His fingertips kissed her thigh like a naughty whisper, seductive and teasing, and when he kissed her she felt the urgency spark between them, the desperate yearning about to be sated.
"Georgiana," he groaned.
But her imagination, lively as it was, took her no further.
She woke, twisted up in her blankets, damp with perspiration, covered in goose feathers. The only wrestling that night had been with her pillow, and she had won.
Chapter Seventeen
When Harry approached the drawing room door the following day, he heard his aunt in mid-shriek,
"Miss Hathaway, you are not a sack of grain. Lightly, Miss Hathaway, with your weight upon your toes, not your heels. And why are your shoulders hunched about your ears again, girl?"
By now his aunt should have been hoarse, but no such luck.
"You move like a dazed ghost, Miss Hathaway. Did you sleep ill last night?"
He opened the door and looked in. Neither lady noticed him for a moment, too caught up in the dancing lesson, so he had an opportunity to admire Miss Hathaway's figure through the white, gossamer material of her gown again as she moved back and forth before the sun-lit windows. His furniture had been moved aside to make space, but the pupil still managed to crash into it occasionally, much to his amusement. His aunt's dog ran around her ankles, trying to nip her petticoat, but when he saw Harry he stopped and barked.
"Ah, there you are, Henry, and just in time!" his aunt bellowed above the music she was thumping out at the pianoforte. "We need a partner for Miss Hathaway. I was about to resort to using Brown or one of the footmen, but now you can be of use. Stop skulking there and come in."
He cleared his throat, entered the room and looked at his young guest. "Miss Hathaway, I found this...I believe it belongs to you." Stretching out one arm, he showed her the shawl which he'd found wrapped around his loins when he woke that morning.
"Oh." The young woman stumbled to a halt, and her hands dropped to her sides.
"It is yours, is it not?"
"Yes. Yes, of course." She hurried over and reached to take it from him.
Harry kept a grip on one corner. "Do you remember where you left it?"
Those centipedinous eyelashes wafted upward and her eyes widened. "Yes." She added with a whisper, "But do you?"
He did not. Although his mind simply did not want to let him remember, some part of him had been misbehaving with her. There were certain signs when he woke that morning which assured him of it.
When she gave another tug, he released the shawl to her custody. "Thank you, sir, for returning it safely."
As the fringe fell through his fingers like a soft, teasing kiss, he saw her sitting before him in her nightgown, wet hair over her shoulder, teeth biting her lip as she leaned over to examine something on the floor between them.
When she bathed last night she must have used that soap he thought he didn't like.
He liked it now. Very much.
Suddenly he was unable to resist touching her eyelashes where they fluttered against her cheek. He heard her take a sharp intake of breath, felt her eyelid twitch as his fingertip brushed over it, but she did not move away or mutter any objection.
His aunt, sorting through music at the pianoforte, paid no attention to what they were doing. "You will partner Miss Hathaway, Henry. A minuet will do to start."
He did not like dancing, but it would be an excuse to hold her hand. Her fingers, light and hesitant, hovered over his like a tentative bird. "You do not mind, sir?"
"Why would I?" He gripped her fingers firmly.
"I'm sure you have more important things to do."
When he looked into her eyes he read the question there, asking if he remembered what had happened last night. If only he did.
This was very bad, dangerous for her.
Well, today it was only a dance. There could be no harm in that. Later he would discuss this business of nightly encounters with her, because they could not continue. Absolutely could not.
"I'm not a very good dancer," she whispered.
"Excellent." He managed a tight smile. "Neither am I, so we can muddle along together. A perfect partnership."
But as Lady Bramley struck the first keys on the pianoforte, a loud voice interrupted the lesson before it had begun.
"A minuet? Who dares dance a minuet without us?"
And Harry's pleasant thoughts about soap, eyelashes and wet bodies were shattered when the drawing room door burst open and there stood Maxwell Bramley looking pleased with himself and probably drunk, teetering in the doorway and beaming as if his face might split in two.
