Unraveling the Earl

by Lynne Barron

  Henry broke their kiss and pinned Georgie with a glittering glare as he set to work on the buttons of her pelisse. “I have been wondering why I have been running about stark raving mad these past two months. It’s a relief to know it’s nothing more than thwarted desire.”

  “Oh, I like that,” Georgie replied around a strangled laugh, her heart beating so hard he must hear it above the clatter of the wheels on cobblestone streets. “You think you can disappear when I need you most only to reappear and I’ll offer up a cure for what ails you?”

  “I have been to Scotland and back, twice, looking for you, the last three days of my journey on horseback. I am exhausted and irritable and so fucking relieved to find you I can’t think at all,” he answered, dragging her skirts up to bunch around her waist. “We’ll talk it out, make up and laugh about it later. Right now I need to be inside you.”

  “Oh, Henry,” Georgie whispered, cradling his cheeks, his patchy beard surprisingly soft against her palms. “You are so blasted sweet.”

  “I’m not sweet, Georgie,” Henry muttered, one hand clenching her hip, holding her balanced on the edge of the seat, the other freeing the buttons of his breeches. “I’m a bloody animal. I’m sorry, love, I can’t wait.”

  The head of his shaft delved through her curls, dragged over her clit and Georgie sucked in a gasping breath in anticipation, her hands dropping to his shoulders. He prodded her quim, notched the fat head within, barely penetrating, and she sighed, clutching handfuls of his coat.

  In one smooth stroke, he thrust his pulsing cock into her body, slow and steady, his eyes open, watching her intently as he drove deep, filling her completely.

  “Yes, my love,” she gasped, undone by the beauty of their joining.

  “Don’t ever leave me again,” he ordered, his arms winding around her back as he slowly withdrew and plowed deep once more.

  Lust and love and a wondrous joy twisted within her, entwining and overlapping and for one odd, suspended moment she imagined she could feel her poor, battered heart healing and growing stronger.

  “Say it, Georgie,” he commanded between one slow thrust and the next.

  “I’ll never leave you,” she promised, swiveling her hips to take him deeper still.

  “I don’t know who I am without you.”

  The telltale burn built in her eyes and she blinked frantically, knowing full well she fought a losing battle.

  “Am I hurting you?” Henry asked, easing back.

  Before he could withdraw, she wrapped her legs around his hips and locked her ankles, forcing him deep inside once more. “Don’t stop.”

  “Georgie?” There was a wealth of emotion in the single word, confusion, desire and tenderness.

  The first tear fell, quickly followed by another, slowly rolling down her cheek. “Please make love to me.”

  Henry gifted her with a lopsided smile, his eyes going soft and tender as the motion of carriage gently rocked their joined bodies, his hard length dragging over her sensitized flesh. Bringing his hands up to brush his thumbs over her wet cheeks, he tilted her head back and captured her lips once more. His tongue found the sensitive arch of her upper lip, lingered awhile before stroking into her mouth, setting up a slow, sensuous rhythm that perfectly matched their leisurely loving.

  Desire climbed slow and sweet, curling around her, spiraling until she was balanced on the brink of climax.

  “Come for me,” Henry whispered, pushing deep and sending her over the edge.

  “I love you,” Georgie cried against his lips, clutching his shoulders as she came apart, wave after wave of bliss unlike any she’d ever experienced taking hold of her.

  With an exultant shout, Henry tossed his head back, thrusting hard and planting his cock deep as he spent within her body. Georgie curled her arms around his neck buried her face in the crook of his neck.

  “Christ, I love you,” Henry panted, even as his cock continued to pulse and jerk.

  “I’m truly sorry.”

  “Shh, none of that.”

  “I’ll endeavor to deserve you,” she promised, fighting the sob that was lodged in her throat.

  “Ah, love, don’t cry.” Tangling his fingers in her hair, he pressed her head to his shoulder and swept a hand down her back.

