“Mary Wollstonecraft is not ridiculous. You said—” She clamped her lips together.
Mal chuckled and kissed her palm. “Ah, I see ye do remember.”
Georgiana curled her fingers over the kiss and drew her hand away. “I remember.”
“Then ye remember what it was like to be in love wi’ me.”
“Perhaps.” The admission slipped out before she could bite it back.
“I’ll take that for now,” he whispered, then bent his head and captured her lips. His mouth moved over hers, undemanding yet intent. Of all the things she would have changed, Georgiana would have loved the power to resist his kiss, to fight the rush of desire that flooded her each and every time. To deny the enchantment of his spell.
She hadn’t been able to back then. She couldn’t now. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she pressed her body against his, feeling his body heat through the thin layers between them. Reveling in the touch of his hands as they spanned her waist and moved up to cup her breasts.
“Mal.”
Her lips parted of their own accord, encouraging him to deepen the kiss, but perversely, he backed away slowly, breaking the contact.
“I’ll leave ye now.”
He dropped a kiss on her nose as she gaped at him.
“Are you not going to stay?”
“Nay,” he said with a roguish grin. “Because what’s between us isnae about that alone, is it?”
He moved to the window and Baird followed him there, rear end wagging now that peace had been made. Mal gave him a quick scratch behind the ears and glanced back to her. “What made ye get such a monstrous mutt?”
“I always wanted a big dog. Bluebell was what my father allowed me.”
“Good thing yer father isnae here to deny ye what ye want any longer, aye?”
There was a deeper meaning to his softly spoken question, but she wouldn’t consider now what decisions she might and might not make of her own free will. Especially when she wasn’t even certain what choice she wanted to make.
Mal threw up the sash to make his escape the way he’d come, then paused. “I still want to meet…” A muttered string of profanities poured out of him. “Christ, I dinnae even know her name.”
“Malina Margaret Antonia Egerton,” she said softly, hugging herself once more for a different reason this time. His expression softened a fraction and she knew why. Malina was the Scottish female version of Malcolm and Margaret, his mother’s name. “Or Polten now. Countess of Ardmore. We call her Maisie.” Also a Scottish diminutive of Margaret.
“Ah, lass…” His brogue was gruff. “Ye do love me.”
“I did at the time, obviously. It was two decades ago.”
He chuckled. “Ye’ll still do nothing to stoke my confidence, will ye?”
Georgiana laughed at the words so similar to those he teased her with so long ago. “It’s managed well enough without my assistance all this time, I think. Now go, before you’re reduced to a cowering mess on my floor.”
His laughter joined hers and pleasure swept through her. She didn’t know what she planned to do about Mal exactly, but she had missed the companionship they once shared.
“Let me meet her. Please.”
She’d missed him, whether she enjoyed admitting it to him or not.
What would it hurt to see him a time or two more?
Plus, having him finally meet Maisie would put an end to her daughter’s persistent question and solve that problem as well.
“Fine, I’ll send around an invitation for dinner.”
“Tomorrow.” Not so much a request as a demand.
“Two days hence,” she countered, though not solely to aggravate him. “We have a previous commitment tomorrow night.”
“Verra well, but be sure to include my mother on the invitation.” Mal patted Baird on the head in farewell one last time. “She wants to meet ye both, as well. I guess ye recall her name?”
Georgiana winced as he exited through the window. She was to meet his mother after all of this? How wonderfully awkward.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Home of the Duke of Wharton
Grosvenor Square
London, England
August 1800
“Georgiana Alexandra Wharton, what is the meaning of this?”
She glanced up from her letter writing as her father stormed into the tiny parlor she’d claimed as her own on the second floor of his London townhouse. Burly and red-faced, vexed as he was, he looked awkwardly out of place in the feminine room with its cream and pink décor and delicately spindled furniture. As well he might. Wharton hadn’t entered it since the day they’d arrived in London.
Or rather, the day he’d forced her to town.
“Well?” he shouted, waving an unsealed letter.
A sigh escaped her as she recognized the envelope. Yet another in a long series of attempts to contact Mal. Another missive that hadn’t made its way past the threshold of the building. Loyal allies were hard to come by when one was the practically imprisoned daughter of an outraged duke.
He’d engaged the strictest chaperone he could find to attend her after her Aunt Martha had shown a touch too much sympathy to her plight and tried to help her. These days, each waking moment—and most of the sleeping ones—were spent in the company of the indomitable Mrs. Parkerson. A woman who wouldn’t have been able to summon an ounce of compassion for a starving child on the streets.
All was as her father commanded it, but she wouldn’t bow to his will without protest. Unfortunately, her options were extremely limited. He had control of her in every legal and moral way allowed by king and God. Her options for recourse were few and feeble, however they did vex him sorely.
Wharton stormed across the room to brandish the letter before her face. “You think your continued silence is going to change anything?”
Georgiana spared him only a brief affirming glance before turning her attention back to the letter she was writing to Bernie. A small, adolescent gesture of defiance it might be, but it gave her comfort.