Until he saw his mama.
* * * *
It was a most uncomfortable luncheon. Through her trusty lorgnette, his aunt stared at Max and the woman he'd brought with him, assessing them both as if they were the last items left on a market stall.
"Well, this is a surprise, Maxwell." Her tone left no doubt that it was an unwelcome one too. "And who is this...Mrs. Swan?"
"Swanley," he corrected, his lips turned down as the footman— obeying one of Lady Bramley's stern looks— only half filled his glass before moving on to the next. "Mrs. Swanley is a..." he glanced over at Harry, "a friend. An old friend."
Lady Bramley then raised her voice, as if the woman across the table might not understand. "Are you one of the Canterbury Swanleys?"
Maxwell's companion looked startled to be addressed directly, but that turned quickly to coy amusement. "No, madam," she replied with a sideways glance at Max and a little smile. "I am of the Bethnal Green Swanleys."
"Oh." The lorgnette was dropped and the soup spoon retrieved. "You are nobody then."
Harry cleared his throat. "You are just passing through, I assume, cousin." Max surely would not linger now that he knew his mother was in residence.
But his cousin eyed Georgiana across the soup tureen and grinned broadly. "I suppose I can stay a day or two, Harry old chap. If it won't put you out." He swigged his wine and held the empty glass aloft for the footman. "It has been a hellish journey, I must say, and you ought to take pity on us. We would have been here days ago but for the dratted weather." When the wine decanter did not return promptly, he tapped his glass with a knife blade and finally his mother relented with a nod to the footman.
While Harry watched, Georgiana smiled back at his cousin and he was sure her eyes held a new sultriness he had not seen before. Since when had she begun wearing her hair off her forehead and pinned back? It was a more sophisticated style and he did not recall the moment she'd changed the way she wore her dark curls. And she should have changed out of that gown after her dancing lesson, for it was not suitable daytime attire for a young lady. The color was the only thing innocent about it when it was worn over curves like hers.
She ought to be taken out of it immediately. He imagined his own hands completing that task with haste and efficiency.
As the bread basket passed his line of sight, Harry took a roll and ripped it apart quickly and ruthlessly, crumbs flying all over. "We're stretched for space at the moment, Max. Perhaps you and Mrs. Swanley would be more comfortable at the inn in Little Flaxhill."
"Would we?" Max still studied Georgiana with increased curiosity. "I doubt it." He glanced at Harry and then back again to the prettier face. "I think I'd rather stay here, even if it is suddenly an inconvenience."
Harry felt his temperature rising. "The accommodations in the village would suit you both better."
But Mrs. Swanley abruptly exclaimed, "I came all this way for you, Sir Henry. You paid for my services. I cannot be any use to you at an inn, can I?"
There was a short silence while everybody ceased moving their spoons and looked at Harry. Max grinned, stuffing his face with bread, soup dribbling down his chin. His aunt raised her lorgnette again, and Miss Hathaway looked confused. And much too attractive for her own good suddenly. What the devil was she playing at, looking that way?
He had to think quickly, something he
hadn't been required to do for the past few years, while he was alone in that house and had no one to bother him. This was the sort of difficulty that arose from having other people around and opening one's life to their messes and problems. As if he didn't have enough of his own.
"Mrs. Swanley is an artist," he said, reaching for his wine glass. "I hired her, Lady Bramley...to paint the house."
"To paint the house?"
"In watercolor" he explained. "I thought the place ought to be recorded in paint. For posterity."
Perfect! By sheer accident he had stumbled upon the ideal lie.
His aunt was delighted. "My dear brother always planned to have Woodbyne Abbey painted and he never got around to it."
No, thought Harry dryly, his father was too busy with the legion of women he brought home to the house. That had kept him far too occupied in the last years of his life and he never gave another thought to the state of the house, or the idea of having it memorialized in paint. After Harry's mother left, his father had not bothered fixing anything as it broke around him. Instead he sank with it, decayed slowly and let the ivy cover everything. Hence the state of the place today.
