by Jane Ashford
She arched closer. One of Sebastian’s knees slipped between hers as he pulled her tighter against him. Georgina felt as if she was melting. If he hadn’t been supporting her, she couldn’t have stood upright.
Her back came up against a hard surface. The door. They’d moved somehow. She leaned against it as Sebastian kissed her neck, her shoulder, and then took her mouth once more. She answered him, more practiced already. The kiss went on and on, incendiary. His knee pressed deliciously closer. Georgina shifted, willing it to reach the ache that consumed her. And then, as if they knew better than she how to manage the thing, her legs came up and laced around Sebastian in a second embrace.
He made a strangled sound. His hands gripped her bottom, holding her there. Buckskin rasped against sheer muslin. Georgina lost all sense of anything but the exquisite feel of that friction. It built as Sebastian pressed closer, rising unbearably until a great wave of release burst through her. “Oh,” she cried. He caught the sound with his lips, kissed her as it shook her to the core. She clung to him, riding the delight from crest to ebb.
Supported by strong arms, slowly, Georgina relaxed. Her breath slowed. Limp, sated, she rested her head on Sebastian’s shoulder.
He groaned. Then he carried her over to the old brown sofa and set her gently down there, skirts tumbled, face flushed.
Georgina leaned back. A country upbringing had shown her a bit about mating. She could see clear evidence of Sebastian’s unsated arousal. “I should do something for you,” she said. She had some ideas on that score. She reached up.
“Georgina?” called a voice from outside the room. Of course it was Hilda, with her genius for the inopportune moment.
The door handle rattled.
Rigid, Sebastian stepped away from her. She saw him grit his teeth as she straightened her dress. His face seemed full of longing.
“There you are,” said Hilda as she stepped into the schoolroom. “We’ve been looking everywhere.” Emma followed her in. The two girls hesitated as if they sensed the tension weighting the atmosphere. “What’s going on?” Hilda asked.
Georgina spoke quickly to save her fiancé from their curious stares. “We were just talking.” Her gown was terribly crumpled, she realized. Her sisters were only too likely to notice.
“Must go,” muttered Sebastian, his voice uncharacteristically thick.
“But we wanted to ask you…” began Emma.
“Not now,” said Georgina as he stalked through the door.
“Did you do something to offend him?” asked Hilda. She shot Georgina a reproachful glance.
Georgina couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing.
Five
He would not go mad, Lord Sebastian Gresham thought as he joined the Stanes and their guests in the castle’s great hall the following evening, awaiting the signal to go in to dinner. Even though he was closer to Georgina than he’d managed to get since their encounter in the schoolroom, even though her nearness affected him like a match to a powder keg. She was talking to one of the visiting neighbors, but Sebastian felt no envy of that. He didn’t want to talk to her. Not at first, anyway.
He wanted to take up where they’d left off, but in the privacy of one of the castle’s many bedchambers this time. Without the vast annoyance of clothing. He yearned to quench the desire that burned in him night and day. But though he could enjoy the fantasy of tossing her over his shoulder and carrying her up to bed, he couldn’t actually do it. Such conduct was beyond the line for an honorable man. An army officer and a gentleman. He hadn’t gone beyond the line. She had. Sebastian felt as if his blood was sizzling in his veins at the memory.
Georgina looked exquisite in an evening dress of pale-green gauze, a chaste flower in her hair. Had there ever been such a delectable combination of innocence and passion? She was a girl experiencing the realities of love for the first time. He knew that from the tentative nature of her kisses. But she had the enthusiastic instincts of…of a woman who would make him the luckiest man in the world. Soon. If he could just get the dashed knot tied and have her to himself.
The marquess, in conventional evening dress rather than his usual garb, brought an older man up to Sebastian. Time for introductions; time to do his duty. “My daughter’s intended,” said his host with customary informality. “This is Crowther. One of our neighbors, lives over near Hereford.”
The white-haired, upright newcomer did not look pleased at this abbreviated presentation. His pale-blue eyes glinted, and his prominent jaw tightened. “Langford’s son, eh?” he said.
