An Inconvenient Kiss
Page 4
After a long silence, he tipped her chin up with his hand, forcing her to look at him. “I do not intend to wait another two years before I speak to you again, Princess. In truth, I do not intend to wait two days. Especially in light of what just happened.”
It took all her will not to throw herself into his arms. Instead, she met his gaze coolly, as though considering his words. “What are you suggesting, Mr. Ashford?”
“I would like to call on you, Lady Georgiana,” he said sincerely. “Tomorrow. We could take a ride in the park.” He gave her that small, mischievous grin she was growing to like. “I promise not to discuss the weather.”
Georgiana narrowed her eyes in an attempt to hide her excitement. “Are you thinking of seducing me, Mr. Ashford?”
“I’m thinking of courting you, Lady Georgiana,” he corrected. “Would you be agreeable to that?”
“If I allowed you to court me, would you expect to kiss me?” she asked, ignoring the wild fluttering of her heart.
He nodded, his eyes twinkling. “Kissing is compulsory.”
She sniffed haughtily. “I believe I might find time for a drive tomorrow. Shall we say two o’clock?”
“Perfect,” Simon said breathily. He escorted her to the door, the possessive glimmer in his eyes making her shiver. For one hopeful moment, Georgiana thought he might start kissing her again. Instead, Simon shook his head and gave her a very proper bow before opening the door for her. “Ladies first,” he said.
Georgiana sailed past him regally, her heart practically bursting with joy. It was going to be impossible to wait until tomorrow afternoon, she mused. She began mentally cataloging her dresses, trying to decide what the gorgeous man prowling behind her would find most appealing.
She stepped into the hallway and turned to ask Simon his favorite color. What she saw next sent a chill down her entire body.
Her brother had just turned the corner and was marching down the hall, his expression murderous.
Georgiana panicked slightly. Nathaniel would be furious at finding his best friend with his sister. If he didn’t kill Simon, he’d at very least bloody his nose, and she quite liked Simon’s nose just as it was.
There was no chance this would end well. Whether or not Nath took her word that Simon had helped her after Lord Rowling had attacked her didn’t matter. She was alone in a room with a man, and she was in complete dishabille. Her reputation would be destroyed.
Her brother’s mouth flattened at the sight of her, and Georgiana’s heart sank. Such a scandal would affect her entire family. The only things the gossips loved more than a paragon was a spectacle—particularly if it involved one of the ton’s most influential families.
Life in Society was over for Lady Georgiana Phillips.
That didn’t mean she had to shred a friendship.
Georgiana barely managed to stop Simon from stepping into the hall. She spun on her heel and pushed him back into the room, slamming the door behind her. Simon frowned at her.
“Nath is coming,” she announced, trying to stay calm. She steered Simon toward a window. “You have to go.”
Simon cursed. “I’ve ruined you.”
She shook her head and pushed him to go faster. “No. It’s just Nath. I’ll tell him...something. I’ll tell him I got ill from the heat and ruined my gown. Nath can be reasonable, when he wants to be. Besides, I know he doesn’t want a scandal.”
Simon refused to budge as she struggled to pry open the window. “Georgiana, we can—”
“No!” she said adamantly. She pushed at him. Hard. “I can take care of this. But only if you go, Simon. Now!”
He stepped through the window, obviously torn. “Georgiana, if you need me, I promise I’ll make it right.”
“I know,” she assured him with a buss on the cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon. Don’t be late.”
She watched him shimmy through the bushes, and in spite of the gravity of the situation, Georgiana could barely contain her giggle. Simon turned back and shot her a worried look but, unable to resist the opportunity to flirt with her very own rake, Georgiana blew him a kiss. Simon rolled his eyes at her and then disappeared into the gardens.
She closed the window just in time. Nath burst through the door like a Fury. Georgiana was about to explain—well, lie—her way out of her predicament, when she noticed her brother wasn’t alone. The fool had brought witnesses. Two army officers, friends of his, and behind them one Mrs. Octavia Fenimere, grinning ear to ear.
“Oh hell,” was all Georgiana Phillips muttered.
She was ruined.
Chapter Two
Cuttack, Orissa Province, India, 1820
Simon Ashford strolled through the market, taking in the colorful sights and pungent aromas that were at once both familiar and foreign. He had called the city home for nearly a year now, yet he was still struck by its vibrancy and what he could only describe as organized chaos.
The bustling city of Cuttack had quickly become a bastion for British expansion, though the East India Company had only recently annexed the territory of Orissa. As a Major in the British army and part of the engineer corps for the Company, Simon spent much of his time studying the city and its outlying areas, developing the British cantonment, and learning about the geography and existing infrastructure to determine how to best utilize Company resources. Improvements were already well underway in drainage and sewage and the railroad would come someday, forever changing life in this part of the world.
It was a rare day off for Simon, and he took the time to drink in the city as a guest rather than an engineer. The market, nay, the entire city appeared so haphazard—tiny, rickety stands where vendors peddled anything from textiles to spices to fresh fruits stood next to temples and architecture older than history itself. Color and light seemed to burst from every corner of the marketplace, an odd contrast to his memories of London, where the steel gray sky and perfectly manicured greens dominated the landscape. Cuttack was at once beautiful and overwhelming.
