by Julia Quinn
“Nicholas!” Georgie exclaimed. Her eyes widened and she motioned with her head toward her maid, who was still seated on a nearby bench.
“She can’t hear us,” he whispered. “And she wouldn’t know what I meant, anyway.”
“That’s almost as bad. I don’t want her thinking you don’t approve of my actions.” She drew back, just a tiny bit. “You do approve, don’t you?”
“Of your taking care of the land agent so I don’t have to? Hell, yes. I wish I’d thought of it.” He touched her chin, tilting her face toward his. “But let me know ahead of time if you’re going to do something like this again. I do like to know what you’re up to.”
“To be completely honest,” she said, “it was a spur of the moment thing. I only decided yesterday.” Her eyes turned shy. And maybe a little embarrassed. “I don’t like to spend all week in the country without you.”
“I’m sorry.” He squeezed her hand. He didn’t like leaving her at Scotsby, but he didn’t see how there had been another option.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” she replied. “I knew what I was getting into. I just didn’t know how much I wouldn’t like it.”
He leaned forward. Only about an inch; they were in public, after all. “Does it make me a bad husband that I like hearing that you’re miserable without me?”
“I didn’t say miserable,” she said, with a little coquettish tilt of her head.
“Humor me,” he said. “I’ve been miserable without you.”
It wasn’t entirely the truth. Most of the time he was too busy to be miserable, and when he wasn’t too busy he was too tired.
But he missed her. At night, when he lay in his narrow boardinghouse bed, he longed to reach out for her, pull her close. And then during the day, at the oddest moments, he’d notice something—usually something odd or funny or unusual—and he wished he could point it out to her.
He’d grown accustomed to her presence in a way that ought to have terrified him.
But it didn’t.
It only made him want more. And that started with getting the house in New Town sorted. “Where is Mr. McDiarmid’s office?” he asked Georgie. “We’ll take care of it right now.”
Georgie grinned and pulled a scrap of paper from her reticule. “Here, I have the address written down.”
He gave the words a quick look. “That’s not too far. We can walk there. Give me a moment, and I’ll make arrangements for Jameson and your maid. They’ll need to find a suitable place to wait for you.”
“It shouldn’t take very long.”
“No, but now that you’re here, we should make a day of it. I can show you the city.”
“Really? You don’t have anything else you need to do?”
He had a mountain of things he needed to do. He was still behind on his studies, and he needed to prepare for a meeting later that week with one of his professors, but he could not see beyond Georgie’s smiling face. His wife was here, and he wanted to be with her.
“Nothing that will not keep,” he told her. “Come. Let’s get that lease signed. Then we shall have some fun.”
She placed her hand in his and grinned, and he had a sudden flash of memory. It was from when they were tending to Freddie Oakes, and she’d smiled at him, and it had made him want to grab the sun from the sky and hand it to her on a platter.
It was still true. One smile from Georgiana, and he thought he could do anything.
Be anything.
Was this love? This crazy, heady feeling, this sense of endless possibility?
Could he have somehow fallen in love with his wife? It seemed too fast, too soon, and yet . . .
“Nicholas?”
He looked at her.
“Is something wrong?” she asked. “You looked very far away.”
“No,” he said softly. “I’m right here. I’ll always be right here.”
Her brow creased with confusion, and he couldn’t blame her. He wasn’t making sense. And at the same time, it felt as if the entire world was finally clicking into place.
Maybe this was love.
Maybe.
Probably.
Yes.
Ninety minutes later, Georgie was tiptoeing up the stairs in Mrs. McGreevey’s Respectable Boardinghouse for Bachelors.
“We’re not being very respectable,” she whispered.
Nicholas put his finger to his lips.
Georgie giggled. Quietly. She couldn’t help it. She felt positively giddy sneaking into Nicholas’s rooms.
The meeting with Mr. McDiarmid had gone smoothly, although Georgie could not help but be somewhat miffed at how much more accommodating he had been with Nicholas than with her.
She kept her complaints to herself, though; there was nothing to be gained by voicing them. She wanted the lease signed, and she wanted it signed quickly. It was clear that the most efficient path to her goals was to sit quietly and play the deferential spouse.
She knew it wasn’t the truth, as did Nicholas, and that was what was important.
Once they had all that taken care of, though, they still had a bit of time before she was supposed to meet Marian and Jameson for the ride back to Scotsby. Several hours, in fact. Nicholas had said that he would show her a bit of the city, but then they just happened to be walking past the boardinghouse, and Mrs. McGreevey just happened to not be anywhere in sight . . .
The next thing she knew she was giggling her way up the stairs.
“I feel so naughty,” she whispered as Nicholas turned his key in the lock.
“You are naughty,” he said. “Very, very naughty.”
He leered at her and before she knew what was happening, the door was closed behind them and he’d tossed her onto his bed.
“Nicholas!” she whisper-shrieked.
“Shhhhh. You’ll get me in trouble. I’m not supposed to have women here.”
“I’m your wife.”
