He turned her again, moving to a silent waltz she seemed to feel beating in her heart. Her skirt rustled around his legs while he held her far too closely for propriety. In here, though, they could do as they liked. No one would know.
“Wait,” she whispered.
He slowed and stopped, not questioning, as she leaned against him and twisted sideways. Slipping out of one slipper, and then the other, she nudged them toward the fireplace.
“Much better.”
His low chuckle started warmth deep between her legs. “When was the last time you waltzed barefoot?” he asked.
“When I was ten, in the drawing room at Harkley. Gray was teaching me the steps, and he insisted that I take off my shoes if I was going to trample him like an elephant. Mother was appalled.” She leaned her cheek against his chest as they moved in a slow circle again. His heart beat hard and fast, in time with hers. “I think at the time she fancied the idea of Grey marrying me. As if I would ever marry someone so mean.”
“He used to talk about you, at Oxford,” Tristan’s low drawl mused as they danced.
She closed her eyes, listening to his heart and to the rhythm of his voice. “Nothing nice, I suppose.”
“He mentioned tossing you in the Wycliffe duck pond when you wouldn’t stop following him about the estate.”
“Yes, headfirst. I surfaced with a leech attached to my nose. For days after that, he insisted that it had sucked out my brains. I was six, and he was fourteen, and for a while I believed him, until Aunt Frederica made him stick a leech on his head to prove he was lying.”
His laugh deepened. “He always spoke of you very affectionately, mostly tales about how stubborn and bright and self-assured you were. I had always imagined you striding about in breeches with a cheroot clamped between your teeth, for some reason. When I first set eyes on you…” He was silent for a long moment as they slowly twirled about the room. “You took my breath away.”
He had done the same to her. Georgiana leaned back, letting her hips sway to the beckoning silence of the waltz. Tristan leaned in, running his lips down the base of her jaw to her throat. With her hips against his, she became aware of his arousal as they stepped and turned. It should have made her angry to think he would dare try to convince her to join him in bed again, after what had happened the last time.
In her deep excitement, though, she didn’t have room to be angry. It had been so long since she’d been in his arms, and she had missed his touch so much it nearly brought tears to her eyes.
“Let your hair down, why don’t you?” he suggested in a controlled, husky voice. “You’ll be even more comfortable.”
If she had any sense remaining, she would flee as fast as her stockinged feet could carry her. But then he would have to stop kissing her, and she didn’t want him to stop. She freed her hands and lifted them to her head, pulling pins and clips and dropping them to the floor. Her hair cascaded down her back, golden and curling in the candlelight.
The waltz slowed and then stopped before the fireplace. “My God, Georgiana. My God.”
His hand shaking a little, he curled his fingers into her hair, drawing it forward over her shoulder. Before she could lose her nerve she wove her hands through his hair and pulled his face forward to kiss him. “Just promise me one thing,” she said, her own voice unsteady as she buried her face in his neck. He smelled faintly of soap and cigar smoke. The combination was intoxicating.
“What?” he asked, his sure hands trailing and tugging down her back. Her gown slipped to the floor almost before she was aware of what he was doing.
She swallowed. My goodness. She was remembering other things about that night. About how good it had felt to be in his embrace. “Promise me that you won’t promise me anything.”
His mouth sought hers again. “I promise.”
The air felt cool in the room as she stood in just her shift and her stockings, cool except for where his hands touched her. Plans, lessons—nothing but Tristan and how he made her feel mattered, as burning memory and sensation filled her.
He shrugged out of his jacket, dropping it on the floor beside the puddle of her dress. His mouth still on hers, he unbuttoned his waistcoat and pulled it off, as well. “I missed you,” he murmured.
The deep sound resonated inside her. She had his cravat unknotted in only a moment. “You see me all the time,” she said breathlessly, as his hands swept up her waist, tugging her against him for another kiss.
“Not like this.”
