The Kiss

by Sophia Nash

  And Georgiana’s misery had been complete, when Ata sent the marchioness on some ridiculous errand to afford the rest of them some privacy. “My dear Georgiana, there are only two reasons I endure her. I’m resolved not to remove to Amberley until you are settled away from that horrid woman. And I’ll stay here until then to make sure she behaves toward you in the proper manner.”

  “No matter what she says,” Grace had added, “all of us know you were properly married to her son. You are a marchioness and all of us will stand by you.”

  Elizabeth and Sarah had touched her hands and murmured their support. And Georgiana had felt as little like a marchioness as ever.

  “And,” Ata had added, with a smile toward Grace, “I shall wager my black pearls that there will be another lady among us who will share the title with you before the year is out. Then the two of you will be almost sisters in truth—and you’ll have no need for any of the rest of us.”

  Grace had then cradled Georgiana’s calloused fingers in her own and kissed the top of her hair. “I should very much like to have you for a sister, Georgiana,” she whispered, and squeezed her fingers.

  Georgiana had been unable to make her mouth function properly.

  And then, thankfully, a footman had come to get her.

  She sighed and looked down at the new stack of ledgers Mr. Brown had left for her. Well, she would take comfort in the familiarity of her old tasks, and look again at the information the Duke of Helston had sent regarding several properties within fifty miles of Penrose.

  She suddenly noticed that a new property had been added to the bottom of the stack. She glanced at the specifics and was immediately intrigued. It was located on a hill not five hundred yards from the sea. It was quite a find, considering the overall size and price. Hmmm…quite promising.

  The door cracked and Fairleigh Fortesque peeked inside. Her eyes were so like her father’s—not the color, but the shape. The slope of the lid and the straight brow. She wondered suddenly if Quinn was ever haunted by having to see glimpses of his wife’s features in his daughter.

  “Have you finished your pianoforte lesson, dearest?”

  Fairleigh nodded with a pained expression. “Mr. Tyler said I only ruptured one of his eardrums today.”

  Georgiana forced her lips not to twitch. “Well, that is saying a lot, for I am certain he told me I ruptured his entire brain on one occasion almost twenty years ago.”

  Fairleigh giggled and skipped toward her. “And I spent one half hour on the needlework Mrs. Killen set out for me.”

  “A full thirty minutes?”

  “Maybe it was twenty-nine minutes,” the little girl murmured.

  “Was it at least longer than a quarter hour?” She lifted the girl’s little chin with the palm of her hand.

  “You’re tougher than old Beetleface ever was.”

  Georgiana laughed. “It’s only because I want the very best life has to offer for you, dearest. And all refined ladies play an instrument, or sing—”

  “I think everyone knows I can’t sing.” She rolled her blue eyes.

  “And they embroider, and—”

  Fairleigh interrupted her again. “I’d settle for less than the best life as long as it doesn’t include embroidery.”

  “And they most certainly do not interrupt—”

  “Ata does.”

  “—their friends,” Georgiana finished with a smile.

  “I’m sorry, Georgiana.”

  “That’s all right. I’ve been slipping on that rule myself lately.”

  Fairleigh looked at the ledgers with an eager expression. “Oh, do say we can start. You said I could write that note to the mill near Penzance. Has the post arrived? I hope that man you sent a letter to in Scotland will sell us his sheep. And you promised I could watch a lamb being born this winter. You won’t forget, will you? Can I add the figures in the ledger today?”

  “May I.”

  “May I add the figures in the ledger?”

  She passed the top leather-bound book to the child as well as a scrap of paper and the inkwell. “Trim the quill first, dearest. And I never forget a promise. I’ve already told Mr. Brown our agreement and will tell your father when I leave.”

  The little girl’s eyes became very wide. “But you’re not going to leave any time soon. It will take a long time to find a place. Oh, why does everyone always have to leave? Why can’t people live in one place all their lives?”

