by Sophia Nash
“Fairleigh,” he said when his daughter looked up. “You are to return to Penrose and remain in the schoolroom until you finish the work Miss Biddleworth set before you this morning.”
“But Papa—”
“And then,” he cut in, “you are to spend one hour on your needlework followed by one hour at the pianoforte.” He hardened his heart to his daughter’s pained expression. “And after, you are to pray for forgiveness for forcing Miss Biddleworth to hand in her notice.”
His daughter smiled radiantly. “Well, Papa, I rather think you should be thanking me. She never taught me a thing. I will be saving you a good deal of money and I don’t need a governess or tutor anymore. I haven’t needed one for years.”
He resisted the urge to throttle her. “Fairleigh,” he warned. “You are to do exactly—”
“Georgiana and I,” Fairleigh interrupted, “were just discussing your performance.”
He started.
“Your apology to her,” his daughter clarified when he couldn’t make his mouth function. “She said that you kissed her quite—”
“Fairleigh, perhaps I can discuss with your father the idea of allowing you to paint again tomorrow if you do as he says right now.” Georgiana stepped from behind her easel, her face a blaze of color despite her sun-darkened complexion.
He looked from one to the other and thought, not for the first time, that it was a quirk of nature that men ruled the world and not women.
“Fairleigh Fortesque, you have precisely to the count of three to start running toward the schoolroom. And if I don’t find you there when I return, then I shall force you to select a fine birch switch with which to tan—”
“You would never, Papa.” His daughter searched his face. “Well, you never did before. You’re just annoyed old Beetleface quit. I’m certain—”
“One…” he said ominously.
“But Papa, really—”
“Two…”
His daughter glared at him imperiously and then turned and trotted away, her posture saying everything she dared not utter.
“What happens when you reach three?” Georgiana asked quietly.
“I’ll answer that if you tell me what you told my daughter.”
Georgiana tilted her head in such a way that the sunlight caught the bronze filaments in her eyes, which matched a few sun-bleached strands of hair near her temples he had never noticed before. Her skin was the color of honey and he found it oddly alluring. The pale, translucent faces of ladies he had known now seemed sickly in comparison. She cared not a whit for her complexion; her hat lay dangling from its ribbons along her back. Only the tattoo of an unseen vein beating erratically along her neck gave away her ill ease.
“She is very persistent,” Georgiana replied.
“Really?” he drawled.
“Oh, bother. I was trying to be kind. I like her very much, despite the fact that she has more energy than I ever possessed. I’m sure you know she shows much artistic talent.”
“Yet little inclination toward reading, writing, or anything requiring self-discipline to improve her mind or prepare her for her eventual duties in life.”
“Children rarely enjoy applying themselves,” she said with a smile. “Childhood is about escaping the schoolroom, going fishing, flying the falcons, racing horses, and climbing trees. Don’t you remember?”
“I put behind me the follies of youth long ago.” He watched as she gathered the brushes and stooped to place them in a small wooden box. Her knee appeared to buckle but she steadied herself before he could catch her arm. “You, of all people, know what inattention to studies and foolishness can lead to…lifelong regret.”
Georgiana finally faced him then, a deep flush crawling up from the bodice of her drab, stained gown. “I actually have very few regrets. And I do not consider my deformity a permanent reminder of childhood folly. Quite the contrary. I consider it a shining example of my hen-heartedness.”
“What?” he said incredulously. “You don’t possess a cowardly bone in your body.”
“Gentlemen always think bravery involves physical efforts. Sometimes cowardice stems from an inability to say something that needs to be said.” She laughed oddly. “But never mind. I don’t expect you to understand, especially when you no longer seem to possess the slightest interest in childish fun, or searching for adventure. It’s all dreary duty to you now.”
“That’s not true at all.”
“Hmmm,” she murmured, a glimmer of amusement in her dark eyes. “Well, I dare you to organize some unbridled amusements for everyone—especially for your daughter, who will need some reward to entice her to stay in the schoolroom for all the hours you’re suggesting.”
“I shall consider it,” he said, “if you’ll answer my original question.”
“Which one?”
Oh, he was certain she knew. Her glance away from him proved it. “What did you tell her? That I kissed you quite…what? Properly? Thoroughly? Passionately?”
“How ridiculous. I, of course, told her you kissed me quite apologetically.”
He stepped closer and again that fleeting wildness appeared in her eyes. He spoke softly, “Is that really how you think I kissed you, Georgiana?”
“Of course,” she whispered, looking aside.
He stroked one side of her face as lightly as he would a falcon’s sleek wings. “Well then, it would appear you know as little about kisses as you seem to think I remember about adventure.”
She looked at him sharply. “I know enough.”
“Really?” He moved his head to better examine her face. “Allow me to beg to differ. If that kiss had involved a simple apology it would have been entirely different—more chaste, more proper. In fact, I’m glad of this chance to speak to you privately, Georgiana. I must apologize in earnest this time. I’ve no excuse for my behavior to you yesterday. I can only plead a momentary loss of sanity.”