His mouth trailed along the neckline of her shift, his warm, skillful lips and tongue making her tremble. His passion frightened her a little; until tonight she’d been dictating how close they became, how far they went. Tonight he felt like a summer storm, wild and powerful and ready to break over her in a torrent she couldn’t resist.
She pulled his shirt free from his trousers and ran her hands up the warm skin of his stomach. His hard muscles jumped beneath her touch. “Do I feel the same?” he murmured.
“Yes, and no. I know you, this time.”
He raised his arms and she lifted the shirt over his head, dropping it with the rest of their clothes. Tristan kissed her again, pressing her back against the tall bedpost. “Georgiana,” he murmured, nudging her chin up and running his mouth along her throat.
A moan broke from her, and she closed her eyes, drinking in the sensation of his mouth and his hands caressing her. His head dipped, and his mouth touched her breast through the thin fabric of her shift. Her nipples grew taut, pushing at the fine silk. Unable to help herself, she groaned again, tangling her fingers through his coal black hair and pulling him to her.
Tristan sank to his knees before her. Long fingers slid with slow purpose up her legs, drawing her shift up with them. For a moment, she panicked. Not again. She wasn’t going to let herself be hurt like that again.
“Tristan.”
He looked up at her. “I promised no promises, Georgiana,” he said in a low voice, “but—”
“No. It’s all right.” She didn’t want to hear him say he cared for her, or that he would be there when she awoke in the morning, or that she wouldn’t regret what she was doing. She wanted him tonight. She would worry about what came next when tonight was over.
“Are you certain?”
His words resonated into her, and she trembled. “Yes.”
His hands resumed their trail up her right leg, caressing and kneading. High up on her thigh he slipped his fingers beneath the top edge of her stocking, rolling it slowly down her leg, then lifted her foot and pulled it from her toes. He offered it to her wordlessly. With a shaking breath she took it from his fingers, clenching it in her fist until he offered her the second one in the same way.
He wanted the gesture to mean something, but she refused to let it. Tonight was tonight. Neither yesterday nor tomorrow mattered. Holding his gaze, she dropped both stockings into the pile their clothes were making. “Now it’s your turn,” she said unsteadily. “Off with your boots.”
Rising, he leaned against the footboard and yanked one gleaming black Hessian and then the other off his feet, and flung them into a dark corner. “Anything else you wish me to remove?”
He was letting her take the lead again, which steadied her a little. At the same time, it would be more difficult later, when she tried to justify her actions to herself. That, though, was later. She stepped forward and unfastened the top button of his breeches. “Oh, yes.”
With that small motion, the storm broke over her. Tristan took her face in his hands, kissing her again, deep and rough, his tongue plundering her mouth and leaving her panting and breathless. She undid the remaining two buttons and shoved his trousers down.
She felt him come free. Unable to resist, she broke the kiss and looked down. A light dusting of dark, curling hair across his chest narrowed in a line down his flat, muscled stomach, drawing her eyes lower. “This, I remember.”
At twenty-four he had been handsome. At thirty, he was breathtaking—more m
uscular, all man in the angular planes of his face and the knowing expression in his eyes.
Georgiana touched the warm smoothness of his manhood, and his muscles jumped. Emboldened by the fact that he was completely naked and she still wore her silk shift, she curled her fingers around him. Slowly she stroked the length of his shaft while he stood absolutely motionless before her, beautiful as a marble scuplture, but warm and alive and strong.
“Tristan,” she whispered, looking up to meet the glittering blue of his gaze, “I still seem to be partially dressed.”
“Not for long.” He slipped the straps of her shift off her shoulders and gently tugged the garment down. She had to release him as the material flowed down past her arms and her waist, pooling at her feet.
His hands traced her collarbones, then teased downward to circle her breasts, then her nipples, before cupping and releasing them. “I remember you, too,” he murmured, bending down to take her left breast in his mouth.