  Georgiana refused to lie to her—refused to suggest she might visit often. She very much doubted she would be able to tolerate visits. It would not be fair to Grace or Quinn, or to her own fragile heart. “Perhaps you’ll be happy to see me go, after I tell you I’m leaving you my paints and new canvases when I take my leave. But not a moment before,” she added when she saw the little girl’s face bloom with joy.

  Fairleigh clapped her hands but then stopped. “Oh, but it won’t be nearly as much fun painting without you.”

  “Perhaps your father will paint with you. As I remember, he used to enjoy it when we were growing up.”

  “Papa? He likes to paint?”

  Georgiana handed her the paring knife. “Yes, but no more discussion. It is time to get to work if we are ever to finish.”

  Quinn peered past the edge of the door to see two heads bent earnestly to their tasks—one small and blonde, the other glossy and dark brown. Two hands gripped plumes that moved in unison. Two brows furrowed in concentration on the task before them. And two right feet tapped in deliberation.

  He swallowed.

  He didn’t dare interrupt them. Georgiana didn’t know, but he had observed them on numerous occasions the past two weeks or so. And it was always the same. Georgiana had accomplished what scores of governesses and tutors had failed to do.

  Fairleigh was reading and writing and actually adding and subtracting figures.

  It boggled the mind.

  And warmed the depths of his soul.

  One of his deepest fears was that his daughter possessed her mother’s unstable character and would never endeavor to improve her mind. Would never care a whit for anything other than life’s little amusements—fashion, cards, and gossip.

  And here Fairleigh was, writing letters. He pursed his lips in amusement. Letters to a sheep farmer, if he had to hazard a guess. But they were letters nonetheless.

  He gazed at Georgiana’s dark head, a flood of warmth invading his breast. Her hair was so soft to the touch, he remembered, and had gleamed in the moonlight. His body tightened in remembrance, and as if on cue he wondered if she nurtured his child within her. It was a thought that reoccurred as frequently as the chiming of the clock in the front salon. He longed to protect her, comfort her, tell her not to worry, that he would always watch over her. And yet he knew she was the only woman who didn’t need or want protection or comfort. He shook his head.

  Her quill stilled and she looked up.

  Large, dark eyes met his, and his breath caught in his throat. She was so dearly familiar to him. He realized he had known her longer than any other person in his life. He had at least known and seen goodness—only goodness—in one person. And she loved him in a fashion—although not as she had loved Anthony. He was forced to admit that he had unconsciously known she had cared deeply for his person for a very long time. He had been lucky, after all.

  And the evil he had endured became less important.

  He cleared his throat. “It’s my understanding you two ladies have been slaving in here for nearly two hours.”

  Fairleigh jumped up and ran to him. “Papa! Oh, this is ever so much more fun than those horrid primers old Beetleface used to make me study.”

  “I daresay it must be. Just how many sheep have you decided to add to our flock?”

  “Silly. Georgiana and I discuss everything with Mr. Brown before we decide on numbers. But did you know a Southdown’s wool is softer than the new Leicester’s? But if you breed the two together—”

  “So you’re discussi
ng breeding now?” He shook his head.

  “Only a little,” Georgiana said quickly. “A very little.”

  “Hmmm. Well, perhaps it’s a good thing I stuck my head in here.”

  “Why did you come, Papa? Georgiana and I do not like to be interrupted during our afternoon duties.” Fairleigh had an imperious look on her face. “At least that’s what Georgiana always says.”

  “Then I suppose I shall just have to go out in the garden and eat worms all by myself,” he replied.

  A huge smile broke out on Georgiana’s face. A smile he hadn’t seen in a long while.

  “I see.” Georgiana winked at his daughter, “That was always our secret signal around adults to suggest we go fishing.”

  “Oh, well then, I want to go and eat worms too,” Fairleigh said. “But I won’t really have to eat them, will I? I mean, I will if you do, but I don’t think I’ll like it.”

  Quinn laughed and picked up his daughter in his arms and kissed the end of her nose. “Only the one who catches the least fish is forced to eat the worm.”