Simon stopped after a while to haggle with his favorite spice vendor, a cranky old man known as Kavi who pretended he was hard of hearing whenever Simon made a counteroffer. The old goat’s hearing miraculously returned each and every time Simon suggested a price they could both agree on. Kavi was currently completely deaf, though the gleam in his eye indicated Simon was close to an agreeable settlement.
“Mr. Simon.” A young voice from the crowd interrupted his next offer. “Mr. Simon!”
Simon smiled at Kavi, knowing he had just gained the upper hand. He set the pouch of cardamom down on the table and turned to face Baljit. The young boy shot Simon a toothy grin despite being completely out of breath from running.
“Mr. Simon,” the boy said importantly between gulps of air. “Mr. Nathaniel needs to see you most urgently.”
“Thank you, Baljit,” Simon said, ignoring Kavi as the old man picked up the discarded spices. “I suppose we must go immediately.”
He had not gone two steps when he heard Kavi concede. “One and fifty, Mr. Simon. No less.”
Simon turned. He considered the offer for a moment and countered, “One and twenty.”
Kavi shrugged. “One and forty.”
“One and thirty,” Simon said.
Kavi sighed. “You always pay too little,” he muttered, handing over the spices.
Simon took the pouch and pretended to grouse as he handed over the payment. “You always charge too much.”
“I will not sell spice to you next week,” Kavi called to him as Simon walked away.
“I won’t need spice next week,” Simon returned over his shoulder.
Baljit trotted alongside Simon and shook his head. “Why must you two do this week after week? You badger each other like old women, yet each week you pay him the same.”
“Storm in?” Baljit asked.
“A figure of speech,” Simon explained. “It means you came up quickly and unexpectedly. Your English has gotten so good I forget you may not understand odd phrases like that.”
Baljit beamed at the praise. It was true, Simon mused. He and Nath had met the boy their third day in Cuttack, in the very marketplace he had just visited. Baljit was more a scrap than a boy then—perhaps eight years of age, though he’d looked smaller than that, wasted as he was from starvation. His enormous eyes had glinted with strength and intelligence even if his body looked too weak to hold up his head.
They had met their share of street children during their long stint in Calcutta, so it came as no surprise that Nath rolled his eyes when Simon purchased a dish of chicken and some sort of beans from a vendor. Nath muttered, “You know better than to feed a stray, Simon. You’ll never get rid of him.”
The boy’s huge eyes had grown even bigger, and he eyed Simon with nothing less than hero worship. Then he took the proffered meal and greedily gobbled the whole thing. Nath just grunted and walked away.
Baljit proceeded to follow them around the marketplace for the rest of the day and each day after that. Soon he was stationing himself each morning on the edge of the British neighborhood that had sprung up outside Cuttack proper, clearly waiting to shadow Simon. No matter what he did, whether he ignored him or barked at him, Simon could not get the boy to go home. It finally occurred to him that Baljit had no home, and likely no family. He decided at that moment if the boy was going to follow him around, he could just as well put him to work. Nath agreed, seeing as how they had to suffer the lad anyhow, and Baljit had become Simon’s eager assistant.
Simon’s instincts had proven right. Baljit was a quick study. He picked up English practically overnight, and he worked hard to help in whatever capacity was needed. In return, Simon fed him and housed him and taught him whatever he could. While most of his British peers considered Baljit Simon’s servant, Simon viewed him as an apprentice and treated him as such.
Baljit talked nonstop as they walked into the neatly-planned British cantonment. Bungalows nearly uniform in size and shape and color lined the broad streets, looking like an army poised to march against the bedlam of the marketplace.
As in Calcutta, most Company officers and general employees, as well as the handful of wives bold enough to live in a foreign land, kept to the British quarter as much as possible. They tried to make it as close a replica of English life and society as they could, which was likely why Simon frequently found it stifling.
In the center of the cantonment was a lush and perfectly manicured park lined with trees and hedgerows. There were even the beginnings of an orange grove. The Government House loomed just beyond, a beautiful structure that echoed the classical architecture of ancient Greece. Fantastic Corinthian columns and a sculpted frieze adorned the front entrance, and Simon stopped at the base of the stone steps that would lead him to the administration offices.
Tossing the cardamom to Baljit, Simon said, “Why don’t you take this to Geeta while I meet with Nath? Then I’d like you to finish the Odyssey before we go over the plans for the irrigation expansion project the governor-general would like us to begin.”
“If you are not going to take a meal with Mr. Nathaniel, can we discuss the book while we eat?” Baljit asked eagerly. “I liked how we did that last time. Especially if Geeta makes shortbread with cardamom again.”
“You just like to eat,” Simon teased. “But yes, we can.”
Baljit grinned and ran off. Simon entered the Government House and hurried down the corridor to the office of Lieutenant Colonel Nathaniel Phillips. He knocked on the familiar door and entered at Nath’s barked “In.”
The office was much like the man, Simon mused, austere and sensible. Papers were in neat files, and the desk was immaculate. There were no accoutrements to reflect the inhabitant’s deeper self, save a ceremonial sword that had been presented to Nath by his father when he had been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel.