Sebastian was used to this question. One day, he hoped to have a personal history that outweighed his status as the duke’s son. But that day was not yet. “Yes, sir,” he replied. “Very pleased to meet you.” He offered a respectful bow and a smile to make up for the marquess’s careless social style.
It had the desired effect. Crowther’s expression eased. He summoned a plump raven-haired woman with a discreet gesture. “My wife, Baroness Crowther,” he said, supplying information that Georgina’s father had neglected. “That’s my son Wyatt talking to our hostess, and his wife, Elaine.”
The trio appeared to share an interest in dogs, Sebastian noted. All three were bent over Drustan, who wriggled in delight at the attention.
“Here’s Sir Robert Kenton,” said the marquess, coming up behind them with a brown-haired, heavyset man about his own age. “Has a place south of us. That’s his son Charles hanging about Georgina. Too late, eh!” He laughed and clapped Sir Robert on the shoulder, an attention that was clearly not appreciated. “And his daughters Sarah and Eliza are over there conspiring with Emma.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” Sebastian said, with another bow and winning smile.
Hilda was not present. She was too young for an official party, and without doubt she was furious at the exclusion. Miss Byngham, also absent, had probably been delegated to ride herd on her. Sebastian wished her joy of that thankless task. He’d learned that Emma, on the other hand, was older than he’d realized—nearly seventeen, in fact—and champing at the bit to be officially out.
Anat Mitra entered, a picture of dark elegance in another of his long brocade tunics—this one glinting blue and silver—over narrow trousers. Conversation skipped a beat as he paused in the doorway. “My friend Mr. Mitra,” the marquess boomed out. “A scholar from India.”
In the subsequent chorus of acknowledgments, Sebastian eased over toward Georgina.
As if by mistake, Charles Kenton stepped in front of him, blocking his way. “Oh,” the younger man said with an unconvincing start, “I didn’t see you there. Georgie and I were just reminiscing.” His laugh was too loud. “We are old acquaintances, you see. Practically cradle friends.”
Sebastian examined him. Kenton had brown hair and eyes. He was shorter, narrower, and plainer than Sebastian, and clearly feeling every one of these things as a cruel quirk of nature. “Georgie,” Sebastian said.
“A pet name,” Kenton said.
“No, it wasn’t,” replied Georgina. “I was continually telling you that I didn’t like it at all.”
“Indeed, we were married once,” Charles went on, as if he hadn’t heard. He shifted from foot to foot, ready to lunge should Sebastian make a flanking move. “Under the arbor in the rose garden.”
Sebastian might have been jealous, but it was obvious that Georgina didn’t recall any such incident. Still, Charles Kenton was standing too close to her and clearly determined to keep Sebastian from approaching. Sebastian loomed a little. “Were you?”
“Solemnly.” Charles stuck out his chest like a gamecock. “Edgar played the preacher. We were so very close in those days.” He threw Georgina a languishing look.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I remember now. Fifteen years ago, wasn’t it? I was attended by Drustan’s grandparents. They, er, anointed the rosebushes during the ceremony.”
“And perhaps one of your boots?” Georgina added.
“No!” said Kenton. “One of the little devils tried, but I…uh…I stepped away.”
Sebastian met Georgina’s green eyes, saw the amusement in them, and released any lingering wisps of concern he might have felt.
“I’ve met your brother,” the other man said, more belligerent now. “In London. During the season.”
“Which brother was that?” asked Sebastian.
“Robert.”
Robert was certainly easy to meet in town. He was invited everywhere.
“He’s said to be a leader of fashion,” the visitor told Georgina, as if she didn’t know this very well from her own stay in the metropolis. “I couldn’t really see it myself. Rather puffed up with his own consequence, though.” He offered Georgina a conspiratorial glance. It was not returned.