  “I’m carrying your babe.” Georgie gave up the battle, her sobs echoing around the carriage.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Janet? You want to name our daughter after a witch?” Georgie rolled onto her back and stretched, her nipples pebbling in the cold, morning air.

  “I don’t know why not, seeing as how it was your bag of witch’s tricks that gifted us with the little darling,” Henry replied, his gaze drifting over pretty breasts that were already lusher than they’d been two months previously, and down to her burgeoning belly. Carefully placing one knee on the bed he bent over and kissed the adorable little bump. “Good morning, Janet.”

  “Your beard tickles.” Georgie squirmed about, laughing breathlessly and Henry was sorely tempted to strip off the trousers, shirt and waistcoat he’d only just donned and rejoin her in the bed tucked beneath the eaves of an inn halfway to Scotland.

  “Does it now?” Deliberately he brushed his cheek over her belly and she erupted into giggles, the sound unbelievably sweet to his ears after days on the road with a woman who wept as readily as other women gossiped.

  “I like your long curly locks.” She sifted her fingers through his hair. “But I must admit I miss seeing your handsome face.”

  “I promise I’ll shave the beard myself if the next village hasn’t a barber,” he replied, his lips trailing over her hip.

  “I could shave you,” she offered.

  “I suppose you’ve all sorts of experience shaving a man?”

  Georgie stilled, her hand falling away and Henry looked up to find her staring at the ceiling as if she might read all the answers to life’s problems on the beams.

  Henry eased off the bed and stepped back, disconcerted by the frown pulling at her lush bottom lip. “You aren’t going to cry, are you?”

  Georgie rolled to sitting, her breasts jiggling with the movement. “You said we would talk things out, make up and laugh about it. But we’ve been traveling for two days and done none of those things.”

  “We’ve made up,” he protested. “Haven’t we?”

  “We’ve made love,” she countered. “And while the love making has been beyond wonderful, I feel…I don’t know, like I’m walking around on eggshells, measuring every word and touch, else you’ll wonder if I touched another man just so, or who taught me this or that.”

  “No, Georgie.” Henry dropped back onto the bed. “I don’t care how you touched men in the past only that you never touch another in the future. And it matters not at all who taught you this or that, so long as you practice what you know on me alone.”

  “Then why were you so angry at Alice’s ball?” Georgie blinked her big lavender eyes.

  “Please don’t cry.”

  “No, I won’t. It’s just the mattress is dusty.”

  Henry didn’t believe her for a moment. “Yes, I was angry and jealous and I know I said some terrible things to you, things you’ll never truly forgive me for.”

  “But I have forgiven you, I forgave you even as the words left your mouth,” Georgie replied before scrunching up her nose in an adorable fashion. “No, that isn’t true and I am trying very hard to speak only the truth these days. I forgave you the moment you admitted you still wanted me, no matter my past peccadilloes.”

  “Your willingness to forgive is only one of the many reasons I love you.”

  “My willingness to forgive?” she repeated. “But I’m a Buchanan, we don’t forgive, we get even. Or at least we used to…that is I used to. But I’m working on that, too.”

  “Georgie, you have forgiven me time and again.”

  “I have, haven’t I?”

  “You’ve taken me down one of your twisted paths and now I’ve forgotten w
here I was,” Henry teased.

  “You were telling me why you were so angry,” Georgie supplied readily.

  “I wish I could claim some lofty reason for my rage but it was nothing more than jealousy and wounded pride,” Henry admitted with a shake of his head. “But you were right. You never pretended to be an innocent and I never mistook you for one.”

  “I wish I’d been innocent for you,” Georgie whispered, her eyes filling once more.

  “I don’t,” Henry replied, reaching out to take her hand. “I love you just the way you are, wicked and devious and loyal and stubborn and puzzling and sweet.”

  “I’m not sweet, but with a little practice I might be one day,” she replied around a broken laugh.

  “Just the way you are,” he repeated, tugging until she tumbled into his lap. “I have loved you since you stood before me baring your all and daring me to bare mine. Nothing will ever change that, Georgie.”

