“Not at all?”
“I think I am more capable of draining the Thames dry than I am of settling you. I have far more productive things to be doing with my time.”
Another woman might have found it insulting, but Georgiana grinned as bright as the sun. “I have always known that you were a wise and clever man.”
“You knew nothing of the sort. You've always thought I was a boorish stick in the mud, even when you were more inclined toward me.”
Georgiana didn't say anything, but she lowered her gaze a little, and Tristan could see a telltale red on her cheeks.
“What are you thinking, Georgiana?”
“I... may be more inclined toward you than might be supposed.”
Tristan sensed suddenly that they were on dangerous ground. A wise man might simply be straightforward with Georgiana now. There was nothing between them but the predicament that she was in. Danger and risk bound them together rather than anything more benign or kind.
As it turned out, he wasn't a wise man.
“Georgiana, will you come here?”
She looked startled, but she rose from her chair, coming to stand within inches of his knees as he pushed his chair away from the table. In that moment, he was achingly aware of how alone they were now that Tabi and Eleanor were gone.
There were a dozen voices in his head telling him to stop, but somehow, when Georgiana was near, it was too easy to shut them out. Slowly, giving her plenty of time to draw away if she so wished, he raised his hand to her cheek and watched, breath still, as her eyes fluttered closed. Her skin was unbelievably soft, and her hand came up to hold his.
When she spoke, her voice was a whisper. “What are we doing?”
He didn't want words right then. Words got in the way, left them both bloodied and enraged. Instead, Tristan wrapped his free arm around her waist, pulling her to stand between his knees, and then he was tugging her down for a kiss.
It was foolish, it was mad, and neither of them could get enough of it. It was a sudden drenching thunderstorm on a summer day, a storm of passion where he could not pull her close enough, and her hand landed in his hair, tugging hard because she wanted her hands on him.
Tristan could feel her sharp teeth on his lips, feel the desperate twist of her body next to his, and there was no telling what might have happened if they had not heard a step in the hall. They broke apart, listening hard, but the steps continued.. A maid or a footman, then, all unaware of what they were passing.
Tristan took a deep breath, but Georgiana spoke first.
“We cannot do this.”
Tristan felt a twist of grief in his heart. He wondered what she might do if he pulled her close again, whether she could say that if they were touching, but he only nodded.
“You're right. I apologize. We should likely return to our beds for the night, and start fresh with your blackmailer in the morning.”
For a moment, he thought that Georgiana might argue, but then she nodded. “All right. I don't know what happens next, but short of some kind of miracle, we are not going to figure it out tonight.”
“No, unfortunately not. We still have more than a week to figure out what we need to do, however, and I am confident that we will come up with something. Sleep well, all right?”
“You have had a long day. It might not be a bad idea if we retired.”
She gave him a smile that struck him as brave, and at that moment, he would have fought a dragon for her.
“I'll do my best. You, too.”
As he made his way back to his own room, Tristan knew that something between them had changed. He didn't know what it was, but suddenly, the ground that had always felt so solid underneath him was rolling like the deck of a ship at sea.
* * *
Chapter 18
Georgiana's dreams that night were strange and frightening. She was in a dark place, and she knew she had to get out. She knew there was something she was supposed to do, and she knew that there was someone she needed to save. However, with every step she took, her dress weighed her down. Her hems were weighed down with mud, cold and clinging to her ankles as she tried to run, and someone or something behind her kept snatching at her hair.
When she woke up, a cold pre-dawn light was just beginning to bring the room out of utter darkness. Her heart beat fast, and for a moment, she simply lay still, thankfully realizing that it was, after all, just a dream.
The thought of kissing Tristan the day before was troubling, but she decided instead to focus on how good it had felt. It didn't need to mean anything. Not everything did. They could proceed as they had, without worrying about that kiss.
As Georgiana sat up, however, reaching for the cup and pitcher of water that had been left by her bed, a slow creeping feeling started to flood her mind.
I'm never up this early. Not even when I've been to bed at what Tristan would call a decent hour. So, that means... something woke me up.
Suddenly, the bedroom she had been sleeping in since she was a little girl felt cold and menacing, the shadows strange. Georgiana tried to tell herself that she was being silly, but at the end of the day, something at the back of her mind refused to believe all was well.
It took a surprising amount of courage to simply stand up out of bed. It was like being a little girl all over again, where she had suspected that there were monsters waiting for her in the dark. As she walked the room, however, she started to feel calmer. She was at Fox Hall, nothing was meant to hurt her here.
Her relief was short-lived, however. As she came close to the door, her eyes were drawn to a small white envelope on the floor. She realized with a chill that someone had slipped the envelope under the door, and that it was of the same type as the one she had received in the mail almost a week ago.
No, it can't be...
However, it was. She read the letter inside the envelope, and she had to clench her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering out of her head. Her heart was surely beating too quickly, and the shiver that ran through her body was positively painful.