Nath was second-in-command of the cantonment, and Simon couldn’t think of a better man for the task. They had fought at Waterloo together, along with Simon’s twin brother Phillip and his older brother Ethan. In fact, Simon would say Nath was very much like Ethan: intelligent, composed and utterly ruthless when necessary. Steady in whatever crisis beset them, Nath was the most commanding presence Simon had ever met, with the exception of Ethan, despite being a second son. It came as no small surprise, then, that his good friend of nearly ten years appeared to be in his cups at such an early hour.
Without a word Nathaniel handed Simon a large glass of whiskey, finished his own, then poured another. Simon set his glass on a side table as he took a seat. He studied Nath quietly for a moment, trying to gauge just how rattled he was. Judging by the way he prowled around the room, Simon guessed he was not going to like whatever business Nath had brought him here to discuss.
“It seems a bit early for brandy and cigars, Nath,” Simon observed.
Nathaniel shook his head and pointed to Simon’s untouched glass. “Whiskey. And you’re going to want to keep that close,” he muttered. “What I am about to tell you requires a bit of courage.”
Simon nodded. “Out with it then.”
“Do you remember my maternal grandfather?” Nath started rather cryptically.
“Do you mean the one who traipses around the world writing about savages and faraway places?” Simon asked. “Sir Jonathon Felton, if memory serves.”
“Indeed,” Nath said. “Sir Jon has finished in Egypt and has decided that the wilds of India and its native population will be his new project. He’s put in for a membership at the Asiatic Society and means to travel to Cuttack to begin his studies.”
Simon shrugged. “It seems quite logical to me. Now that the Company has a strong foothold in India, understanding the local people seems necessary if we are hoping to settle more British here. But Nath, I fail to see the connection between Sir Jon and your excess of spirits.”
Nathaniel’s eyes glittered above the glass he had raised to his lips. “My sister is traveling with him.”
Simon started to reply, but found himself unable to do so. He felt himself growing unaccountably warm at the news. He really should say something, he told himself. Instead, he grabbed his whiskey from the side table and took a huge drink. “Georgiana’s coming here?” he finally managed. “To Cuttack?”
Nath nodded and refilled both glasses. Then he sat down behind his desk and stared at Simon.
“Wasn’t she to marry some Egyptian prince or such?” Simon wondered aloud, breaking the tense silence.
“No,” said Nath. “The prince was during her travels in the Orient. The Egyptian fiancé was a wealthy merchant.” He groaned and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “And before that there was an Austrian grand duke and an Italian poet and god knows how many damned Frenchmen. There was even a Cossack at one point.”
“Is he the one who wept at her feet?” Simon asked, taking another large sip.
“Cossacks don’t weep,” Nath shook his head. “That was the Italian.”
“Of course,” Simon said, trying to steady himself. “Poets.”
“This is the worst possible misfortune,” Nath bellowed, slamming his palm on the desktop. “By all accounts, Georgiana runs wild. She’s utterly unpredictable. She descends on a place like a plague of locusts and tears it apart.”
Simon squeezed his eyes tight and chastised himself once again for the disaster he had wrought on Nath’s family. It still haunted him, even in the middle of nowhere. He opened his eyes to meet his friend’s darkling gaze. “I would
turn back time and set everything right if I could, Nath.”
Nath waved him off. “I know, Simon. You’ve been a gentleman and a friend in all of this. If that damned Rowling hadn’t come forward and claimed to have kissed Georgiana earlier that night, we might have salvaged her reputation. But two men in one night? What kind of woman allows herself to be kissed by two men in the same night?”
“We both know Rowling was maligning Georgiana,” Simon protested. “He admitted as much the following week.”
“By then the damage was done,” Nath sighed. “And her actions since leaving my father’s house have further proven that my sister is a...a lightskirt.”
“I imagine Georgiana is thumbing her nose at Society and its dictates since it threw her out so gleefully,” Simon argued. “We both know many of these stories, if not all, are mere fabrications to keep vicious simpletons like Octavia Fenimere and Harold Rowling entertained.”
Nath shook his head. “Regardless of what is true and what is not true, my sister is considered a...well, a hussy. She’s a loose woman with loose morals. I have no doubt that she blames me for her ruination, so the fact that she sees fit to come here leads me to believe that she is hoping to extract some form of petty revenge. She knows I can’t very well give her the cut direct with our grandfather in residence. I will have to acknowledge her, at least to some extent.
“Everything was falling into place,” Nath said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ve worked diligently to make this cantonment a success. Last month, the governor-general himself commended me for how efficiently the camp was running.”
Simon nodded. “No one questions your devotion to the cause, Nath. Even if your sister causes a dust up, you’re record is impeccable.”
Nath looked him squarely in the eye. “I was hoping for a bit more than a pat on the back, Simon. Cuttack was my chance to shine. There’s rumor that with the expansion several officers will be promoted to Brigadier. If Georgiana decides to create a scandal here, with me in charge, do you suppose the governor-general will look upon me favorably when he’s handing out promotions?”