He looked at her with a ridiculously innocent expression. “But think about how long it would take to explain that. All that time wasted when I could be doing this.”
Georgie let out a little squeak. She wasn’t sure if this referred to his hand on her thigh or his lips on her neck, but both were delicious. And she had no idea how she was supposed to keep quiet.
“What would happen if she found me?” she asked. “Would she ask you to leave?”
He shrugged. “No idea. It wouldn’t be the worst thing. We did just sign the lease for a new house.”
Georgie forced herself to be serious, if only for a moment. “It won’t be ready for occupancy for at least a week. And as much as I would love to have you with me at Scotsby, you can’t be riding back and forth every day. You’d be exhausted.”
Nicholas gave her a quick kiss on the lips. “Then we’ll just have to be extra quiet so I don’t get caught.”
“Well, yes,” Georgie said. But now she was concerned. It was only for one more week, but Nicholas needed this room. “Surely Mrs. McGreevey would understand.”
Nicholas groaned. “Why are we talking about Mrs. McGreevey?”
“Because I don’t want you thrown out of your rooms.”
“I won’t be,” he said, “because we’re going to be so very, very quiet.”
Georgie sucked in her breath. His voice was hot and seductive, and she felt herself melting into his embrace.
“Can you do it?” he murmured. He squeezed her thigh in a way they’d both learned she loved, his thumb skating dangerously close to her womanhood.
“Do what?”
“Keep quiet.”
“No,” she said frankly.
“Pity.” His fingers went still. “I’ll have to stop.”
She grabbed his hand. “Don’t you dare.”
“But you’re so noisy.” He shook his head with mock resignation. “What am I to do?”
Georgie laid a bold hand on his member. Over his clothes, but he’d get the idea. “What am I to do?”
“Minx,” he growled.
She squeezed. “Can you be quiet?”
He quirked a brow. “I can if you can.”
She’d never been able to raise a single brow, so she did a silly almost-wink. “Well, I can if you can.”
He stared at her for a long moment, and Georgie thought it a wonder she did not burst into flame. Or laughter. Then he stood.
“What are you doing?” she asked, scooting into a sitting position.
“I”—his hands went to his cravat—“am very quietly taking off my clothing.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?” he echoed. “That’s all you have to say?”
She licked her lips. “I am quite pleased with your decision.”
He finished untying the linen and whipped it off. “You are pleased with my decision,” he restated.
“Quite pleased,” she corrected.
He smiled. Devilishly. “Do you know what would please me?”
“I have my suspicions,” she murmured.
His hands went to the buttons on his shirt. There were only three, but he needed them undone so that he could pull the garment over his head. Maybe Georgie should have been tending to her own clothing, but watching him strip with such slow deliberateness might have been the most arousing thing she’d ever seen.
He didn’t speak, but he didn’t need to. His eyes locked onto hers, and Georgie knew what he wanted. She brought her fingers to the bodice of her dress, to the silk fichu that filled the neckline of her gown.
Slowly, she tugged it free.
“I’ve become brazen,” she whispered.
He nodded, his eyes flaring with desire before he pulled his shirt up and over his head.
“I can’t do all the buttons,” she said. She twisted, giving him just enough of her back so that she could still peer over her shoulder.
“A most impractical frock,” he murmured. He sat next to her and began to work the buttons, one by one.
“I’ve always had help,” she whispered.
He kissed the patch of her skin bared by the top few buttons. “I am ever your servant, Mrs. Rokesby.”
Georgie shivered, wondering how his voice somehow enticed her just as much as his touch. He was always such a gentleman, but when they were in the privacy of their marriage bed he said the naughtiest things . . .
He didn’t just do things to her, he spoke of them with hot, needy words. He told her what he wanted, and when she wanted something, he made her say it too.
Somehow that was even more shocking. Tell me what you want, he’d say, and it was so hard to bring herself to do so. She wanted him to take charge, to take the decisions from her control, but he would not let her.
You have to say it, he’d say.
She’d shake her head, too embarrassed, but he would not allow her to get away with that. Is this what you want, he’d ask, touching her breasts. Then his hand would slip between her legs. Is this?
Even now, as they were trying to be so quiet, he whispered sinful words in her ear.
“I want to taste you.”
She shivered. She knew what he meant.
“I’m not even going to take your dress off. I’m just going to crawl under your skirts, and lick you until you explode.”
He started kissing his way down her body, taking his delicious time on her breasts. Then, he looked up, and good heavens, somehow that felt even more erotic—his eyes locked and burning on hers.
It was like she was the only woman in the universe. The only woman he’d ever see. The only woman he’d ever want.
“Well,” he said, his voice husky with promise. “What do you say to that?”
She nodded. She wanted him so much.
His fingers crept beneath her skirt, but only just. “Not good enough, my darling.”
“I want it,” she whispered.
“What?” he asked, and in one quick movement, he was back over her, face-to-face. “You want what?” he pressed. “Tell me.”