  She shrieked with laughter. “It won’t be me, Papa, or Georgiana.” She bolted from his arms and ran to the door. “I’m going to get a head start.”

  He looked at Georgiana after Fairleigh’s footsteps echoed from the hallway. He bowed and extended his arm. “You will join us, won’t you?”

  She shrugged helplessly and looked over her shoulder at an unfinished letter. “Perhaps I’d better not. These letters should go out today.”

  “When did you decide to take the weight of the world on your shoulders?”

  She laughed. “Funny. I could ask you the same thing.”

  “And probably receive the same answer. Come, Georgiana, you did suggest diversions and adventure on occasion, did you not? And”—he leaned in and said with a conspiratorial air—“Gwendolyn was last seen headed this way. The lady, not the sow.”

  Georgiana smiled ruefully. “You know how to work on me too well.”

  “No. I just don’t want to eat the worm, since my daughter’s had too great a head start now.”

  “Oh,” she replied, quickly stepping in front of him toward the door. “Don’t you dare suggest I won’t catch more fish than you.”

  It proved too hot for fishing. The tiny gnats were biting instead of the fish. And to add insult to injury, Oscar the otter made an appearance and seemed to snicker at them, his whiskers twitching, as he wiggled to the edge of the dark, cool depths of the pool and dove in expertly.

  Fairleigh looked at her father expectantly and slapped at an insect on her red neck.

  “Papa?”

  “Yes, my love?”

  “I have a proposition.”

  “Hmmm…”

  “I might be willing to admit defeat and eat the tiniest bit of a worm if you’ll allow me to go wading.” She rushed on. “Not swimming, mind you, just walking near the reeds. It’s really very shallow there. Oh Papa, it’s so hot,” she wailed.

  He felt Georgiana’s eyes on him. “And what would you be willing to do if I allowed you to go swimming instead of just wading?” He looked away from his daughter to encounter Georgiana’s expression.

  She was smiling at him.

  “Oh, Papa, I’d do anything!” Fairleigh shouted with excitement, and bent to the task of untying her small boots.

  “Be careful, dearest,” Georgiana warned. “It’s better to hear the conditions first. Your father sometimes had a way of offering people, me and his cousin Anthony especially, the very thing one most wants in exchange for things one doesn’t want to do at all.”

  His hands clenched instinctively at the mention of Anthony’s name and he frowned. What on earth did she mean? But there wasn’t time to think. Fairleigh was already down to her shift, having wiggled free from her dress, and was now tossing her stockings willy-nilly over her shoulder and racing to the edge.

  “Ohhh…the mud is cool and feels like heaven, Papa.”

  “Wait,” he admonished, while struggling with his boots. “Don’t go any deeper.” He shucked off everything except his breeches and shirt and then dove into the lake. He surfaced and shook water from his hair and eyes.

  A moment later, Georgiana came up for air nearby. She was laughing, and her coronet of braids had fallen, leaving her with childlike braids on each side of her head.

  Drops of water clung to her long eyelashes and her thick concealing shift floated all around her. She tilted her face toward the sun, and a huge, innocent smile spread across her golden face. She rose up on her toes and revealed her willowy torso. The linen of her shift molded itself to her uptilted breasts and her small rib cage down to her sleek waist and the smooth slope of her abdomen—such an astonishingly fragile feminine form for someone he knew to be so strong.

  My God. She looked almost exactly as she had used to look so long ago. Only now she was quite obviously no longer a girl. She had become a sleek, tantalizing woman.

  She turned more fully toward him and he was struck by her beauty.

  His groin constricted and he was grateful for the secrecy the water allowed, and the coolness of it.

  “Papa, look—I can float.” His daughter attempted the feat while Georgiana sunk back into the water and moved beside her. He waded over to them. His daughter’s eyes were open, her expression one of complete bliss. A slight curl of happiness lurked in her lips.

  And he vowed at that moment to make sure he put that look on his daughter’s face at least once a day from now on.

