by Anne Gracie
Then without a word, he rode on.
He’d barely acknowledged her. Or Aunt Dottie.
So arrogant.
Hart saw the moment she’d noticed him; he’d been watching her for the last few minutes, strolling along with her aunt, trying not to look as though she was bored to pieces and chafing at the bit. And despite that hat she was wearing, he could see her reactions quite clearly—she really did have an expressive face. Surprise, relief, expectation and then annoyance, in quick succession.
Excellent. His trip to the country had had the effect he’d hoped, even though his reasons for going had nothing to do with her. His late cousin’s estate was in more of a mess than he’d first thought, and a trip to go over the main properties again with his new manager was essential. All kinds of mismanagement had been discovered after Arthur Wooldridge had passed on.
Some of Hart’s friends loathed that aspect of being a landowner, considering too close an interest in business to be a sign of ill breeding, perilously close to resembling a cit, but Hart enjoyed it. He found it satisfying to look at a problem, analyze the causes, consider the solutions, select the best option and implement the chosen strategy. And observe the results. And, to be frank, he enjoyed being rich and liked the fact that if he was clever and diligent, he could be even richer.
In this case, his efforts were all for his late cousin’s young son, Phillip, only seven years old and already facing a lifetime of debt, thanks to his father and grandfather’s improvidence. Not that the boy knew anything about that. Bad enough that he was newly orphaned.
It was a shame that the boy couldn’t be sent off to school, but when he’d made the suggestion, his tutor had written back, insisting that the boy was too delicate and high-strung yet for the boisterous environment of a boarding school. Perhaps next year . . .
It was a mess now, but Hart was determined that by the time young Phillip Wooldridge reached his majority, he would inherit a prosperous, well-run estate.
So now Hart was back in London, and the next stage of the hunt had begun. He wanted to waste as little time as possible on arranging his marriage, and his strategy was in place.
He’d pondered the prospect of Lady Georgiana Rutherford a good deal while he was away, applying much the same kind of consideration to her as he did to any business matter. He needed a wife to get an heir. But he didn’t want the kind of wife who’d hang off his sleeve and be endlessly demanding. And emotional.
He’d seen what that had done to his father.
Her aunt had claimed Lady Georgiana wished to live in the country, and raise dogs and horses—and children. That would suit Hart perfectly. He didn’t need a duchess for ceremonial or political purposes. He had no ambitions in that direction. He didn’t need a grand hostess, or anyone to run his various houses—what were butlers and housekeepers and estate managers for, after all?
Lady Georgiana seemed as independent as her aunt had suggested. She was a little volatile, but at least she’d never bore him. That the volatility was partly the effect of unexpected lust—he was sure she was a virgin, unawakened to the pleasures of the flesh—and she didn’t quite know how to handle it—pleased him. What pleased him even more was the sensuality that burned beneath that deceptively boyish exterior.
That had really taken him by surprise. Lord, but that kiss in the library still haunted him. It would be no hardship to plant an heir in her.
But lust was ephemeral, and once the fire between them had burned out, he could imagine them settling quite happily—her in one of his country houses, raising her children and animals, him living as he always had, in London, doing what he wished when he wished with whomever he wished.
Lady Georgiana Rutherford was, in short, perfect to his requirements.
As for her apparent determination never to marry—not that he believed it; it was his experience that all women wanted to marry—it didn’t bother him at all. He had the solution to that little piece of nonsense well in hand.
Chapter Eight
Her resentment of such behaviour, her indignation at having been its dupe, for a short time made her feel only for herself.
—JANE AUSTEN, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
Everyone knew old Mrs. Gastonbury’s soirées musicale were more to be endured than enjoyed, particularly when her beloved granddaughter was to perform, which she invariably was. Cicely Gastonbury was as enthusiastic as she was tone-deaf.
But old Mrs. Gastonbury was popular, and Cicely was a nice girl. More to the point, Mrs. Gastonbury’s cook was excellent and the suppers at the soirées musicale were famously superb, so the evenings were always sufficiently well attended and people did their best to smile instead of wince as Mozart, Hayden and Beethoven were routinely murdered.
George sat in the audience between Aunt Dottie and Aunt Agatha, wondering how she could escape. She’d heard that the music would be bad, but hadn’t realized quite how bad nor how often Cicely would perform.
“And now before we break for supper, Cicely will entertain us with a trio of Scottish ballads . . .”
George closed her eyes and wished she could somehow close her poor lacerated ears. She had to get out.
As Cicely and her accompanist arranged themselves, a footman appeared, bent and murmured in George’s ear, “Someone wishing to speak to you outside, Lady Georgiana.”
Aunt Agatha, overhearing, frowned. “Who is it?” The footman didn’t appear to hear her. At any rate he didn’t respond.
Aunt Agatha leaned toward George and said in a low voice, “This is most improper. You cannot walk out on Cicely’s performance. Whoever it is, they can wait until supper, when you can speak to this person in the presence of myself or your aunt Dorothea.”