“You think to enlist Miss Gregson’s aid in searching out that blasted soldier?” he went on, having gotten used to one-sided conversations, or rather arguments, with her. “It’s been months, girl. The boy has surely forgotten you by now. What is the point? Do you do it only to irk me?”
Her quill hovered over the paper as he spoke. Torment at the thought that Mal may have forgotten her forced her to close her eyes to block it away. She feared he might, hoped he wouldn’t. Until she knew one way or the other, she’d keep on trying to locate him. Letters had been written in care of the War Office. A few had gotten through via Jane before her father had caught on and dismissed her maid.
Luckily, Bernie had taken Jane in or Georgiana would have felt worse about it than she already did.
Opening her eyes, she found her letter ruined by a large drop of ink defacing her neat script. Another clung to the end of the quill, threatening to spill, so she stuck it back into the well.
“Give it up, girl. You’re never going to find him.”
But she must.
“Even if you did, nothing has changed. You’ll never be his.”
“I’ll always be his,” she countered quietly, folding her hands in her lap. If she had to break her silence, those were the most important words to be said. She refused to let him see the anguish his declaration instilled in her and kept her tone mild. “There’s nothing you can do to change that, Father. You can keep me locked in a tower, parade me about in front of every eligible man in London, or leave me to waste the rest of my years away in your musty old estate in Cheshire. My heart will always belong to him.”
Wharton threw up his hands in exasperation. “You wretched, stubborn child. You sound just like your bloody mother.”
Georgiana wasn’t sure what he meant by that. She hardly remembered her mother at all, much less any similar arguments. She lifted her eyes curiously, studying him as he stalked around the room in his ire. Bluebe
ll eyed him warily and scooted beneath a chair by the window lest she get kicked aside by the angry man.
“Hear me, girl.” He waggled a finger in her direction. “I’ve spent too many years listening to a woman bemoan some fanciful notions about romance to hear any more it of now.”
Enlightenment dawned upon her. Her aunt had told her how Georgiana’s mother had been engaged before marrying Wharton. Her betrothed was outed as a fortune hunter and the marriage called off. The next year, she’d married the duke. Her aunt had ended the tale as a happily ever after to offer some sympathy and hope for her niece. But what if it wasn’t? What if there was more to the story? What if her mother spent years married to Wharton and all the while grieved for a long-lost love?
Oh, it explained so much.
Not enough to forgive her father for all that he’d done, but enough for her to realize his stalwart rejection of Mal’s suit would never waver. He would project his dissatisfaction with his late wife upon his daughter. Whether he was aware of what he was doing or not.
Nothing would change his mind.
Or there might be something.
“Resume your silence if you please, I know I shall enjoy the reprieve.” He strode to the door.
“I’m going to bear his child.” Georgiana spoke up before he could leave, and she lost her nerve. The revelation had been weeks in the coming and it seemed a perfect time.
Thunderous, his already ruddy face darkening to a deep purple, he turned on her with disbelief quickly being overridden by fury.
“A soldier’s brat?”
Georgiana lifted her chin. “The child of the man I love and intend to marry.”
“I’ve told you already—”
“Isn’t an unfortunate marriage a better option for your daughter than her bearing a bastard?” she cut in before he could resume his same old song and dance. “What choice do you have, Father? Humiliation before all your peers or an imperfect match for your daughter?”
“I’ve tried kindness with you, daughter. I’ve given you time to put this unfortunate incident in the past, time to seek out a gentleman of your preference here, but never doubt I have other choices available to me. Friends who would grant me any courtesy.” He lowered his voice to a hiss that sent a chill up her spine. “Or enemies who would do much to garner my favor.”
Georgiana turned her back to him and welcomed Bluebell as the dog leapt into her lap with a hug. She’d take all the comfort she could at this point.
As if knowing he cowed her with his implied threat, Wharton struck deeper. “Several men have petitioned me for your hand since we arrived. Men with all the wealth and standing your soldier lacked. The best options among them are the Marquess of Innsburg and the Duke of Bridgewater.”
The enemy and the friend.
Georgiana shivered again. Innsburg was in his early thirties. Bony thin, with oily hair and a pointed chin. He was also a sour and malicious gossip who seemed hell bent on spreading misery wherever he went. Minutes in his company had proven exhausting.
On the other hand, though he had to have been close in age to Wharton—indeed she knew they were friends—Bridgewater’s appearance was pleasant and his demeanor calming. Of her many suitors since arriving in London, the Duke of Bridgewater might have been one of the kindest. A widower after losing his wife of more than a dozen years, he was on the hunt for a young, nubile wife to bear his heir.
However, it wasn’t his heir she would bring into the world.
“The duke may be a nice man, but he’d never acknowledge a bastard as his own.”
He frowned at the word. She’d make certain she kept using it.
“Innsburg would for the right price. Then again, Bridgewater might simply out of the kindness of his heart,” the duke pondered. “That’s a quality you might appreciate in a husband at this point.”
Her chin notched up stubbornly. “I will not marry him.”