This was going too far. Sebastian was a tolerant sort, and he sympathized with a man who admired Georgina. How could you not? But he didn’t allow anyone to belittle his brothers in his hearing. He fixed Charles Kenton with a gaze his family jokingly called “the duke’s doom.” It was a look they’d all learned from observing their father in situations that required him to depress odious pretensions, wither malicious gossips, or ward off irritating toadies. Sebastian deployed the half-lowered eyelids, slightly raised brows, implacable set of lips, and stretching silence. As always, the expression did its job. Kenton coughed. “That is,” he began, and stopped. He took a step backward.
Sebastian stood fast. The three of them formed a noiseless pool within a ring of chatter.
“Er, think my sister wants me,” muttered Charles Kenton finally. He hurried across the room to join the young ladies.
“Your father’s freezing stare,” Georgina said.
Of course she’d made the connection. She was clever as they came. It would have been her most striking quality, if not for more…physical charms. Sebastian nearly reached for her as he matched her smile. “I’m not the best at it,” he said. He and his brothers had staged staring contests. “Robert is. If he’d been here to hear that fellow…” Sebastian shook his head. “Nathaniel can beat him out if he really tries, but mostly he doesn’t. Randolph tends to add flourishes, and he’s more likely to be looking for the story behind the affront.” However, Sebastian had seen him annihilate a fellow who’d been unkind to a little girl in prime style.
“What about James and Alan?” Georgina asked.
“I expect they remember it. Of course, I’ve hardly seen James since he joined the navy.” Unable to resist, he took her hand. “Georgina, I’m…”
She gazed up at him with what looked like longing, but to Sebastian’s intense frustration, Fergus appeared in the archway right then and nodded to Georgina’s mother.
“Shall we go in to dinner?” the latter said, and led the way to the dining room. As she took no one’s arm, the rest of the group merely followed her en masse. There was no further opportunity for talk.
Sebastian found himself seated between Sarah and Eliza Kenton at the table, while his wishful rival visibly gloated at being placed between Georgina and Emma on the other side.
With a blithe disregard for protocol, their hostess had seated the baron’s son and his wife on her right and left. Clearly, she intended to continue their conversation and etiquette be damned. She had put the baroness and Lady Robert on either side of her husband, and then dropped the baron by Lady Kenton and Sir Robert by the baroness. The men looked disgruntled but resigned at this eccentric placement, slightly brightened by the presence of a young lady in the next chair.
As the baron engaged Sarah in conversation, Sebastian turned to Eliza and smiled. The girl—barely out of the schoolroom, he estimated—flushed crimson and looked down at her plate. Shy, Sebastian thought, and not accustomed to society. Suppressing a sigh, and a forlorn wish that Georgina was beside him, he set himself to draw Eliza out.
It was heavy going at first. Questions designed to discover Eliza’s interests were met by monosyllables or mere head shakes. He managed to learn that Eliza and her sister were to make a joint come-out next season, but she made no effort to pick up on his conversational gambits. Clearly, he scared her, Sebastian thought. He knew only one answer to that.
He’d noticed that it was difficult to be frightened of someone who confessed to some foolishness. He turned the subject to London. “The first time I was in town, I was thrown from my horse right in the middle of Rotten Row,” he told her. “Just when all the most fashionable people were out riding.” He didn’t mention that he’d been only ten years old at the time.
His dinner partner gave him a sidelong glance. “You were not.”
“I assure you I was.” And the fall had been quite humiliating for an aspiring cavalryman. He’d gotten no sympathy from his parents. They’d warned him not to take a mount like Blaze into the throng of the park. “The town beaus had to pull up pretty sharp to keep from trampling me into the dust.”
Eliza finally met his eyes. “I’ve started having wretched dreams about London,” she confided. “I’m at a ball in a ragged old gown. Or I trip and fall on my face in front of the queen at my presentation. And everyone laughs and points at me.”
“They dashed well pointed at me,” he replied.
She giggled.
“And then they forgot all about it in a few days,” he assured her. “Another bit of gossip always comes along.” Sebastian happened to glance across the table. He encountered Georgina’s laughing eyes, and his heart skipped a beat at the warmth he saw there. It was like suddenly stepping from shade into brilliant sunshine. At her side, Charles Kenton glowered at him.