She wanted nothing more than to burn the letter, but at the end of the day, she knew that this was something she needed to face head-on. Then she realized that perhaps she did not need to face it alone, and despite her burgeoning panic, she felt a little better.
Georgiana pulled a silk dressing gown on over her night shift, wrapping it securely around her, and then, tucking the note in her hand, she stepped into the hallway. With another shudder, she realized that the door to her room was unlocked. There had never been a reason to lock it before, and the thought of lying so very vulnerable to her blackmailer could drive her to terror.
She padded through the halls of her childhood home, still dark and too early for even the servants to be up. The thought occurred to her that there was a chance, however small, of running into her blackmailer even now, and by the time she reached the guest wing, she was nearly running.
She slipped into the suite adjoining Tristan's, and she knocked on the door rapidly. For a moment, she thought she would simply have to find the housekeeper's key and let herself in, but then she heard Tristan stirring on the other side before he made his way to the door.
When the door was opened, Tristan looked at her with such a look of utter befuddlement that Georgiana had to stifle a startled laugh. His dark hair, usually brushed back with such care, was more than a bit of a haystack, and the expression on his face was a great deal like that of a calf she had once seen that was encountering a rainstorm for the first time.
“Georgiana?”
“Goodnbess, is this what you look like before your valet gets a hold of you in the morning?”
“Did... you just show up in my room to make fun of me? Is this the new Society trend?”
“Unfortunately not. May I come in?”
“At this point, I'm not sure anything could stop you.”
He stepped aside to let her enter, and then, as he was only wearing a shirt to sleep, she looked aside as he pulled on
some breeches. Well, she mostly looked aside. Seeing his bare thighs out of the corner of her eyes made her blush, but she couldn't really feel sorry about it. Really, he was astonishingly well-muscled for a man who was meant to be as stuffy as he was.
When Tristan turned back to her expectantly, she handed him the note, and she watched his face as he read. She knew what he was seeing, and she saw an intense rage bloom across his face before he wrestled it back into check.
You do not seem capable of leaving well enough alone!! You must understand that I am a serious man, and I will NOT tolerate INTERFERENCE. Expect retribution this Sunday, straight from the pulpit!
“How in the hell did you get this?”
“It was slipped under my door. I don't know when, but it must have been between when we went to bed around eleven and just a few minutes ago.”
Tristan looked at her with an intense searching look. “Are you all right? Did the bastard actually come into your room?”
Georgiana shook her head. “No. I think I might have woke up when I heard him, but beyond that, there was nothing.”
“I want to lock you up in a tower. This is terrifying.”
Before she could ask him to elaborate on that frankly strange thought, he looked back down at the paper.
“Someone in your household is your blackmailer.”
Georgiana nodded. “Yes. Someone who has been here since... since the incident.”
“Do you know how many servants that accounts for?”
Georgiana shrugged helplessly. “Almost all of them? It's only been five years, and my father is known to be a good employer. We've never had a great many people leave our employ until it is time for them to be pensioned off.”
At some point, they had come to sit together on Tristan's bed. The perfect hostess in Georgiana was irritated to discover that his bed linens were slightly musty. She would have to have a word with the housekeeper. Then she realized that there was absolutely no way she could do so without explaining how she knew that fact in the first place, and the sheer ridiculousness of their situation struck her all over again.
Tristan seemed entirely unaware of the impropriety of their arrangement. Instead, he only stared at the note as if he could unveil its secrets through sheer intimidation.
“And, of course, there's your father, Tabi, and Eleanor.”
Georgiana stared at him.
“Are you serious?”
“I think we need to be. Everyone who is in the house tonight is a suspect.”
“My father can't move around at all without the help of the nurse!”
“Ah, then the nurse may be in on it with him.”
At Georgiana's dire look, Tristan winced. “I'm sorry, that was a poor joke to make under the best of circumstances.”
“It was!”
“But I'm not even exaggerating that much. Everyone with access to Fox Hall tonight is a suspect, at least as an accessory to this crime. Admittedly, I don't think your father is the sort to do something like blackmail you into line. He seems like a more direct sort of man. I have a feeling that in his better days, he might simply have run me through rather than verbally eviscerate me at the table.”
“Well. Good. We have ascertained that my father is likely not the suspect. I feel as if we have made a great deal of progress.”
Unexpectedly, Tristan reached over to squeeze her hand. His touch was light and warm, and for some unlikely reason, it did make her feel a little better.
“Take heart. We have at least limited the pool of people it might be. Even if the number of people at Fox Hall is not small, it is still smaller than the number of people in London.”
“That is not really a comfort.”
“It'll have to do for now. I'm sorry.”
Georgiana sighed, and Tristan reached out to touch her cheek gently. As she leaned into his touch, letting her eyes flutter closed, she quietly gave up all thoughts of trying to resist the attraction she felt for him. After all, resisting him had never worked out for her in the past; why should it be any different now?