“You will marry one of them,” he commanded. Unfortunately, even though she was eighteen, he was still guardian of her and as such the law compelled her to concede to his commands. It happened all the time, unhappy brides in arranged marriages.
In truth, there was little she could do to stop him. She was determined to put up a fight anyway. “I would rather have my child labeled a bastard.”
Wharton curled his lip at the word. “Innsburg it is then.”
A shudder of revulsion racked her. “No!”
“It’s Innsburg or Bridgewater, girl.”
“No.”
“Innsburg or Bridgewater.”
Georgiana shook her head in denial of either option. All she wanted was Mal. His love, his protection, but he wasn’t here and she had no idea how to find him.
“If you force this upon me, I swear will never forgive you, Father. I’ll never, ever speak a word to you again.”
He barely paused a moment. “Innsburg or Bridgewater?”
She lifted her eyes to meet his, not caring that tears streamed down her cheeks. Searching for any hint that he might relent. She saw none. There was no recourse for her, no choices, no other options available to her other than running away and putting the life and welfare of her baby at risk.
Mal’s baby. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do to protect the life growing within her. The living reminder of the love that had consumed her. Hugging Bluebell tight, she hung her head in defeat.
“Bridgewater.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
No. 3 The Crescent
Bath, England
September 1821
“Can I get you anything else, my lady?” Georgiana handed the countess—Mal’s mother—a glass of Madeira, wishing she’d had more than a couple herself to calm her nerves before they arrived. The lady hadn’t said much yet. Her fierce, piercing gaze as they’d waded through introductions and the social niceties was disconcerting.
“No, this will do fine. Please, though, call me Margo.”
“Of course.” She bobbed her head, fighting the urge to add a courtesy after the imperious command. “Mal…er, my lord? How about you? Can Leighton fetch you some brandy? Or Scotch? We may have some in the cellar.”
Unlike his mother who perched regally on the chair Georgiana offered near the fireplace, Mal prowled the room like a caged panther she’d once seen at the zoo. From one end to the other, circling close to the door to peek out expectantly from time to time.
The sight, though a display worthy of unhindered feminine appreciation, relaxed her overwrought nerves. Bless him, Mal was nervous. He was about to meet his grown daughter for the first time, so she supposed she couldn’t blame him. And it was oddly endearing to boot. Her own anxiety faded away.
“Mal?”
“What? Oh, nay, nothing for me.” He shook his head, then nodded. “Maybe a wee dram of Scotch might be just the thing.”
Biting back a smile, Georgiana signaled to a footman near the door who departed silently, then turned back to Mal. “I’m sure she’ll be right down.”
“My wife is habitually tardy,” Ardmore said fondly from his spot near the sideboard. He poured himself a glass of claret and shrugged. “The outcome is usually worth the wait.”
Georgiana grinned. “Spoken like a true—”
“I’m here!” Maisie burst into the room, panting and flush with laughter. Her rich curls were bound by muted green ribbons, which matched her eyes and the silk of her dinner dress. “I’m so sorry. Am I late?”
“Of course you are, darling.” Georgiana went to her daughter and kissed her cheek, the sudden tension in the room pressing in from all sides. Her own anxiety escalated once more.
This was it.
Taking a bracing gulp of air, she turned to Mal who’d moved to stand next to his mother. “May I introduce my daughter, Maisie Polten, Countess of Ardmore. Maisie, this is the dowager Countess of Glenrothes, and her son, the Earl of Glenro—”
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re here!”
* * *
To Mal’s surprise, t
he girl threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. He stiffened in surprise at the demonstrative greeting, not knowing how to respond or react. Meanwhile, his mother chuckled merrily at Maisie’s effusiveness…or his distress. He wasn’t sure which.
Awkward with the situation, he peered helplessly over her shoulder to Georgie. He was about to pat Maisie’s shoulder and gently ease her away when her firm rounded belly bumped against his. She was with child.
Shocked, his gaze went to Georgie again. Her hands pressed to her lips, her eyes were glassy with tears. Mal laughed inwardly. She’d always been emotional…or as she preferred to say, compassionate. He wondered what she’d been like carrying a child. Weepy, no doubt. Glowing with anticipation. Heavy and round with his child. He regretted that he’d missed it.
Then he froze as the comprehension dawned. This was his child. This overly exuberant young lady, with Georgie’s eyes and his mahogany hair. She was the bairn she’d born. His bairn. Emotions he’d never experienced and couldn’t name swamped him. Protective. Possessive. His daughter. Mal couldn’t help himself. He wrapped his arms around Maisie’s back and embraced her.
His child. His daughter. He glanced back at Georgie in wonder. A tear splashed on her cheek and she nodded slightly. His mother, too, appeared near tears.
Maisie eased away and Mal found himself reluctant to let her go. His wee lass.
Her hands smoothed over her protruding stomach and she beamed up at him. The blood drained from his face as a significantly more profound realization hit him. The bairn Maisie carried was his grandchild.
Once Again, My Laird Page 17
