last thing he wanted or needed. He snatched the door open and pushed it firmly closed behind him.
“Who the devil is your decorator, boy?” Thomas asked as he plundered the large sweets jar on Ethan’s desk.
“Why are you here?” Ethan slammed the lid onto the jar and shoved it out of his grandfather’s reach.
“Rumor has it you were tossed out of the Marquess of—” The old man stumbled back as Ethan prowled close enough to smell the gin on his breath.
“You will call off your miscreant spies at once or I will make you wish you had. Do I make myself clear?”
“Your brother has ruined my deal with Peabody. He and his highborn friend, Farnsworth. He’ll soon learn not to cross me. I don’t care how many dukes’ sons he has to dinner. I have no choice but to marry your sister off to Baron Turnbull. He has promised money and his business connections in exchange for her hand.”
He smelled of onions and sweat and damp wool. His feral grin made Ethan’s hands itch. “You stay clear of Ash and Margaret. They are no longer your concern. This is between you and me.”
“Yes, it is, but you have not delivered on your promise.” Thomas wandered away and did a surreptitious search of the stack of ledger books on the table in the corner. “And if what I heard tonight is true, you are no closer to doing so.”
“Things are not always as they appear.”
“Are you telling me you still hope to secure her hand?”
He wanted the man out of his house. Out of their lives forever. Everything Thomas Dorrill touched he destroyed, but not before he dragged it through a hell of mud and degradation. Even now he threatened to obliterate every bit of the happiness Georgiana’s visit had brought Ethan.
“I am telling you I have already done so. Though if word of this engagement reaches anyone before we have the opportunity to inform her parents, I will call the whole thing off.” He despised Thomas knowing before anyone else. He despised Thomas having anything to do with it. “Our bargain is struck and won.”
His grandfather crossed the room, his hand outstretched, cackling like a Seven Dials cock bawd. “Well done, boy. These milkwater misses are no match for a fine cocksman like my grandson. A duke’s daughter will bear my great grandson. When will you marry?”
Ethan turned his
back on him.
“As soon as we can. I want it done.” What Ethan truly wanted was to remove Georgiana and his entire family from the shadow of this cruel, vindictive excuse for a man. An icy cold crept into the room. His banyan was little help against the night air. A thump sounded in the corridor. It was time to send Thomas on his way. “Townsend will show you out.”
“You will send word once you are married. I expect to hear of it by the end of the week.”
“Goodbye, Thomas.” Ethan strained to hear the sound of his grandfather’s footsteps fading down the corridor. Once the echo of the front door being closed ceased, Ethan turned to find Townsend standing in the study doorway.
“Sir?” The garment in Townsend’s hand sent shards of ice digging into Ethan’s chest. He was incapable of drawing breath into his lungs.
“Where did you find it?” He knew. Without asking, he knew.
“The lady dropped it just here in the corridor.” Townsend indicated a spot just behind him. “She had the footman fetch a hackney to the back gate.” He handed the cloak to Ethan. “She is gone, sir.”
Ethan pushed past him and out the French windows onto the narrow terrace at the back of the house. The lane behind the mews was empty. Dawn’s first faint streaks peeked feebly through the London night sky. Far in the distance, he heard the cry of a mussel seller. The city creaked to life in the first throes of coming awake after the dreams of sleep. Dreams. Perhaps that was all it had been, all he’d be allowed for his sins. The same God who’d allowed Adam to live in paradise only to banish him with the knowledge of what heaven might be had thrown Ethan out of his heart’s desire.
No. Not God.
Thomas Dorrill and his own damned arrogance. He’d allowed his grandfather to dictate every aspect of his life, even to the woman he courted. And now, the taint of the old man’s every breath had cost Ethan the only woman he wanted. The only woman he’d ever…loved.
He loved Georgiana. Of course, he did. Idiot.
He walked back through the house and started up the stairs. After only a few steps, a crippling weariness overcame him. He sat down and crushed the cloak to his face. The faintest hints of lemon and gardenias clung to the fabric of the hood.
“What the hell have I done?” he muttered.
The parrot in the foyer shivered awake and muttered a cant phrase accusing Ethan of unnatural relations with a farm animal.
“That’s all well and good,” Ethan replied to the bird. “Do you have any brilliant observations on how I might go about making it right with Georgiana?”
The parrot settled back onto his perch and closed his eyes. Ethan needed help.
***
For a week now, Georgiana had hidden away at home in the hope of becoming the woman she’d been before she met Ethan Dorrill. She’d received visitors, her mother’s friends for the most part, and she’d allowed herself to make use of her brother-in-law’s barouche to visit Hatchard’s. She’d returned home empty handed. She had no money to purchase books, and her subscription had lapsed, thanks to her father’s spendthrift habits. She refused to have Daniel McCormick purchase one for her. And the trunk of books from her former suitor had been returned to him.
She counted herself fortunate. The ton had nattered on for two days about the incident at the marquess’s dinner party. They’d come to the conclusion Georgiana had been misled by her sister’s unfortunate husband, the man was in trade after all, but that she had finally come to her senses. And no one knew of the night she’d spent in Ethan’s arms, in his bed.
‘Are you telling me you still hope to secure her hand?’
‘I am telling you I have already done so. Our bargain is struck and won.’
‘Well done, boy. These milkwater misses are no match for a fine cocksman like my grandson. A duke’s daughter will bear my great grandson. When will you marry?’