  Georgie peered up at him from beneath a fringe of tangled curls. “The man I traded my virginity to was Douglas Graham. Goodness, it’s difficult to say his name after all these years.”

  “Tell me only what you are ready to share,” he said, careful to keep any emotion from his voice.

  “You already know that Connie foisted me off on a kind woman who’d already birthed six daughters and a man so desperate for a son he would accept a boy not of his blood.”

  “Yes,” he encouraged, gently turning her in his lap so that her head rested against his shoulder and her long legs stretched out across the bed.

  “When I was six or seven he found me out in the lie not of my making,” Georgie continued, her words spilling over. “We, all of us, spent the next decade continuing the pretense lest the purse of coins stop arriving each year. A purse I suspect was sent by your mother as my father was unaware of my whereabouts and Connie had washed her hands of me.”

  “Damn, Mother had a spoon in every pot,” Henry breathed.

  “You mustn’t blame your mother,” Georgie replied. “It was, all of it, Connie’s doing, from the moment she abandoned me at River’s End until I forced Douglas to end the charade.”

  “You were a just a girl,” Henry argued. “You could not have forced a grown man to do anything.”

  “Please don’t attempt to paint me as the injured party,” she replied, her words rushing out in a frantic, disjointed manner as she lifted her head to meet his eyes. “Douglas did not coerce or cajole or seduce me. Don’t you see? I followed him into the barn and begged him to spare Archie’s life, offered up the use of my body in trade. But we both knew it wasn’t about that lamb. It was about me and my desire to be a young woman rather than a boy. And when he resisted I removed every stitch of my clothing, lay down on the floor and begged him to see me and to love me.”

  Henry could think of nothing to say, humbled once more by her odd brand of honesty.

  “Millie knew what I had done, she knew I had lain with her husband. She looked at me so queer, not angry, but rather sad and old and beaten down. I’d done that to her, aged her overnight when all she’d ever done was love me. So I ran from her. I slipped on the first stair and then I was falling. When I awoke my nose was so mangled I could scarce breathe. I didn’t even realize it was broken because the pain in my leg was all I knew. The physician set the bone as best he could but it would not heal. And Douglas ran off with Loose Lucy, leaving Mum to tend me, only she could not look at me so she sent that letter, sent me away.”

  “Georgie, you must know she only sent you away because she wanted the best for you,” Henry replied, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

  “She couldn’t look at me.” Her voice quivered and a tear rolled down her cheek. “She did not want to see me when all along she was the only one who ever did…see me, that is.”

  “I see you, Georgie.” Henry held her gaze. “I see you and I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” she replied on a sniffle, curling her arms over his shoulders and playing with the hairs at his nape, something she did often and to great effect. “I’ve never shaved a man. You would be my first.”

  “As much as I like the idea of being your first, I think I’ll wait until I find a barber,” he replied, following the change in topic as she’d evidently said all she intended to about that particular part of her past.

  “You were the first man to make love to me,” she said, ducking her head shyly. “That morning at Idyllwild before I left, that was the first time I felt love with the lust.”

  “You were afraid.”

  “I’m no longer afraid,” Georgie lifted her head and gifted him with a slow smile.

  “Is that so?”

  “But I am hungry,” she replied around a giggle as she crawled off his lap. “Have we any peaches left?”

  Henry rose to cross the cozy room. “Stay abed and eat the last peach you’re likely to find before summer. And you’d best enjoy the damn thing, seeing as how finding them put me off my timetable and nearly destroyed my entire scheme.”

  “What scheme?” she asked, scooting up to rest against the simple wooden headboard.

  Henry tossed the peach, not the least surprised when she reached out and caught it. Taking a bite, she closed her eyes and hummed in pleasure.

  “Come, surely you, of all people, recognize a well-crafted scheme when it unfolds before you,” he teased, sitting at the foot of the bed and stretching his legs along hers.

  “You tricked my servants…” she began, stopping to swipe her tongue over her bottom lip lest the juices dribble down her chin.