Perhaps it was time he got that roof replaced and had somebody look at those drafty windows, as Miss Hathaway had suggested.
Already, in secret, he had begun tidying his study. When he was behind that locked door they all thought he was at work on his inventions, but Harry had lately lost interest in his automated woman and instead spent his mornings sorting through his books and papers, gradually clearing space on the floor and shelves, shaking up the dust and shattering the cobwebs. It was only one room, but it was a start.
As he looked around his dining room he realized that his aunt had supervised the sewing of new curtains— or were they the old ones cleaned and re-hung? Perhaps it was merely the gleam of the summer sun through those newly washed windows that brought everything to life. He knew Brown had been put to work clearing overgrown ivy from the front of the house and that let in more light too.
And when his roving perusal settled again on Miss Hathaway, the cider-tinted glow seemed to make her curls shine with a richer luster. Her eyes sparkled beneath those thick lashes like sunlight tickling the surface of a deep still lake.
She caught his eye and smiled. As he knew she would. As she always did now. It was pleasant, he realized, to look up and see her there at his table. For as long as she stayed, of course. Nothing permanent.
But it was time to wake up that slumbering house and chase out the ghosts. He felt an ardent desire to show Woodbyne off at its best, while she was in residence.
"Better pray that Swanley person can paint," Parkes whispered in his ear.
He smirked into his wine. They'd deal with that problem once they came to it. In fact he was feeling as if he could cope with anything now. More like his old self.
* * * *
"That was quick thinking on your part, coz." Max laughed. "At luncheon."
"You might have warned me you were bringing that woman."
"I did. I sent you a letter, old chap."
"Yes, but so much time has elapsed between the letter and your arrival, I assumed plans had changed. As yours often do."
"I told you, the weather held us up or I would have been here last week."
The two men rode side by side, a chance for them to talk alone while the ladies stayed behind in the house.
"I hope your Mrs. Swanley can be discreet," Harry muttered.
"Of course she can. It's important in her profession." Max tapped the side of his nose in that gesture he had used before when taking a cheque from his cousin's hand. Now Harry understood what it meant, of course.
"It did not seem so at luncheon," said Harry. "She could not wait to say I had hired her services."
Max laughed so hard he almost toppled sideways from his saddle. "She was offended by your eagerness to be rid of us so hastily the moment we arrived. You were not very gentlemanly, it must be said."
"I was being honest. You know the Abbey has few habitable rooms and they are all full, thanks to your mama and her need for a battalion of servants."
"But Mrs. Swanley, dear chap," Max lowered his voice to a harsh whisper, leaning closer, "is meant to share your room and your bed, isn't she?"
"That is out of the question. I told you I don't need a woman." Not that one, in any case.
They turned the horses, moving into the leafy shade of a small coppice. Here, out of the sun's glare, it was cooler, the gentle breeze ruffling the canopy of leaves overhead.
"So what about that funny little piece, Miss Georgiana Hathaway. What are you doing with her, coz?"
He replied crisply, "Miss Hathaway is very young and not your sort."
"Not my sort? She's a woman, is she not?" Max grinned.
"She is here as a companion to your mama, apparently to learn how to behave herself. That means she does not need any of your charming words of wisdom blown into her ears to distract her."
"Sakes, coz, you sound rather protective of the young petticoat."
"You will find her capable of protecting herself. I merely tried to save you the trouble.""Well, that's very sweet, Harry, but all's fair in love and war."
"Explain?"
"I can hardly help it if she prefers me and my handsome face. I'm the sort girls fall in love with. You're not. I have charm. You don't. I have good looks. You don't."
"You believe she would prefer you to me? Is there anything about Miss Hathaway that makes you think she has forfeited her wits?"
"You intrigue me further, cousin. That almost sounded like the old Harry, and I see a bit of that long lost spark of competition in your eye again. No doubt you will warn her against me as soon as you get her alone."