* * *
Chapter 19
At some point, Georgiana fell asleep in his bed, and though the instinct to lie down next to her was intense. Tristan knew that only disaster could come of it. Falling asleep in bed with the daughter of his host certainly sounded like a Martin thing to do, but he couldn't imagine the irascible Duke of Southerly being so very understanding of it when Georgiana was involved.
As dawn inched closer, Tristan reluctantly prodded Georgiana awake, and she gave him a look of such utter confusion over where she was that he almost laughed.
“Come on, darling, it's time for you to get back to your room, unless your new strategy is simply to have a bigger scandal than the one that's threatening.”
“I could just stay in bed. Nothing bad happens in bed.”
“That sounds completely untrue. Come on, up you get.”
She went, grumbling all the while, and Tristan was suddenly struck by a vision of doing this with her not as a furtive thing, but as something that happened every morning, if they were married, if they were man and wife. There would be so many late nights, as Georgiana would hardly stop her whirlwind of social engagements just because she was married, and Tristan had never really been able to countenance lying in bed all day, no matter how late he had been out the night before.
She would be so cranky in the morning. I wonder if I could cheer her up a little...
The form that 'cheering up' would take was so very vivid that Tristan nearly choked, making Georgiana pause with her hand on the door latch.
“Are you quite all right, Tristan?”
“Er… yes. Fine. Just fine.”
She did not look as if she believed him, but she shrugged and left, leaving him feeling more than a little bit as if he had been hit by a carriage.
We need to figure this out, and then I need to get back to my real life in London. When he thought of that real life, however, the only thing that he felt was a kind of echoing desolation, and he wondered all over again what life was really like without Georgiana.
* * *
After breakfast, where Tabi once again herded a now-knowing Eleanor out of the room in a hurry, Georgiana went to the door and locked it before returning to Tristan.
He grinned at her.
“And now that you have me alone, you're going to work your wicked will on me?”
“You are grossly over-estimating your appeal, Tristan. No, I think I know what that note meant by the pulpit on Sunday. I think my blackmailer has sent something to Mr. Hensbury.”
Tristan stared at her, at first unable to parse the words that were coming out of Georgiana's face.
“Mr. Hensbury is still alive?”
“Regrettably, yes. I have a feeling he has every intention of seeing to this parish until the last trumpet, whether any of us like it or not.”
The curate who tended to the souls of the people in town was a notoriously cantankerous and uncooperative man, and Tristan still had memories of the old man's droning sermons when he had been a child and in Devon. Of course, Carrows went to Sunday services whenever they were available, and more than once, Tristan and Ned had thought enviously of the little pagan children of the past who had never had to worry about their immortal souls at all. Of course, little Blythe had been a serene and pious example to them all, but given what Tristan knew of her now, that was likely the start of her decade-long charade.
“ We need to get to him. He'll eviscerate you on the pulpit on Sunday. That's just the day after tomorrow.”
Georgiana nodded grimly. “If anyone would like an excuse to socially eviscerate me, it's him. We've never been on the best of terms.”
Tristan eyed her. “It sounds like there is a great deal to be said there?”
“Well. I suppose I might have gotten into an argument with him when I was seventeen about the place of women in the world. He has a lot to say about what a wife should do, for a man who has never married himself.
The argument amused Father a great deal though. I think it was one of our finest moments as father and daughter before he got sick.”
She sounded almost wistful about her father's goodwill, and Tristan's hands curled into fists reflexively before he made himself relax. He thought he saw the situation better than Georgiana did. The Duke of Southerly approved of wild ways as long as it was something he might have done. When it was Georgiana being herself, well, he might as well have been Tristan's own father, who was notoriously apt to find fault.
“So, we need to go and make sure that Mr. Hensbury does not receive notice of your situation.”
Georgiana nodded. “It'll probably come by post, the way the first one did. And we at least know that it cannot be there already, unless the blackmailer has magical traveling powers. We were only in town yesterday, so at the earliest, the post went out last night.”
“Which means it will be to him today at the earliest.”
Georgiana shivered, but she nodded. “And more likely by tomorrow. I know that he has a boy in town run it out to him. He's actually a little far out on the downs in his own cottage. I've always suspected that he was made for the life of a modern contemplative hermit, rather than a curate who has to deal with the souls of the living.”
“Then we need to either intercept that boy, or we need to get into his house and get that letter before he reads it.”
For a moment, the two of them sat in silence, contemplating the enormity of the task in front of them. Tristan felt that surely as a duke, one of the most privileged men in the whole of England, he should have more options in front of him, but when it came to the type of clergyman that Mr. Hensbury was, all bets were out the window. The man would as likely spit in Tristan's eye as bow to his wishes about much of anything, especially as it concerned what he would think of as the wrongdoing of anyone like Georgiana.
First the army man, and now the clergy. I feel at some point that my position should be more of a help than it is.
The Duke's Hellion (Hart and Arrow) (A Regency Romance Book) Page 10