Unraveling the Earl

by Lynne Barron

  “We’re halfway there,” he said, fighting not grin at the picture she presented with her bony elbows sticking up and her chin lifted in the air in a fair imitation of a haughty noblewoman.

  “Halfway?”

  “Perhaps a third.” Henry attempted a sympathetic smile only to lose to the grin that would not be denied.

  “Damn and blast,” she muttered, lifting her arms and turning around to face the bed.

  The ribbon and her hands slipped down the post to rest on the busiest, brightest, ugliest bed coverlet he’d ever had the misfortune to see.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Sweet lord, yes.” She curled her back and twisted at the shoulders, breathy little sighs and pitiful whimpers falling from her lips. “Only now the ribbon is twisted so tight around my wrists my fingers are turning blue.”

  “The scissors!” he exclaimed, looking to the floor. “I dropped them when your gown fell away.”

  “Find, them,” she begged.

  Henry dropped to his hands and knees, brushed aside her discarded gown and lifted first one then the other of her slippered feet. “They’re here somewhere.”

  While he searched Georgie stepped away from the post, kicked off her slippers and bent forward. From the corner of his eye he saw her grasp the bedpost and twist at the hips, rolling to the right and quickly kicking one leg up and over the other until she was belly up, her nipples pointed at the ceiling and her back curled in a perfect arch.

  Henry dropped back on his haunches and watched as she readjusted her hands on the post and continued the odd, though strangely graceful contortion of her long, lithe body, rolling over until she was once more staring down at a carpet as brilliantly colored and as dreadfully gaudy as the coverlet.

  “Oh, yes, yes, yes,” she gasped. “Heavenly father, that feels good.”

  “Damn, but you’re flexible,” he said, not even attempting to hide his wonder, his absolute amazement. “I’ve never seen the like.”

  “You’ve never tied a woman to a bedpost before,” she replied, dropping her head down to look at him from beneath her extended arms. “Or have you?”

  “Not once,” he assured her.

  “Another first for me,” she said with a wink.

  Henry pressed a smiling kiss to her hip and went back to searching.

  And watching Georgie repeat her amazing acrobatic feat once more.

  “There.” She injected a wealth of satisfaction into the single word as she hopped up onto the bed and scrambled about until she sat with her legs dangling over the side and her bound hands tucked along one hip. “Have you lost Tag’s scissors?”

  “They can’t have gotten up and walked away on their own,” he replied, falling to his elbows to peer under the bed. “Uh, Georgie, are you aware you’ve a cat under your bed?”

  “Is Lydia under my bed again?” she asked. “I’ve told her time and again she isn’t to sneak into my room.”

  Henry bobbed up. “You’ve a cat named Lydia?”

  “Countess Lydia belongs to Bobbin. Or rather, Bobbin belongs to Countess Lydia as she rules the roost.”

  “Dobbins has a fluffy gray and white cat named for my mother?” Henry could not even begin to digest all the ways in which the notion did not sit well with him.

  “Bobbin was devoted to Lady Hastings,” Georgie replied, leaning her head against the bedpost and gifting him with a soft smile. “Did you know he was at her bedside when she passed on?”

  “He was?”

  “Changed her nappies, he did.”

  “Mother never wore nappies,” he argued.

  “There toward the end she did.”

  “And she allowed her butler to…to…” he hadn’t words to fit the image that flitted through his mind of the giant, ham fisted, cold eyed man seeing to so intimate a task.

  “She pitched a fit if anyone else made the attempt.”

  “You are having me on.” It was the only explanation.

  “While it certainly sounds like one of my tall tales, it is the truth,” she insisted. “Bobbin cared for your mother in her final days, as lovingly as any new mother would care for a babe.”

  Unable to comprehend the magnitude of this new revelation, Henry renewed his search for the lost seamstress scissors, scrabbling around under the bed while attempting to rid his mind of the picture of Dobbins attending to his mother’s needs in such a fashion.