Even the memory of what she’d heard caused her stomach to cramp and her throat to burn. Seven days and sleepless nights and the pain had not lessened, nor had her incredible anger—at him, at herself for being so desperately foolish. She’d dared to think a man might love her, might see her as more than a duke’s daughter, as a connection to a man she hardly saw or spoke to anymore.
A commotion outside the drawing room doors drew her out of her self-pitying brown study. The doors burst open with the noisome, sunny arrival of Eleanor Dorrill, followed by the Duke of Addington’s much-beleaguered butler.
“Lady Georgiana, I—”
She stood and waved him off. “Mrs. Dorrill is welcome anytime,” she assured him. The trusted retainer made a hasty retreat. “Eleanor, I am happy to see you, but—”
“Pfft! You most certainly are not, but I refuse to allow you to sit and sulk a moment longer. Fetch your bonnet and pelisse. You are coming to my house for the afternoon.” She grabbed Georgiana’s arm and dragged her into the foyer. “Thank you, Alma.” She took the requested articles from Georgiana’s smiling maid and tossed them at Georgiana. “Hurry along now. I am starving.”
“Is there a reason I am afforded this honor?” Georgiana inquired as Eleanor shoved her into the pelisse and then out the door.
“My house smells of raspberry tarts and it is all your fault. Matthias and I cannot eat them all and Ash has refused to eat even one more. You must do your part. Home, John,” Eleanor gave her coachman his orders and bundled Georgiana unceremoniously into the neat little town carriage.
“My fault?” Georgiana fussed with the tying of her bonnet. Exasperated, she flung it down beside her on the carriage bench. She knew exactly why her friend blamed her for the sudden glut of raspberry tarts in her home. They’d been arriving at Georgiana’s family’s home every day and she’d ordered them returned to the sender. Apparently, Ethan had sent them on to his nephew. A sharp pang lodged beneath her ribs. She’d refused his gifts, left his letters unopened, and had the flowers delivered across the street to the widow of a cavalry officer who had died at Waterloo. She had not been at home to him for a week.
“Is it truly unforgivable?” Eleanor asked, her tone quiet and encouraging.
“What?”
Eleanor rolled her eyes. “Whatever Ethan did that you refuse to see him and turned my home into a bakery.”
“He has done nothing. I simply decided we would not suit.” Georgiana snatched up her bonnet, crumpled it in her lap and worked at untying the knotted ribbons.
“Bollocks. I married his brother. No one knows better than I the skill and alacrity with which a Dorrill male can make a muddle of his entire life, let alone a simple courtship.”
Georgiana could not help but smile. Eleanor was so dear and the perfect friend to have—plain-spoken, compassionate, and fearless. And the sort of friend to take secrets shared with her to the grave. “It was all a lie, Ellie. The courtship, all of it. He did it to serve his grandfather.” Swallowing against the growing, searing lump in her throat, she recounted the events at the dinner party and what happened afterward at Ethan’s house. She left out the more intimate parts, but suspected the omissions were not lost on Ethan’s sister-in-law.
“Thomas Dorrill is an evil, foul creature. He has been a plague on Ash, Ethan, and Margaret’s lives from the day their parents died. He has tried every insidious trick ever to come out of Seven Dials to interfere in Ash’s business dealings. Dickie has seen his carriage in St. James Square all hours of the night, and his man has followed Matthias and Dickie on their riding lessons.”
“I do not doubt the man is a monster, but Ethan had a choice, and he chose to court me to satisfy that monster’s desire for a ducal connection, tenuous though it may be.” She folded her arms across her middle. It would not hurt forever. Or so she told herself. But it would hurt for a very long time and she had no idea how to survive that.
“Thomas may be the reason he started this courtship, but after everything you have put Ethan through, I think he has persisted for another reason entirely.” Eleanor glanced out the carriage window and then back at Georgiana.
“What I put him through? He lied to me, from start to finish. I was nothing more than convenient. A means to an end. I expected such from ton gentlemen. I had hoped…” She continued to fiddle with her bonnet ribbons.
“You had hoped he was the sort of man who would attend a horrible musicale with good humor and grace? You had hoped he would ride with you in Hyde Park every morning and fall off so often it is in the betting book at White’s? Hoped he might acquire a new wardrobe and change his appearance simply to fit into your world?”
“Change his appearance? What are you talking about?”
“He cut his hair. You didn’t know?”
Her heart fell. “No. I haven’t seen him in a week. Why would he do that? I didn’t ask him…to do that.” She blinked against the sting of tears.
Eleanor reached across the carriage and squeezed her hand. “Matthias asked Ethan why he keeps sending you raspberry tarts when you don’t want them. He told him when you hurt someone you love you have to apologize until they forgive you, no matter how long it takes or how many raspberry tarts you have to send.”
“Love is easy enough to say,” Georgiana’s voice faltered. He loved her?
“For men like Ash and Ethan?” Eleanor shook her head. “They grew up in the most brutal of circumstances, deliberately set against each other. They lived without love for half their lives. They never considered themselves worthy of it. Rather like you, Georgiana.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She should never have allowed Eleanor to bully her into this visit. She’d allowed her temporary sadness and anger at the discovery of the reasons for Ethan’s courtship to weaken her resolve. Her family expected her to make a good marriage. They expected her reputation and behavior to be above reproach. They expected.
“Ethan is not the sort of man to expose himself to ridicule. He does not suffer fools. He had his reasons for trying to placate his grandfather. What reasons did he have to continue to court a woman who demanded he jump at her every command? Ask him to explain. He owes you that much.”
The carriage rocked to a halt before Ash and Eleanor’s St. James Square home.
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