“I think I know everything I need to know,” she said to the company generally. “Do you need me for anything else?” she asked the constable.
He answered in the negative, and she turned to go. Seeing that she was leaving, Jeremy stood also. “May I join you?”
“Of course.”
They left together, and at first said nothing to each other. After a while, Jeremy said, “Perhaps we can find a quiet place to sit so I can tell you how I came to be here.”
She nodded, and they found a window seat in the room that, the night before, had housed the buffet. Georgiana marveled at how quickly, and how thoroughly, it had been restored to its regular condition.
As soon as they had taken their seats, Jeremy said, “Lord Grantsbury wrote to me.”
Lady Georgiana took this in. “He did, did he? And what did he say?”
“He said your high spirits might have gotten you into a bit of a fix.”
Georgiana raised her eyebrows at this. “A bit of a fix?”
“That’s what he told me.”
“And is that all he told you?”
“That is all he told me. But he pressed that I should come to the masquerade—he had gotten Lord Loughlin’s leave, of course—and the pressure lent his concern some urgency. So of course I came.”
“When did you get here?”
“Just an hour or two before the party began. Grantsbury let me use his rooms, and had arranged the costume.”
“And what did Grantsbury tell you when you arrived?” Georgiana needed to know how much Jeremy knew.
“He told me only that I should perhaps look out for you. He had learned what your costume was, but I would have recognized you regardless.”
“Yet you did not identify yourself to me when we danced.”
“I did not. I wasn’t sure what my reception would be.” He stopped, evidently thinking he was treading on dangerous ground. “Had nothing happened, I might not have revealed myself to you at all, and gone home this morning. I thought you might be offended had you known I was watching you.”
Georgiana considered this. “I might have been,” she said. “I’m not at all sure.”
They looked at each other for a moment, and then Georgiana decided she ought to tell him everything. It wouldn’t be fair, she thought, when everyone at Penfield knew what had gone on and he, her particular friend, did not. She also thought he was bound to learn the truth sooner or later, and better he should hear it from her.
And she did, giving the story no gloss and making no excuses for her own conduct, of which by now she had come to be somewhat ashamed.
Jeremy listened silently, and when she was finished he sat back in his chair and let out a long, slow breath. When Lord Grantsbury had written to him about Georgiana’s “high spirits,” he had expected something along this line, but nothing so bad as this.
Grantsbury had written to Jeremy because he was concerned about Georgiana, both because he thought she was behaving badly and because she was under some sort of vague threat. Jeremy had come because Lady Georgiana was his most particular friend, and if he thought that she could do herself harm, or that someone else would do her harm, he wanted to do everything in his power to prevent it.
But it was more than that. The knowledge that he loved her had come on him gradually, and the absolute conviction that it was so, which was quite recent, surprised and discomposed him. He had been happy, he thought, with the casual nature of their intimacy and the pleasure of their stolen moments. When he understood that he wanted more from her, that he wanted to be with her always, he found he could not tell her. He was afraid she would bolt, of course, but he also had a sense that, if she could be happy with their relationship as it was, so should he be able to.
He was not able to.
He had inadvertently disclosed his love to Lord Grantsbury when the earl, a family friend of the Stauntons as well as of Georgiana’s family, had visited the Stauntons that spring. Grantsbury, who made a habit of using old friendships as an excuse to say anything he liked, had asked penetrating questions about Jeremy’s prospects and intentions. Jeremy had tried to avoid answering the substance of the questions, but also tried not to tell blatant untruths, and had thus given himself away to the canny old nobleman.
The earl, seeing the kind of trouble Lady Georgiana was bringing on herself at Penfield, had summoned him in the hopes that everything could be set right if only Jeremy’s love could be returned.
Sitting in the drawing room, listening to Georgiana’s story, Jeremy was not at all sure he wanted his love to be returned. As a matter of fact, if he could have wished his love away at that very moment, he might have done it. He was dismayed, and he was angry. He was also jealous.
Georgiana, when she had told her tale, looked at him and saw the coldness in his eyes. His distance and his disapproval pierced her very being. Her regret at what she had done—which, up until this moment, had been somewhat grudging and resentful—suddenly became real and heartfelt and almost overwhelming. Her eyes welled, and she fought manfully to keep from weeping.
She almost succeeded, but two rogue teardrops betrayed her.
She put her head in her hands and shook it back and forth. It was as though a veil had been lifted. How could she have been such a bloody fool? How could she have failed to understand that you couldn’t gallivant through the world acting on your own impulses without regard either to what was expected of you or, more important, the feelings of the people with whom you gallivanted? How could she not have seen what was so clear to Lord Grantsbury?
“Oh, Jeremy,” she said, almost choking on the words. “I have been such an ass.”
Her distress tempered both his anger and his jealousy. When he handed her his handkerchief, it was not without some tenderness.
As she saw his coldness begin to melt she lost her grip on her emotions and wept like a child. He laid a hand on her arm and waited. Like a heavy thunderstorm that blows out as quickly as it blows in, her tears subsided in just a few minutes.
“I am so sorry,” she said, looking at the sodden handkerchief in her hands.