  “Speaking of babes.” Georgie’s voice was muffled by the bed above his head.

  “I rather doubt you are carrying my babe after just that one time,” he called back as his fingertips brushed cold metal. He reached for the scissors only to push them farther under the bed.

  “Even so, it is a risk I am unwilling to take,” she replied, nudging him in the shoulder with her foot.

  Apparently deciding he made a good footrest, she placed both feet on his back, her silk stockings cool on his flesh, her toes tracing his spine.

  Countess Lydia crept closer, her ears tucked low and her tail swishing from side to side, slithering over the bottom of the bed like a snake.

  “At worst, we have an eight-month wonder,” he assured Georgie, surprised by the jolt of happiness he felt at the idea of his babe even now growing in her womb.

  “What sort of wonder?”

  “A babe born eight months after the wedding,” he clarified at a near shout.

  Georgie made no reply but her feet slowly slid from his back.

  Henry stretched his arm as far as he could, caught the loop of the tiny scissors with his longest finger and slowly pulled the instrument toward him. “Found them!”

  Countess Lydia chose that moment to find him.

  With a hiss that transformed into a growl, the cat swiped one gray paw across the top of his hand.

  Henry lunged back and up, bumping his head but hanging on to the tiny scissors as the cat darted from beneath the bed and ran across the room to duck under a chair all but hidden beneath silk and satin and lace.

  “Damn cat,” he muttered, falling on his ass and lifting one hand to gingerly poke at the knot already forming at the crown of his head.

  Georgie erupted into laughter, her slender form shaking as a mottled flush spread up her neck and over her cheeks. Her hands fluttered like two birds tied together by the feet, bobbing up and down along the bedpost.

  “Find my abuse at the hands of a cat named for my mother entertaining, do you?”

  “’Tis fitting,” she gasped, moisture collecting on her golden lashes. “But ’twas…that other bit…oh, good lord…you had me going for a moment.”

  Henry smiled, enchanted by her unrestrained amusement.

  “A wonder, a wedding,” she continued breathlessly. “You ought not to tease me so.”

  “I am not teasing,” he replied, enchantment falling by the way side as he rose to his knees before her.

  “Of course you are, you wicked man,” she argued around a final huff of laughter.

  “We will be wed, Georgie, make no mistake.”

  Her amusement fell away to be replaced by a look of absolute shock, her dewy eyes wide and unblinking.

  “Just as soon as the banns have been called,” he assured her, rudely pointing a finger at her for emphasis.

  Her gaze dropped to the tiny scissors looped around that finger.

  “Cut me lose.” Her voice was a quiet command, her eyes fixed on her only hope for release.

  She was quick, recognizing his intention a split second before he knew it himself.

  “I don’t think so, love.”

  “Henry.” A plea couched in a warning.

  “Not until you agree to marry me.”

  “I more than nudged you into madness if you think I will agree to marriage in return for my freedom,” she replied, with a wave of one hand quickly aborted by her bindings. “I’ve shoved you from the path—”

  “And clapped your hands in glee as I sank into a marshy bog,” Henry interrupted with a chuckle.

  “That’s the l
ast time I tell Mr. Crotchety anything,” she grumbled.

  “I may be a blind, bumbling idiot but I see you, Georgie Buchanan.”

  It was true. For perhaps the first time since waylaying her on the village street, Henry recognized the prize he’d stumbled upon when he’d gone harrying after a woman who was not his usual sort.

  He had only to turn her twisted logic against her, to make use of her warped sense of loyalty and her distorted notions of right and wrong.

  “What is it you think you see?” she asked with what sounded like genuine curiosity.

  “I see the unruly child Lady Joy found on her bum in a pigsty.”

  “She thought I was a boy, else she likely would never have come for me,” Georgie whispered.

  Henry ignored the mingled pain and fury that settled like an anvil over his heart upon hearing her words. “I see the girl who bartered her body for a leg that would allow her to dance about in the rain just because she can.”