But Cicely hadn’t yet begun, and George didn’t think she could bear one more lustily delivered off-key song. “I won’t be a moment,” she whispered. “Besides, I need the ladies’ withdrawing room.” Before Aunt Agatha could respond George gave a silent grimace of apology to Cicely, hurried toward the door and closed it thankfully behind her as the first off-key strains of “The Braes of Yarrow” began.
“Who was it—?” she began, but there was no sign of the footman. Instead, leaning idly against the wall was the Duke of Everingham. “You!” she said. “What are you doing here?”
He straightened and strolled toward her in a leisurely manner that nevertheless had something of a stalking-cat feel about it. “Enjoying the music?”
George backed away. “You know very well I’m not.”
“Indeed? I seem to recall that you’re fond of music.”
“I clearly recall that you’re not. In any case”—she gestured toward the door—“I wouldn’t call that music.” She turned back to him and found he was suddenly much closer than before.
She tried to edge around him and found she was trapped between the wall, the bannister, and the duke.
He was close enough for her to see the fine-grained texture of dark bristles in the skin of his well-shaven jaw, close enough for her to smell his scent—now too disturbingly familiar to her—essence of arrogance.
He knew he had her trapped. He looked disgustingly smug.
Annoyed, she stiffened her spine. She refused to be intimidated. “Was it you who sent that footman?”
He didn’t respond. He was looking her over with a slow, lazy gaze that left warm prickles in its wake. She knew the neckline of this dress was too low—girls like her who weren’t at all bounteous in the bosom department ought to face facts and keep what little they had well hidden. Miss Chance, her outspoken dressmaker, had disagreed.
“Don’t worry—it won’t be too revealing. We’ll just nicely frame your bosom,” she’d told George as she’d measured her up. And when the dress was finished, George had felt perfectly satisfied with the neckline.
But now, with the duke’s gaze heavy on her, she suddenly felt uncomfortably e
xposed. She shoved at his chest. “Move back. I don’t like you standing so close.”
“Yes, you do.” He didn’t move.
“I don’t,” she lied. She wanted to lean forward and just inhale him—how could he smell so . . . delicious? But she refused to feel like that. She knew what was happening to her and she would not give in to it. “I find you . . . irritating.”
He didn’t respond. His compelling gray gaze rested on her mouth, arousing sensations she did not want to have. Heat rose in her as she recalled that other kiss, sparked by tiny sugar crystals . . .
She ran her tongue across her lips. His eyes darkened and, taking no risks, she vigorously scrubbed the back of her hand across her mouth.
There was a glint of something amused and devilish in his eyes as he met her gaze. “You missed me, didn’t you?”
“Missed you?” She hoped she sounded incredulous. “When would I have missed you?” Just because she’d noticed his absence didn’t mean she’d missed him.
“When I was away.”
“You’ve been away?” she said vaguely. “I didn’t even notice.” If only he’d stayed away another couple of weeks, she would have been back to normal. He’d returned too soon; the heat within her was rising. Just standing so close to him brought about a kind of breathless excitement—it was anger, she told herself. It had to be.
His smile was lazy. “You noticed. And I think you missed me. Certainly your expression when we met in the park yesterday seemed to indicate it.”
“We didn’t ‘meet in the park.’ You rode past me as if I weren’t even— Oh, were you in the park?” But it was too late to retrieve the slip and his smug expression showed it.
“Your eyes lit up when you saw me.”
She feigned indifference. “I was admiring your horse.”
“You were relieved to see me. You’d missed me. You were annoyed with me for not coming over to greet you.”
It was infuriating to be so transparent. “You’re very sure of yourself, your grace of Arrogance, but you have no idea what I’m thinking.”
“I do.” And when she arched a disbelieving eyebrow at him, he said, “You’re thinking of making a very unladylike attack on my cods.”
“Your co—oh,” she said as he indicated the area below his waist. “Well, if you don’t let me pass, you’ll find out, won’t you?” And it would serve him right.
He turned, angling his body slightly to protect that area of his anatomy. His hands came up as if to hold her off and he said warningly, “Not again, you don’t.”
She frowned. “What do you mean ‘not again’? I’ve never—”
“You did it once before, five years ago.”
She dismissed that notion with a gesture. “Nonsense. I didn’t know you five years ago. It must have been someone else—clearly a woman of discernment.”
“It was you. We were in Gloucestershire. You’d just ruined a hunt and I pulled you off your horse—I thought you were a boy.”
“Oh, was that you? You deserved it, in that case. In fact, now I come to think of it, I wish I’d hit you harder. Now move aside and let me pass. I want to return to the concert.”
His lips twitched with amusement. “No you don’t. It’s a dreadful concert.” He added in a voice that almost purred, “And here’s me, thinking you never lied.”
The fact that he was right—again—inflamed her temper. George shoved at his shoulder. “Ooh, you are so irritating! Just let me pass, will you?” He didn’t move, just stood there being big and powerful and warm and infuriatingly smug. Annoyingly attractive—and worse, knowing it.
“Make me.” His smile was a slow, sensual challenge. “You know you want to.”
How dare he know what she wanted? Anger, desire and frustration warred within her. She was a spring, wound up too tight. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been warned . . .