Her body felt electric. She didn’t understand how speaking her desire could make her so desperate for him, but it did.
“I want you to taste me.”
His eyes held hers for a long second, and then with an animalistic growl, he practically dove down her body, spreading her legs to his seeking mouth.
She almost screamed. She actually clamped one of her hands over her mouth.
He looked up with a cocky grin.
“Don’t stop,” she begged.
He gave a throaty chuckle and went back to work, torturing her in the most exquisite way possible.
He had done this before, and she still could not believe she had let him. No, that wasn’t true. She believed it. She would probably let him do anything to her.
She just couldn’t believe she had liked it so much. His mouth . . . there. It was so intimate. And then when he was done . . . when she was done . . . he always kissed her again.
And she tasted herself.
It was wicked, and it was carnal, and she loved it.
But he’d moved away from her sex and was now taking his sweet time, raining soft kisses on the inside of her thigh, never quite going back to where she wanted him. Where she needed him.
With a restless groan she parted her legs more widely, but all he did was chuckle against her.
“So impatient,” he murmured.
“I need you.”
“I know.” He sounded very pleased.
She arched her back, thrusting her hips forward. “Now, Nicholas.”
He nipped her, his teeth softly abrading her skin, so close to where she wanted him. “Soon, Georgiana,” he said.
“Please,” she begged. She didn’t know how he knew how to make her want him so desperately, but she didn’t care. She just—
“Oh!”
“Shhhh.” His hand came up to cover her mouth. “We must be quiet.”
But his tongue was stroking her at her very core, making lazy circles on the spot she’d learned was the most sensitive.
“Nicholas, I—”
He shushed her again, slipping a finger into her mouth, then groaned, when she started to suck it.
“My God, Georgie,” he groaned against her. She could not imagine that he was feeling as much pleasure as she was, but there was something about sucking on his finger that made her feel so excessively wanton, so hungry for more.
His tongue began to move faster.
She sucked harder.
“Georgie,” he moaned, his words vibrating against her.
She grew tighter, tenser.
He worked her with his fingers, sliding two inside, even as his mouth nibbled and licked.
She exploded.
No, she came. That was the word for it, he’d told her, at least one of them. And it made an odd sort of sense, because when she came, when he brought her to the point that she came, she felt as if she had arrived somewhere very important.
She could not have explained it, could not have defined it, except that she knew she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
With him.
With Nicholas. Her husband.
Home.
“Oh my,” she sighed. She wasn’t sure she could move. He might have melted her bones.
“I love feeling you when that happens,” he said, moving up her body until his face was near hers. “It makes me want you even more.”
He nudged against her, not in a demanding way, but rather just a little reminder. He was hard, and he still wanted her.
“I need a moment,” Georgie somehow managed to say.
“Just a moment?”
She nodded, although in truth she had no idea. She was completely undone. Her skin was sensitized beyond belief. He was still touching her, lightly, just on her arm, but it made her shiver uncontrollably.
“What are we to do with you?” he murmured, a hint of laughter in his voice.
“I can’t move.”
“Not even a little bit?”
She shook her head, but she made sure to keep a teasing expression in
her eyes. They lay side by side for a moment, squeezed together on his narrow bed, and finally Georgie said, “You didn’t even undo your breeches.”
“Do you want me to?”
She nodded.
He turned, kissed her cheek. “I thought you couldn’t move.”
“It might be possible to rouse me.”
“Is that so?”
She nodded again. “I want you to be pleased, too.”
His eyes turned serious. “You always please me, Georgie.”
“But you didn’t . . .”
His hand covered hers, and he rolled them both so they were face-to-face. “It’s not a quid pro quo. I give to you freely.”
“I would like to give to you freely,” she whispered. Then she felt her face grow sheepish. “When I can move again.”
“I can wait,” he said. He kissed her on the nose, then on each closed eyelid, then on her mouth. “For you, my love, I can wait forever.”
Chapter 22
“I don’t understand bloodletting.”
Nicholas looked at Georgie in surprise—nay, in shock.
Nay, in astonishment.
Because barely five minutes had passed since the most extraordinary sexual experience of his life—which perhaps wasn’t that meaningful a descriptor considering he’d only started having sexual experiences a few weeks earlier—but still.
He was quite sure they had turned the earth on its axis. Weather patterns would change. Day would be night.
Hell, he would not have been surprised if they had created their own gravitational force. They might have pulled down the moon.
None of which explained his wife’s sudden inquiry into the taking of blood.
“What did you just say?” he asked.
“Bloodletting,” she said again, not looking the least bit interested in romance despite their current position, which was to say, naked in bed. In one another’s arms. She shifted her weight so that she could look at him more directly. “I don’t understand it.”
“Is there any reason you should?” Nicholas hoped he was not condescending; he did not mean to be. But it was a complicated topic. Most laypeople did not understand the science behind it.
To be honest, he wasn’t sure he understood the science behind it. He wasn’t sure anyone did, just that it seemed to work. Some of the time, at least.