  “Actually, I did not trick them at all. I simply asked nicely for their assistance. Flies with honey and all that.”

  “You somehow learned of Chester’s wedding and knew I would not be able to resist attending.”

  Henry waited, taunting her with his silence.

  “No, that leaves too much to chance,” she mused, and he imagined her trying to decide how she would have set things in motion. “You knew Chester was to marry…no, no, that still leaves too much to fate…mayhap you…did you bribe him?”

  “Don’t sound so shocked, love,” Henry murmured, his lips twitching. “How do you think most marriages come about, if not through bribery?”

  “Dowries and marriage settlements.”

  “For a lady obsessed with names, you missed a tell-tale clue.”

  “Louisa Anne Fitzroy,” Georgie exclaimed, her eyes shining. “Fitzroy was the surname given to some king or other’s illegitimate children. And you are related to most of the great families. You offered up a wealthy…no, you dowered a cousin of some sort and offered her up as bait?”

  Henry smiled and tapped her hip with his foot in congratulations. “Brilliant as well as beautiful.”

  “I might say the same thing about you.”

  “I wish I could take all the credit, but I only sent a missive each to Tatiana and Alice to set things in motion,” he admitted. “Together, they saw to the details.”

  “You hatched a scheme to catch me?” Georgie asked, blinking furiously.

  “You aren’t going to cry, are you?”

  “How cunning you are, Lord Hastings.” She scrambled to her hands and knees and crawled down the bed until she straddled his hips. “Why, your scheme was a thing of absolute beauty. To be sure, I’ve fallen in love with you all over again.”

  “If I’d known a crafty scheme was the way to your heart, I’d have caught you long ago.” He swept his hands down the curve of her back.

  Georgie gazed at him from shining lavender eyes. “I was caught the first time you looked at me as if I were a big dish of raspberry crumble and you wanted me whether I was topped with fuzzy mold or sweet cream.”

  Henry brushed his lips over hers, once twice, swiped his tongue along the seam. “Do you know I’ve never been overly fond of raspberry crumble? I much prefer the flavor of fresh, sweet peaches served up on your luscious lips.”

  “Only my lips?”

  Henry lifted his head and glanced abou
t.

  “Looking for this?” The last peach of the season, minus one bite, rested in the palm of Georgie’s hand. “I’ve never played with fruit, my lord Henry.

  “A first for both of us, love.”

  Georgie took a big bite of the sweet, overripe peach, a slow smile lifting her lips as juice dribbled over her chin and trickled down her long, elegant neck.

  The Earl of Hastings had no choice but to tumble his future countess to her back and follow that sweet sticky trail, wherever it might lead.

  Epilogue

  “Love, it’s time to wake up.”

  “Not yet.” Georgie Tinsdale, the Countess of Hastings, cracked one eye open and snuggled against her husband’s chest. Winter sunlight streamed through the carriage window, glinting off the simple silver and amethyst band Henry had placed on her finger the previous day.

  “We’ll be arriving soon.” Henry brushed a kiss over her forehead and gently removed her bent legs from his lap, carefully lowering her feet to the floor.

  “We can’t be at the inn yet,” Georgie grumbled, sitting up and brushing at her wrinkled skirts.

  “A slight detour.” Henry reached beneath the seat to retrieve a small trunk.

  Turning to the window, Georgie pressed close to the cold glass, surprised and a bit awed by the vista of green and gold fields, tall grass and scrub bent in the wind. Beyond the vast expanse of flat, rocky land, copses of woods sprouted on gently rolling hills. Here and there small herds of sheep grazed, the only sign of life for miles.

  “We’ve taken a detour to explore the moors?” Georgie asked in confusion as the carriage slowed and turned onto a narrow dirt lane.

  “When Olivia’s first husband passed away, he left behind a legacy of debt.” Henry’s voice held an odd note and Georgie turned to find him holding a slim blue leather-bound book. “In order to set things to rights, she chose to sell off all of the un-entailed properties of the Palmerton estate, including those that made up her dowry.”