“You have done me no injury.”
“Have I not?” She looked up.
“We have explicitly said, all along, that we owe each other nothing. You are not bound to me any more than I am to you.”
She looked down again. When they had made that agreement, she had thought it both liberal and liberating. Now it sounded stupid.
“Perhaps our saying it doesn’t make it so,” she said in a small voice. She knew that she had taken his closeness for granted while she had it, and now that she was in danger of losing it she understood its value.
“Perhaps it doesn’t,” he replied.
They sat in silence for a few moments, each absorbing the meaning in the other’s words.
Then Jeremy stood up and extended his hand to Georgiana. “I have not seen the grounds here, and I should very much like to. Won’t you come on a walk with me?”
She took his hand and smiled. “Of all things, I think I should like that the best.”
As they were heading toward the front door, they encountered Lord Grantsbury, who had just come down in search of breakfast.
“Good morning, my lord,” Jeremy said, and Georgiana seconded the greeting.
Grantsbury looked at them with some satisfaction. “And good morning to you. Are you off to enjoy the grounds?”
“We are,” said Georgiana.
“Well, I am off to enjoy some coffee and cold ham,” said Grantsbury. “Have a lovely walk.”
The couple turned toward the door, but after they’d gone a few steps, Georgiana turned around and called to the earl.
He turned around. She walked over to him and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you,” she said.
TWENTY-THREE
After Jeremy and Georgiana had been gone for an hour or so, the house slowly began to come to life. Guests trickled down from upstairs, some looking refreshed and others looking rather haggard. Coffee and
tea were in great demand.
Miss Niven, who made her way down sometime after noon, was not looking her best. She had been up for an hour or two already, and had tried to banish her headache and nausea with tea and toast, but had met with little success. Her memory of the previous night’s interview with Gerry was indistinct. She knew she’d told him she’d marry him, but she had no recollection of what had happened after that. She woke that morning in her own bed, wearing nothing but her shift, and she’d no idea how she’d come to be in that state.
She had no doubt that Gerry would not have made an assault on her honor, but she was worried that she might have embarrassed herself, or perhaps him. She was determined to find him and clear the air as soon as she could.
She found him breakfasting alone, looking a bit the worse for wear himself.
“May I join you?” she asked.
He looked up, and his delight at seeing her was evident.
“You need not ever ask,” he said, and gestured to the chair next to him. “How are you feeling?”
“I have certainly had better mornings,” she said a little ruefully, “but I daresay I can muddle through.”
“Would you like some breakfast or some tea?”
Her stomach churned at the thought. “I have tried that already, and it didn’t answer.”
Neither was sure how to broach the subject of last night’s conversation. They were quiet for a time, and then each started at the same moment.
“I must—” Alexandra said, and then broke off as she realized that Gerry was speaking also.
“I should—” he had begun, but also broke off.
Gerry gestured to her. “Ladies first.”
She took a deep breath. “I must tell you that, drunk as I was, I was most certainly in earnest last night.”
He smiled broadly, and she went on. “I am ashamed to have accepted your proposal, which was made in such a generous way, without the dignity and seriousness that it deserved.”
She took a breath to go on—she had a whole speech planned—but he interrupted her. “My dear, you could have accepted it while swinging from the chandelier in a monkey suit, and I wouldn’t have cared a fig! My only care is that you have accepted it.” There was wonder in his eyes. “You have accepted it!”
His joy was palpable, and her heart leaped. To be loved, to be sincerely loved, and by a sincere man who was worthy of the best she had to give.
Her speech and her headache were alike forgotten when he took her hand and kissed her gently, softly, on the cheek. “I will do everything in my power to make your life as happy as mine is this day.”
She knew that it was so, and she rejoiced.
As Alexandra’s future was being settled, Georgiana was feeling very unsettled. Walking the grounds with Jeremy, she felt very much as she always had. He was so familiar to her, and she was comfortable in his presence. Their walk had been subdued at the start, but they had soon fallen into the bantering style they were accustomed to.
For Georgiana, though, there was a difference. When she had told him her story and seen his anger, she had known that the casual nature of their intimacy was a sham. Her distress at the thought of losing him through her own bad behavior put her feelings for him in stark relief, and as they walked around the Penfield grounds she felt as nervous as a schoolgirl with a crush.
When he took her hand, she felt butterflies. When he kissed her, she felt her knees weaken.
They were by this time quite far from the house, walking along a stream that was almost a river in spring, but was now just a trickle. The path they took ran across the slope that went down to the water. It faced south, and the leaves on the maples and oaks were just beginning to turn. It was a lovely spot, and the solitude made Georgiana feel as if she were far, far away from everything that had caused her trouble at Penfield.
They were evidently not the first people to enjoy the hillside spot, though, as there was a gazebo built under a stand of trees just ahead of them. They made their way to it and admired the view of the stream and the nearby countryside.
Jeremy sat down on the bench, and Georgiana sat down beside him. He moved a little away from her, which startled her for a moment, but then he pulled her shoulders down to his lap and gestured that she should put her feet on the cushioned bench.