She paled visibly. “I know very well that only a loss of sanity would move a man to kiss me. I hardly need you to remind me.”
He cursed his ill choice of words. “Georgiana, you’ve twisted my words completely. I’m begging your pardon for ruthlessly losing my head and dishonoring you in any way.”
Without a word, she stared at him for so long, he thought she might turn to stone.
He knew it was a monumentally bad idea, but he couldn’t bear to watch her another moment. With a rush, he gathered her stiff fingers in his hands. “It was wrong of me to press my attentions on you. Attentions you obviously found abhorrent. You ran away before I could apologize.”
“I think I’ve had about as many apologies as I can stand, actually.” There was such sadness in Georgiana’s expression.
A goshan hawk keened in the distance.
“Listen to me, Georgiana. Please. You are a beautiful, vibrant young woman.” Still the right words would not come forth. It was the first time he wasn’t able to express himself with any fine precision.
“Oh, for both our sakes, stop. Aren’t you the one who can’t abide dishonesty? I just told you I don’t require an apology.” Her fingers were still cold in his hands.
He didn’t care anymore about propriety, about being a gentleman. Her slender, sweeping brows framed her glittering hurt eyes, and nothing could have kept him from kissing her again. He refused to look deeper than the overwhelming desire to comfort her, to taste the raw essence of her.
He dipped down and captured her lips with his own, his body surging against hers and responding instantaneously to the remembered imprint of her body that had seared itself into his memory. She felt so slender in his arms and he took care when he enveloped her fragile form against his great hulking warmth. Within a heartbeat his blood heated and pulsed with desire.
Only this time the intensity was pushed to a higher plane—far beyond anything he had known. For now she had gotten past the shock that had frozen her the first time he had kissed her. This time, under the hot sun, blazing through the salty Cornish ai
r, she gripped his body to hers with astonishing strength and purpose, and he hardened to painful intensity. He took possession of her mouth with unquenchable hunger, unparalleled heat and force, and all the while Georgiana’s lithe muscles bent to answer his brutish demands.
Her dark hair felt like hot silk, heated by the sun and burning his palms. And for the first time in his life he completely unleashed the raw passion he had refused to acknowledge—the emotions that lay deep within the recesses of his being.
Perhaps it was the luxuriant honeyed essence of her invading his senses that pushed him over the edge. Perhaps it was when she slid her hands under the lapel of his coat for the long glide to his neck. He was quite certain that his last coherent thought was when she rose to her toes and instinctively cradled his heavy arousal within the sweet, warm juncture of her thighs.
He plundered the depths of her mouth, only taking, never giving, surrendering completely to his needs, feeling an overwhelming need to never let her go.
They wrestled—tasting, biting, gripping each other like two animals in the wild. He was so mindless with primal desire coursing through him that he was on the verge of laying her on the rocky soil amid the tall sea oats and taking her right there, all rational thought gone with the offshore ocean breeze.
Suddenly, the voices of Ata, Sarah Winters, and Elizabeth Ashburton reached through the fog of his drunken craving to force him to set aside Georgiana a moment before the three widows rounded the tall hedgerow nearby.
“Oh, there you are,” Ata called out, waving to them. “We’ve been looking for you. Your daughter begged us to find you and tell you she has started her lesson and found her embroidery. Grace is with her, Quinn, in the morning room. They are darling together.”
It took every inch of control to regulate his breathing, and gather in front of him Georgiana’s easels and boxes to hide the evidence of his raging desire. He dared not look at her. “Delighted you found us,” he said, his breathing uneven. “Will you accompany me to check my daughter’s progress, or are you taking a tour?”
“Oh, please.” Ata chortled. “Don’t let our slow pace hold you back. I’m certain you’ll want to see the pretty picture of Grace and Fairleigh together. And Georgiana promised to take us to the falcon mews. I’ve never seen a trained bird, and Fairleigh has quite whetted my appetite with her excitement.”
He glanced at Georgiana and noted two high points of color cresting on her cheeks. He longed to speak to her alone. To settle matters between them. To find out what she was thinking. But it was not to be. And neither one of them was a good enough actor to stay in the other’s company with an audience present and pretend indifference.
He bowed slightly to Georgiana. “Well then, Georgiana. Ata. Ladies, I bid you happy hunting.” Quinn balanced the painting boxes and strode off, feeling a bit of cowardice for not insisting on speaking to Georgiana in private.
As he went through his evening ablutions, he thought back on the day’s events and was amazed his goose hadn’t been cooked but good. Why Providence had pushed Ata and her friends to find him just moments before he ravished Georgiana was something he would ponder for many nights.
Yet his body ached for release still. He stood before his bed—Anthony’s bed, and his uncle’s before him—and felt the weight of twelve generations of Fortesque marquises looking down on him. He fought off the feeling and stumbled into his breeches, and into the night mist, toward Loe Pool…
Quinn sliced his arms and shoulders through the cool waters of the lake, tasting the sweet water that had once been salty before the shingle bar had cut off the sea centuries before, and wished he could cut off the irrational emotions roiling in his body.