She gasped, grateful for the support of bedpost behind her, the only thing keeping her from sliding to the floor. He suckled, biting down gently on her nipple, and with another gasp her legs did give way.
Tristan caught her up in his arms, kissing her hard and openmouthed as he lifted her and brought her over to the middle of the bed. She couldn’t seem to let go of him and kept her arms around his neck, kissing him as he had kissed her. He yanked the sheets down one-handed, and laid her in the middle of the soft dishevelment.
Slipping onto the bed beside her, he captured her breast again. Her body hummed with excited tension; she knew what was to come. He continued laving her nipple, sliding his hands in languorous circles down her stomach, then lower. His finger dipped inside her, and she bucked.
“You want me,” he murmured, kissing her again. “You want me inside you.”
His finger moved again, and she moaned. “Yes, I want you.”
Satisfaction and desire mingled in his eyes. “I didn’t think you would.”
She ran restless hands down his back. “I shouldn’t, but I do.”
Tristan parted her legs and settled himself along her body. “There hasn’t been anyone besides me, has there?” he murmured, raising up a little on his arms and kissing her again.
“No one.”
Last time he had been patient and careful. Tonight he didn’t need to be, and she lifted her hips to meet him as he pushed inside her. She cried out, not with pain but with satisfaction. He muffled her cry against his mouth, moaning as he began to move inside her. The bed rocked with his rhythmic thrusts, another dance just for the two of them.
The tension inside her built until she thought she would die from it. Georgiana dug her fingers into his shoulders, holding herself as close to him as she could, wanting to be part of him, part of the fire sweeping them along.
“Say my name,” he murmured breathlessly, kissing her ear.
“Tristan. Oh, Tristan.” Like a gate opening, she shattered, trembling and pulsing around him. All she could feel was him, inside her and around her, holding her and loving her.
“Georgiana.” With another groan he sank hard into her again, holding himself tightly against her before he relaxed and lowered his head against her neck.
She loved the warm weight of him lying on top of her. It seemed like forever since she had felt this, that she was part of two rather than someone alone. Then she had awakened to find him gone from her bedchamber and her stocking missing. A memento, she’d thought, until she’d heard about the wager.
He ran his hands beneath her bottom and rolled, still inside her as he turned onto his back with her lying along his chest. For a long time they lay quietly like that, his fingers gently twining in her hair. As her breathing slowly returned to normal, she lifted her head enough to look down at him.
“Am I the same as I was?”
“No. You’re curvier.” With a slow, wicked smile he ran his hands over her bottom again.
She sighed. Reality was still on the other side of his dark bed curtains, and she would be very happy if it stayed there for a while longer. Her caressing hands moved up his chest, pausing at a small indentation along his left collarbone. “This is new,” she said. “What did this?”
“A horse threw me about three years ago and I landed on a rock. Hurt like the devil.” He brushed hair from her eyes, tilting his head a little to meet her gaze. “You remember that well, to notice a scar?”
I remember everything, she started to say, but didn’t. “I thought maybe it was one I had given you.”
He chuckled, warm and quiet. “Not for lack of trying, Georgie. My toes are still bruised, and my knuckles let me know when the weather’s changing.”
“You exaggerate.”
“Maybe a little.” He kissed her forehead. “Are you cold?”
“I’m starting to be.”
“Here.”
Sliding out from under her, he pulled the blankets up around them. He lay back again and she tucked her head against his shoulder, her hand curled across his chest.
She felt relaxed, ready to sleep for weeks tucked beside him, with his arm around her shoulder keeping her close. Still—“What about Amelia Johns?”
“I’ll deal with her later. Talk about something else, my sweet one.”
She meant to question him further, but her eyes drooped shut, and she fell asleep to the soft sound of his breathing and the steady beat of his heart. When she awoke, gray dawn was peeking around the edge of his blue curtains. She lay still, feeling the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath her cheek.