She lay on the bench, using his thigh as a pillow, and reveled in the sensation of having her hair stroked by his hand. She closed her eyes, and he brushed his hands against her forehead and rubbed her temples. It was an odd combination, she thought, the profound relaxation coupled with the nervous excitement.
He ran his hands over her cheekbones and massaged her earlobes. He curled the loose tendrils of her hair around his fingers, and then let them go. He fit the tip of his index finger in the little indentation over the middle of her upper lip, and then used that finger to trace the outline of her mouth.
She felt his touch running along her lip as though it were electric. While all the muscles in her body were at rest, her energy was focused on that one spot.
He moved down and traced her jawline. He stroked the soft skin of her neck and ran his hands across the ridges her collarbones made. Her dress was cut low enough that he could make out her top few ribs, and he traced each of those in turn.
Georgiana felt her breathing grow shallower and her muscles begin to tense. Jeremy ran his fingertips under the neckline of her dress, all the way from her shoulder to the hollow between her breasts and back up to the other shoulder. Then he did it again the other way.
By now she was on fire, with a heat centered deep inside her and radiating out. When he slid his hand under her dress and caressed her breast, it was as though his hand had a direct line to her very soul.
She couldn’t help comparing what she felt now with what she had felt with Barnes. Certainly he had excited her, piqued her, aroused her. But there was a connectedness with Jeremy that added depth and richness to her bodily sensations.
It was that thought that made her open her eyes. It was that connectedness that made her sure that this wasn’t right. What she felt was meaningful and important; it wasn’t the stuff of casual encounters in gazebos. She sat up.
“I don’t think we should do this,” she said quietly.
He gave her a questioning look.
“I have learned many things over the course of the last week. One of them is that I shouldn’t trifle with affections, either mine or someone else’s.”
“And whose do you believe you trifle with now?” Jeremy had just a hint of a smile as he asked this, but she answered him seriously. “My own,” she said. “I do not know about yours.”
“Do you not?” he asked, the smile gone.
She had an inkling, of course, and was searching for a way to say it, but Jeremy was too much of a gentleman to let her answer such a question.
“I love you. You must know that I love you.”
She flushed deeply, a blush not of embarrassment but of deep, fulfilled pleasure.
“I did not know. I could not know. I could only hope,” she said. “It was the fear that my missteps could have cost me you that made me realize how fervently I did hope.” She looked him in the face, her eyes shining. “And you must know that I love you.”
The pleasure, this time, was his. “I know it now,” he said.
He put one hand on each of her cheeks and brought her face to his. He kissed her deeply, warmly, lovingly, and then pulled back, keeping his hands on her cheeks.
“Marry me,” he whispered, but it was a compelling whisper, a whisper almost urgent.
She said nothing. She simply nodded, as though it were a conclusion foregone.
For a moment, they only looked at each other, absorbing their happiness. And then he let go of her cheeks and took her hands. He put them to his lips and kissed first one and then the other. “You will be my wife,” he said, as though he couldn’t quite believe it, and then he pulled her to him.
Lips had never felt so soft to Lady Georgiana. A to
ngue had never felt so warm, so right. She felt as though she wanted to be consumed, subsumed, to become a part of him.
She climbed onto his lap, facing him, and laid her head on his shoulder, her face buried in his neck. She sat there, still, for a few moments, feeling her own breath and his, absorbing his warmth.
Then she kissed his neck, tasting his salty-sweet taste. He put his hands on her buttocks and pulled her closer to him. She felt the contours of his body against hers, familiar but freshly exciting. She ran her hands down his arms and felt as his muscles tightened to pull her closer still.
She groaned and threw her head back with the joy of it, and he ran the tip of his tongue from the base of her collarbone, up her neck, to the point of her chin. And then her mouth met his once more, and they kissed with a passion that amounted almost to greed.
She felt his cock, hard beneath her, and she shifted her body to one side so she could reach the fastening of his trousers. In a heartbeat, it was undone and he was released. She stroked him, slowly and gently, noticing every detail. Her fingertips ran over every bump, every ridge, every vein, as though this intimate braille would tell her all she needed to know.
Again she felt their connectedness. This was his cock, but it was also hers.
Then it was his turn to release her. He ran his hands under her skirts, over her taut legs. Her body was warm, and got ever warmer as he moved up her thighs. If he was going to take her drawers off, she would have to stand up, and he couldn’t have that. He simply ripped a hole in the seam.
Georgiana was surprised at the sound, and then laughed softly as she realized what he had done.
Then she shifted over him and he was inside.
She felt him slide into her and had an overwhelming sense of completion, of rightness. They began to move as one and she felt as though they were one, that they would be one until death did them part.
She wanted him very badly, but not with the sharp-edged urgency that she had sometimes known. It was instead a deep, soft compulsion, and the knowledge that he wanted to satisfy it filled her with happiness.
She rocked back and forth, back and forth on his lap, and the small motion gradually built up the tension in their muscles and the firmness of the hold they had on each other. Georgiana felt Jeremy’s hands on her ass, holding her tightly, moving her back and forth. She felt that he was restraining both himself and her, and the restraint piqued her ever-growing pleasure.
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