  “I did not lay with Jacob so that I could dance,” she argued, shaking her head with such vehemence that her listing coiffure gave up the battle to stay atop her head, long coils and spirals falling around her shoulders and down her bare arms.

  “I see the girl who was named a boy and schemed and seduced and lied to become the lady she is today,” he continued, gently lifting her chin with two fingers.

  “Only so I could finagle my way into the hearts and hearths of the ton.”

  “You’ve certainly finagled your way into my heart,” he replied, trailing his hand over her jaw, her skin unbelievable soft beneath his fingers.

  “Damn you,” she breathed.

  “Give me one good reason why you do not wish to marry me,” he challenged, tucking one fiery curl behind her ear. “Just one honest, rational, unsurmountable reason.”

  “I don’t want to,” she replied, sounding petulant and all too endearing.

  “You don’t want to marry me or you don’t want to give me a reason?” he asked.

  “Both.”

  “Irrational.”

  “We don’t suit.”

  “Dishonest,” he chided, sifting his fingers through her hair to cup her head.

  “I live in Scotland while you live in England.”

  “Surmountable. We shall divide our time between the two.”

  “You are too bloody beautiful while I am…not.”

  Henry’s temper unraveled just a bit. “Dishonest, irrational and there is no obstacle to surmount. You are beautiful, Georgie. Lovely beyond words, from your hair like live flames and your periwinkle eyes and elegantly tilting nose to your long legs and adorable little curling toes. And everywhere in between. Beautiful.”

  “You lied,” she said after a pause during which she blinked so rapidly the lashes on her right eye became entangled. “You do have a way with words even when you are snarling them.”

  “One reason, Georgie.”

  “It would be a bad bargain.” She tossed back her head and his hand fell away.

  “You’ve something I want while I’ve something you want,” he countered. “The way I see it we’ve the makings for a perfect bargain.”

  “You’ve only one thing I want.” Georgie’s voice was sinfully soft, curling around him like warm molasses as her gaze dropped to the bulge in his trousers. “And I needn’t marry you to get it.”

  Henry nearly lost his place when she opened her legs, gifting him with a view of her curls and a hint of her pink nether lips. Arching her back as best she could with her wrists tethered to the bedpost, she lifted her pretty little breasts in offering as she swept her tongue over her lips, slow and languid.

  He might have relented and released her in favor of tumbling her onto the bed to bury his cock in her tight channel again had she not overplayed her hand, peeking up and batting her lashes in a manner that, but a few weeks ago, would have fooled him entirely.

  “As tempting as I find your honeypot and your lovely berries,” he teased, “you’ll not be leading me astray this time.”

  Georgie let out a huff of exasperation, clamping her legs together and allowing the seductive countenance to fall from her face. “Fine, what are you offering?”

  “It’s quite simple, actually,” he assured her with a grin. “I will marry you and open every door you need to enter in order to find the elusive Connie.”

  “I don’t need you for that any longer,” she replied quickly. “Your family will assist me.”

  “Will they?” he asked. “Even after I tell them you are my mistress?”

  “Oh, Henry,” she trilled. “You are the sorriest liar I have ever encountered.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “Watch and learn, darling.” She took a deep breath and straightened her spine. “Terribly sorry to disappoint you, my lord, but I have decided to give up my search. It has become far too bothersome forever running after a lady who likely has no wish to be found.”

  And damned if she didn’t appear completely sincere, what with the way she held his gaze and injected just the right note of weariness into her voice.

  Henry was snagged by her words. “You know that Connie may not wish to be found? That she might turn away and deny you?”

  “To be sure, I’ve a contingency strategy already mapped out.”

  “What will you do?” he asked a split second before he recognized the ploy. “Oh, no you don’t. You won’t lead me down one of your twisted paths.”

  Georgie harrumphed and settled back against the bedpost.

  “Now, where was I?” he asked. “Ah, right. I’ve something you want, two things in fact. Unfettered access to the ton and a cock perpetually hard for you.”