"That caution will not be necessary. Miss Hathaway may be young and virtuous, but she has eyes, ears and intelligence enough to make her own sound judgment. And she seeks adventures...without men, who, she assures me, only get in her way."
Max laughed again, the sound disturbing blackbirds from the trees so that they rose up in a dark cloud, before scattering into the clear sky. "You can be as protective of your little house guest as you like. It is rather touching. But the fact is, all young ladies will look wherever they fancy and, sometimes, the more you warn them against a fellow, the more they run after him."
This was true of certain ladies, he knew, but Miss Hathaway— Georgiana— was different. She did not strike him as the sort to have the wool pulled over her eyes.
And speaking of covering certain things...again he thought of waking to find her shawl tied around his loins, the fringe tickling his thigh as he rolled over, emerging from a deep, and for once gratifying, sleep. She must have given it to him last night, or else he took it from her.
Max was right, he was most definitely feeling a spark.
"It's not very sporting of you, Harry old chap, to keep Miss Hathaway all to yourself!"
"I was unaware Miss Hathaway had become a sport."
"Dear coz, you may not have competed for a woman before, so perhaps you don't recognize it now, but that is exactly what you are doing. Competing with your own cousin. I know not what has come over you. It's disgraceful, and you should stop at once."
"And let you win?"
"Precisely." Max winked. "You know I'm better for her. You have no idea how to manage such a creature. She's not one of your automatons, you know."
Oh, he was very much aware of that. "Max, I'm not going to let you annoy Miss Hathaway and that's all there is to it. I suggest you stick to the Mrs. Swanleys of the world and we'll all be happy."
"Tsk tsk. Anyone would think you're in love, Harry."
"Don't be ridiculous."
Hell and damnation, he wished he could remember what had happened last night.
He closed his eyes, turned his face upward, and felt the sun-dappled shadow slip across it. Never had an elusive memory haunted him so with so much seductive promise of what he might be missing.
If h
e had been ungentlemanly with a young lady, he should at least remember it.
* * * *
Georgiana expected the arrival of two new guests to keep the Commander behind his study door even more often. She thought he might even return to avoiding meals in the dining room, but to her surprise it had the opposite effect. She found him popping up frequently, no matter where she was or what she was doing. Especially if his cousin Max was nearby. She concluded that he must be more fond of his cousin's company than he would ever want to admit.
Mr. Maxwell Bramley was an amiable fellow, but a little too full of himself. Although he had his mother's forceful ways, he had none of her insight.
It was interesting to see mother and son together— the heavy glare of disapproval on one side and the studied carelessness on the other. Lady Bramley's loaded remarks about wasting one's life and her son's determined pursuit of frivolous distractions. This habit of closing his ears to advice reminded her of Harry, but Max was far more concerned with keeping up an appearance. He was also much more gregarious— sometimes a little too affable if he had unrestricted access to the decanters for an afternoon— and not nearly as forthright, or, she suspected, as trustworthy. He was the sort of fellow who would agree to a plan one day and forget it by the next. Where the Commander kept too many things in his mind and became confused by the clutter, Max Bramley was ruthless at sweeping his thoughts aside to keep only one at a time. Usually something trivial.
His traveling companion, Mrs. Swanley, was a very fashionable lady with an elegant, studied poise to her every move, but Lady Bramley could not be deceived.
"There is something hard beneath all that Brussels lace and ruffled silk," she confided in Georgiana. "She is not what she pretends to be, of that I am sure. My son continually entangles himself with the wrong sort. I quite despair of him."
"Oh, do not despair, Lady Bramley. Nobody is beyond saving, you know. Where is your love of a good challenge?"
The lady winced. "I believe it is trapped under my ribcage, Miss Hathaway." And then she sent her maid for some stomach powders. After her son's arrival she relied upon their soothing qualities more than usual.
The Trouble with His Lordship’s Trousers Page 19