“In that case . . .” She jerked her knee up, aiming for his genitals, but she was too used to wearing breeches, and the skirt of her dress was too narrow. Her raised knee dragged the skirt against the back of her other knee, which buckled. Cursing the impracticality of dresses, she overbalanced.
Into the arms of the duke.
He pulled her up against him, hard, and his mouth came down on hers, not gently as it had that first time, but firmly, possessively, as if he had every right to kiss her. And while a small thready voice in her mind suggested feebly that he didn’t, neither her mouth nor the rest of her body cared.
The taste of him—dark, hot, intense—soaked into her, building, like a fever in her blood. She speared her fingers into his thick hair and pressed her mouth to his. Excitement shivered through her, sending spirals of heat to the very core of her body.
He kissed as if he wanted to devour her. She learned from his every move, giving him back kiss for kiss, caress for caress. Learning passion. Intoxication.
She twisted her body restlessly against him, practically climbing him to get closer, heat and aching need driving her. She knew she was out of control; she didn’t care.
He slid his hands down over her hips, caressing her as she thrust herself heedlessly against him. She felt him tugging her skirts up. Cool air caressed her heated limbs, and then his hands cupped her bottom and he lifted her against him, where he was swollen and hot and hard.
“Put your legs around me,” he murmured, and without thought she locked her legs around his waist and, oh, that was better. Like riding, she was more in control. Her back was pressed against the wall, his hard swollen masculinity pressed against the notch between her legs and she rubbed herself against him like a cat in heat, kissing and nipping and biting.
He groaned and returned thrust for thrust, all the time, kissing her deep, keeping her head swirling while her body ached and writhed against him.
“Georgiana Rutherford!” The outraged voice of Aunt Agatha pierced the swirling mists of George’s awareness. Dizzily she pulled back, tried to focus.
“Georgiana!”
Reality came back to her in ragged shreds. She was clinging to him, her fingers knotted in his hair, the skirts of her dress were rucked up high around her thighs, and her legs—oh, lord, but her legs were wrapped around his waist. Worse, his warm hand was between them!
For a moment she couldn’t remember whether she was even wearing any drawers, and she felt for them surreptitiously and heaved a sigh of relief when she found she was.
Aunt Agatha was of the old school that held that drawers on a female were a scandalous French plot against English womanhood, but George felt much more secure in them. They weren’t as good as breeches, but at least she wasn’t bare-arse naked under her skirts and open to all sorts of drafts.
“Georgiana Rutherford, you’re a disgrace! Get down from that man immediately!”
George unlocked her legs, and dropped to the floor, wriggling and tugging her skirts back into some semblance of decency, her hands shaking, her brain reeling as she tried to come to terms with what had just happened.
She’d been completely out of control. Had let him do whatever he wanted to her. Worse—she’d wanted him to do it, and more.
She slowly became aware of a babble of voices, and when she peered past the duke’s broad shoulders, oh, lord, it wasn’t only Aunt Agatha gaping and gobbling at her like an outraged turkey, it was half the audience at the concert. People had come out for their supper, and found George and the duke locked in each other’s arms.
A hundred eyes burned into her, curious, scandalized, shocked, disgusted, avid, eating up her mortification with delight. George wished she could shrivel away on the spot. Could it get any worse?
The duke’s arms were still wrapped around her, supporting her firmly against him, which was a good thing, she thought blurrily, because sure as anything her legs weren’t.
“Redmond Jasper Hartley, what is the meaning of this?” Aunt Agatha deman
ded stridently. Not even “your grace.”
“I would have thought it was perfectly obvious, Lady Salter,” the duke said in a cold, clear voice that cut through the buzzing of scandalized comment. George blinked at his apparent dispassion. He sounded perfectly calm and unruffled, even though she could feel that his heart was pounding as raggedly as hers.
“Lady Georgiana has just agreed to become my wife. We were sealing our betrothal with a kiss.”
His words drew a wave of muttered comment. Aunt Agatha’s brows snapped together.
Wife? George’s brain snapped back into life. Betrothal? “No, that’s not right—”
“Betrothal?” Aunt Agatha cut her off sharply. Pasting a smile on her face, she gushed, “Georgiana, my dearest gel, congratulations. No wonder you are all about with excitement—your head must be spinning.”
By now, the concert room had emptied into the hallway. Delicious smells wafted from the supper room but nobody moved. A much more interesting dish was being passed around; Lady Georgiana Rutherford, caught in flagrante with her legs wrapped around the waist of the Duke of Everingham—her own aunt’s jilted bridegroom!
Aunt Agatha turned to the crowd. “Friends, how wonderful that you are here to witness the romantic betrothal of my niece, Lady Georgiana Rutherford—”
“No! I am not betroth—” George tried to make herself heard.
Aunt Agatha’s voice rose, sharper and loud enough to fill an opera hall. “—to his grace, the Duke of Everingham. A moment of high romance, I think you would all agree.”
After the first gasp of shock, a scattering of applause started and a murmuring that grew to a swell of congratulation. And some surreptitious muttering.
“I am not betr—” George tried again.
And again, Aunt Agatha, oozing self-satisfaction, cut her off. “I promoted the match myself, you know.”