  “You can see the birds so much better from here,” Fairleigh said loudly, water clogging her ears. “Hold my hand, Papa. You too, Georgiana. I don’t need you to hold me up.”

  They each held one of her hands and looked upward. Gazing at the deepening color of the afternoon sky, he remembered how they had used to escape the great house and do this almost every day in summer. Only then it had been Georgiana between the two boys—until Anthony would drag Georgiana under the surface and tickle her until she resurfaced and shrieked with glee.

  His cousin had always been in love with her. Well, as in love as his reckless cousin could be.

  And Georgiana had always preferred Anthony. She’d always laughed a little louder and a little longer with Anthony than with him.

  Those childhood years were perhaps the only reason he hadn’t challenged his cousin in London a decade ago when he’d last seen Anthony and had been on the verge of killing him.

  At the time, it had appeared the only option to maintain his sanity.

  Chapter 14

  Georgiana looked disbelievingly at the tiny drops of blood on her shift and squeezed her eyes shut. She should be relieved, and yet she was not. She should be delirious. She was not. It was the shock, she supposed.

  She had been late. But then that always happened when she was overly worried. So it should have been expected, but it had not been. She had convinced herself she was with child, and had taken a perverse amount of joy in it. If she couldn’t have Quinn’s love, then at least she would have a part of him, tangible proof that at one single moment in time they had shared passion. She’d tried to keep at bay her deep longing for a child, something she had not dreamed of ever having after Anthony died.

  Well. It was not to be.

  She should be glad.

  But she was not.

  And now she would be forced to find a moment of privacy with him and suffer the extraordinary embarrassment of having to inform him that their actions had not produced a child, thereby reminding him of what had happened between them.

  Something he clearly regretted, given the amount of time he spent escorting her beautiful friend Grace Sheffey and the other widows about the countryside to various amusements.

  She closed her eyes and hoped his relief would not be too obvious when she told him.

  Well, those who dabbled with letting loose their tightly bound secrets and long-held desires always suffered the consequences.

  She avoided him most of the day, until her emotions were as
taut as a child’s when facing the tooth drawer.

  Quinn had taken all the widows, or Beauties, as he still insisted on calling them, on a long tour of ancient druid burial grounds. Georgiana had declined, pleading some excuse, and then she had had to suffer watching her friends return two by two, each pair laughing as they arrived, explaining their plan of leaving Quinn and Grace alone together.

  Ata was the last to return, with Rosamunde, who glanced at Georgiana with a knowing expression while Ata prattled on about her plan.

  Rosamunde surreptitously stole to Georgiana’s side while Ata dismounted and gave an enormous apple to her mount. “If Grace ends up hurt again, I won’t forgive you,” Rosamunde whispered to her.

  “I’m certain we already had this conversation,” Georgiana replied quietly.

  Rosamunde pulled her to the other side of her own horse. “When are you going to force the issue?”

  “I did. I told him.”

  “What? Wait a minute, I have to hear this. Ata,” Rosamunde called out to her grandmother-in-law, “I swear I can hear Caro and Henry crying up at the great house. Would you be so good as to see to them for a moment while I take a peek at these two horses Georgiana is so intent on purchasing?” Rosamunde winked at her.

  “Take your time, Rosamunde,” Ata replied out of sight, not waiting for another invitation to spend time with her beloved great-grandchildren. “Oh, I do so love babies. I hope Grace and Quinn have a child by next summer. It would be so delightful for Caro and Henry to have a friend. And just think, maybe in another two decades we could plan a wedding between the two families…finally.”

  Rosamunde rolled her eyes. And Georgiana couldn’t help but laugh in the agony of the moment.

  Ata left a moment later, humming a wedding march.

  “You know you can’t listen to Ata, dearest,” Rosamunde said. “I love her and I would never let anyone say a word against her, but she is wrong in this case. You know it and I know it. And if no one else can see it, then they are blind fools. Now what on earth did you tell him?”

  “What you never had the courage to tell Luc last year.”