She didn’t want to leave. Neither, though, could she stay. Carefully shifting his arm from her shoulder, she sat up. He stirred, turning his face toward her but not waking. She wanted to kiss his cheek, but steeled herself against it.
He’d finally let her in, had decided she’d forgiven him. Well, she had—and she hadn’t. But that didn’t matter, because she could never trust him with her heart. What had happened last night was merely lust, the pent-up frustration of six years of antagonism.
Moving cautiously, she slipped off the bed and pulled her shift back on. A stocking tumbled to the floor, and she looked at it for a moment. It would serve him right. And it would ensure that he understood he’d been taught not to trifle with her, or with the heart of any female.
His writing desk was open, and she dipped his pen and wrote a quick note, laying it and her stocking on the pillow beside him. That done, she retrieved the box from his drawer and opened it, leaving that beside the note, as well.
He deserved it, she reminded herself fiercely, refusing to look at his face. He’d done it to her, and he deserved it.
Making no sound, she gathered her dress and her shoes and slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her. With luck, she would be out of the house before he woke up. With more luck, she’d be able to go home to Shropshire before he decided to retaliate. With immense luck, she’d be able to get out of Carroway House without crying.
Georgiana wiped at the tears on her face. She didn’t have that much luck.
Chapter 11
Puck.
—A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, Scene i
The light scent of lavender clung to the bedsheets and the pillow on which his cheek rested. Eyes closed, Tristan breathed deeply of her, of Georgiana.
Six years was a damned long time to wait for her, but he would have waited longer. As he came more awake, he still couldn’t quite believe that he’d been forgiven. He wanted to thank her again—several more times, in fact—before the household rose and she had to leave his room.
But even then he wouldn’t let her escape from him or his bed for long. Now that he had earned another chance with Georgiana, he wasn’t going to ruin it. Thank God he hadn’t proposed yet to Amelia; at least in Georgie he’d found a wife with whom he enjoyed sex.
He stretched carefully, not wanting to wake her, then opened his eyes. Her side of the bed was empty. Tristan scowled, sitting up. “Georgiana?”
&nb
sp; Silence answered him.
As he shifted, something slid against his bare backside. He reached back and lifted it. The box. For a long moment he looked at it, willing his sated brain to begin working again. Swiping his hand through his disheveled hair, he turned his attention to the pillow where the box had been. A stocking lay neatly across it, a folded paper beneath.
With all his being, he didn’t want to look at that note. Neither could he sit naked in bed all morning staring at it, though, so with a deep breath he picked it up and opened it. In Georgiana’s neat hand it said, “Now you have a pair of my stockings. I hope you will enjoy them, for you won’t have me again. Georgiana.”
She’d planned it all along. And he’d fallen for it with all the ardor of a schoolboy suffering his first crush. Anger ripped through him, and he crushed the note in his fist, hurling it into the fireplace. A single curse tore from his chest, quiet and vehement.
He shot out of bed, grabbing for trousers and a clean shirt. No one played him for a fool. He’d been planning proposals and entwined bodies, and she’d been waiting for him to wake up, laughing about how she’d waited six years to do it, but she’d finally gotten even.
Deeper than the anger, a knot of solid hurt wound tighter and tighter inside him, as though someone had kicked him in the gut. He tried to push it aside, but it remained, keeping him from breathing. This was unacceptable. He did not like feeling this way.
He slowed, yanking on his boots. When he’d bedded her six years earlier, it hadn’t been to win the damned wager. It had been because he’d wanted her. He hadn’t been thinking any further than finding pleasure in her body; he hadn’t expected to spend the next six years remembering and wanting her again.
Tristan strode to the wardrobe, grabbing a waistcoat and a jacket, pulling them on with cold, black anger. Last night had been different, even better than before. He’d been thinking beyond the moment this time.
He scowled, reaching for a clean, starched cravat and knotting it around his neck. Georgiana had been thinking beyond the moment, too. She’d been thinking about how she planned on getting even.
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