He would not open himself to feeling emotions for a woman again. Correction, for any person. But most especially not for Georgiana, someone who exuded emotion through every pore of her being. He had learned long ago that emotions were useless things, and that contentment had to be found within oneself, not with others, with the sole exception of one’s children.
He stopped and treaded water halfway to the small island and shook the water from his eyes. It was only then, he remembered, Georgiana had never explained why she had run away from his kisses in the study. In light of her actions today, it made absolutely no sense. But then, when had a woman ever made any sense to him?
The windows of the dark little lake house dimly reflected the moonlight. He wondered if anyone ever used the tiny retreat anymore. But of course they didn’t. It had only ever been used by children—he, Georgiana, and Anthony—when they had desired an escape from the adult world.
Chapter 7
Georgiana had managed to avoid any chance meeting with Quinn the next morning by repairing directly to the first chore on her list: uncap honeycombs. She just couldn’t face him until she had sorted out what, if anything, she should say to him. And she was certain she couldn’t play the role of well-rested hostess to her friends when she had barely slept an hour, if one counted the endless half-conscious moments she had spent twisting the bedcovers.
Only her well-ordered list of things to do brought her any peace. She began the process of tending to the hive on the edge of the outer flower and herb gardens, cultivated for cutting. The rosemary and clover, nature’s aphrodisiacs, were in bloom.
The bees hummed all about her, the sound calming her as she lit a chafing dish filled with coal and moist peat. The cycle of the hive suited her to perfection. It was a tidy life of purpose.
Since yesterday’s kiss, they’d been forced to be in the same room only once, at dinner last night. And it had been appallingly easy to refrain from speaking to him since Ata and the rest of her friends could always be counted on to carry on no less than three conversations at any given moment. Quinn was at the head with Ata to his one side and Grace Sheffey to his other, while Georgiana sat at the foot with Mr. Brown to her left and Sarah and Elizabeth on her right.
It had not missed her notice that Quinn did not look at her once during the evening meal, and she had pleaded a headache soon after the ladies retired to the main salon before Quinn rejoined them. There seemed an unbreachable gap between them, and she imagined he was probably counting his lucky stars that the ladies of the club were proving to be such an effective diversion. But then again, Georgiana was too. It was just too painful to continue the madness.
Their passionate interlude on the shingle spit had left her ill with longing. Unfortunately, it was quite clear that what Quinn felt for her was most likely something entirely different. She was no fool. The male of their species was born with an unquenchable thirst for females. Hadn’t Tony admitted that, and told her many times over that men’s carnal needs often ruled their actions? And her father had often warned there were reasons the proprieties had to be observed and had never allowed her to oversee laborers or go about the estate without a trusted brawny groom or three.
What she had seen in Quinn’s eyes was emotionless lust, not the love she held in her heart. He would never love her as she loved him. If he did, he would have shown restraint and courted her properly, and offered words of love. He was simply participating in what she had so blatantly offered. He would never dare do something so base with someone such as Grace Sheffey.
One particularly dark thought kept nudging her mind—that he had kissed her the second time in an attempt to prove she was pretty or desirable, which was a lie and they both knew it.
He pitied her.
It was warm and the smoke from the chafing dish billowed around her; the bees instinctively gorging themselves on honey with the threat of fire. Predictably, they soon became sweetly intoxicated, content, and almost harmless.
What must he think of her? She had very nearly bowled him over with her absurd, inelegant fashion. She had likely disgusted him with her wildly bold actions.
She would have to go away. She rearranged the folds of the veil covering her face. Oh, she had known when he’d first arrived that she would have to leave if he did not. And it appeared h
e was in for the duration. He was separating her and her family from Penrose as effectively as useless chaff from wheat.
And as if to prove the point, destiny intruded in the soft light of early morning, when Georgiana spied through the smoke haze a vision of the future coming toward her: Quinn and his daughter, her little hand locked and swinging in Grace Sheffey’s.
“There you are, Georgiana,” the countess said, the beautiful warmth of her smile spreading across her fine features. “We’d just about given up finding you, but I insisted we keep looking.”
Georgiana rose and set aside the smoking pot and was grateful for the hat and veil that partially shielded her.
“What are you doing?” Fairleigh asked.
“Uncapping the hives, darling,” Quinn said. “Georgiana is probably trying to keep up with that sweet tooth of yours.” He turned his attention toward her finally, but Georgiana noticed he was actually gazing slightly beyond her shoulder in an awkward fashion.
“Georgiana,” the countess continued, “Ata has had the mad notion that we hold a ball at Penrose. But, of course, we couldn’t possibly consider it without your approval.”
Quinn chuckled and looked down at his daughter. “Grace is being diplomatic. It was actually this one’s idea.”
“Well,” Georgiana replied quietly, carefully removing her hat and veil. “You don’t really need my approval, do you? If Quinn agrees, then of course we shall plan a ball. It’s a lovely idea.”
“I told you Georgiana would agree to it. She’s always ready for anything fun,” Fairleigh piped in generously while looking into the radiant expression of the countess. “She even dug worms for me and taught me how to fish.”