  “Me and every other lady who happens your way.”

  And just like that, the path to her acquiescence spread out before him, the way precisely mapped out, each turn clearly marked and the final destination but a hop, skip and a jump away.

  “I know I have garnered something of a reputation,” he began, knowing it was time, past time he admitted his foibles, both to himself and to the woman who would be his wife.

  “One you have been only too happy to live up to,” she replied with a huff of laughter.

  “In the beginning,” he agreed. “I was just so surprised by all of the attention and only too eager to take advantage. But eventually the novelty wore off and it became a merry-go-round of sorts, one I could not hop off.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “One night nearly two years past a perfectly lovely lady approached me at the end of a long night when I wanted only to find my bed. Alone.”

  “And you refused her?”

  “I attempted to do just that,” he replied. “But she looked so hurt, so surprised and offended.”

  “You rogered her so as not to hurt her feelings?”

  “Imagine if you will that you propositioned a man who was renowned for his indiscriminate bed hopping,” Henry said. “And he refused you, sent you on your way with no more than a polite farewell.”

  “Why not make up a story, a tale of a previous engagement? A duel at dawn you must prepare for lest you be killed? Your cousin the clergyman who is about to enter a brothel and ruin his career? A sister eloping to Gretna Green? A brother shanghaied aboard a pirate ship? Good lord, the list is endless.”

  “I haven’t your quick wit.”

  “Nor my gift for dancing around the truth.”

  “I would likely stutter and stammer and still wind up in a gazebo with a lady whose name I do not remember.”

  “Is that where she lured you?”

  “As best I can recall.”

  “You truly are a most foolish man.”

  “Not so foolish that I cannot recognize the perfect solution to my dilemma.”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “Marry me, Georgie. Marry me and save me.”

  “Save you? I cannot even save myself.”

  “Marry me, love and I will see you reunited with your mother, no matter what i
t takes, I swear it.”

  In the days that followed, Henry took to telling himself Georgie was on the verge of accepting his rather bumbling marriage proposal before the doors to her bedchamber were tossed open with enough force to slam the heavy wood against the wall and a mountain of a man with hands the size of ale kegs charged to her rescue.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Duke of Mountjoy possessed two qualities that forever kept him milling about on the fringes of good society, always peering in like a hungry boy with his face pressed to a bakery window, never invited to partake of the sweets within no matter his ancient title and enormous wealth.

  The first was a temper quick to fire and quicker still to flicker out, a trait that baffled even his family and friends and left strangers doubting his sanity.

  The second was an utter disregard for decorum, decency and deductive reasoning.

  So it came as no surprise to Georgie when Killjoy barged into her bedchamber with his fists raised and a roar reverberating around the room. It mattered not at all that his cousin was naked but for her stockings, nor that a peer of the realm was on his knees before her, offering up his heart in a misguided attempt to save them both.

  Henry, on the other hand, was taken entirely by surprise.

  He’d barely scrambled to his feet before the red-haired giant swung one meaty fist that would have connected with his jaw had he not dodged left at the last moment. Off balance, he staggered back and tumbled onto the settee, his fall cushioned by a mass of silk and lace and muslin.

  “Killjoy!” Georgie jumped to her feet, momentarily forgetting that she was trussed up like a Christmas goose as she lunged forward only to be caught by her bonds and twirled around with enough force to wrench her shoulder and send her hair flying around her to whip across her eyes. “Leave Henry be!”

  “Bloody cur!” Killjoy paid her no mind, instead advancing on Henry as he rose to stand with his fists raised and a scrap of lace dangling over one bare shoulder. “I don’t know whether to kill you or hack off your bollocks!”

  “Do not touch his bollocks!” Georgie spun around, shaking her head to dislodge the tangled curls streaming over her eyes.

  “Kill you, it is.” Killjoy swung with his right, the blow glancing of Henry’s cheek as he ducked left and sidled around to the back of the sofa.