Dinner proceeded. Eliza, now at ease, chattered on about her hopes and fears for the season. Sebastian simply had to listen. His efforts were further compensated by a very good dinner. Whatever he might think about the marchioness’s manners, he couldn’t fault her cook.
And so he enjoyed his food, and talked with Eliza’s sister when the table turned, and watched the ladies file out of the room sometime later with regret. He would much rather have gone with them than stayed with the decidedly mixed male cohort.
The port was brought out. The gentlemen gathered at the marquess’s end of the board—all but Mitra, who excused himself with a regal bow. Sebastian thought it a wise choice. The sort of talks Mitra and his host conducted after dinner would not go over well with tonight’s guests.
“That fellow doesn’t care for a good port?” asked Sir Robert when Mitra was gone.
“He didn’t have any of the beef either,” the baron added.
“He doesn’t eat meat,” replied Georgina’s father.
“What?” Sir Robert looked aghast.
“Not any sort?” said the baron’s son Wyatt. “Chicken? Pheasant?”
The marquess shook his head. “No. It’s against his religion.”
There was a stunned silence. Charles Kenton reached for the decanter and refilled his quickly emptied glass.
“Ain’t he a Hindoo?” said the baron then.
Georgina’s father nodded.
“Well, what about the nabobs coming back from Hindoo country with their curries? They’ve got meat in them. Fellow served me a dish once that nearly burned my tongue out of my head. I’m sure it had mutton in it.”
The marquess shrugged. “There are different varieties of Hinduism, just like with us and our sects. Mitra’s forbids meat. He drinks a bit of wine on occasion. Says all things in balance, you know.”
It was clear that Sir Robert did not know. Looking incredulous, he finished off the last drops in his glass and grasped the decanter. His son followed his lead.
“What’s he doing here in England anyway?” asked the baron.
“He’s consult
ing with me on my studies,” replied Georgina’s father. “He’s been very helpful.”
It was a more circumspect answer than Sebastian would have expected. He hadn’t thought the marquess capable of tact.
Talk turned to agricultural prices and the eternal complaints of those who drew their incomes from the land. The baron and his son were stark pessimists about the future. Sir Robert seemed determined to drink as much port as humanly possible, and Charles was not far behind him. All too soon, Charles was propping his chin in his hands, elbows sprawled on the table. “Duke’s sons,” he said with quiet vitriol. “Get whatever you want. Cut the rest of us out without trying. It’s not fair.”
Sebastian was weary of the company, and Charles most of all. “That’s not true,” he said.
“Georgina never would have looked at you if you weren’t one,” the other hissed.
Sebastian thought of the determined campaign he’d waged to win his fiancée, how hard it had been to stand out in the mass of her suitors. Several of them had had noble titles, far above a second son, duke or no. Many had been cleverer, without doubt. No, this he’d accomplished on his own, with the aid of Ariel’s good advice, of course. It was a personal triumph, nothing to do with his heritage. And the opinion of this unpleasant sprig mattered not a whit.
The object of Sebastian’s ruminations sat upstairs in the drawing room with the rest of the ladies, seething with impatience. The other pugs had been brought in to join Drustan, and they surrounded her mother and Elaine Kenton like spreading brown skirts. The two picked up and examined one dog after another, deep in discussion. It seemed that Elaine aspired to breed a similar kind of dog. But not just the same, so there was no danger of rivalry.
The baroness and Lady Robert sat nearby, chatting about the high cost of hiring houses in London and the wickedness of town-bred servants. The three girls looked over sheet music at the pianoforte, perhaps plotting entertainments for later, when the gentlemen at last arrived.
Georgina could think of nothing but Sebastian. She watched the doorway like a cat at a mousehole, waiting for him to appear. The mere sight of him had become incendiary. And after his kindness to young Eliza Kenton at dinner, she liked him more than ever. It was such a potent combination—admiration and physical passion.