“I like it.”
“Do you?”
“Very much. It makes me feel all…civilized. Don’t you feel civilized?”
He lowered his head toward her and drawled, “Yes. Because we certainly weren’t earlier, up against that wall.”
Finding they had more room on the floor, for others were moving back and away to watch, Robinson smiled and moved her forward with a step, then back, then side to side from left to right. Images of well-dressed crowds and dancing couples whisking forward and back on a gleaming wood floor lighted by crystal chandeliers and rows of mirrors flashed within his thoughts. He was there with them.
He kept dancing with Georgia, trying to hold that image, not clear on where it came from. Her uncertain steps slowly matched his own until she completely submitted to the repeated movements of their bodies swaying together. She quietly watched him the whole while, her flushed features searching his face.
When the violin ceased, he brought them to a sweeping halt and blew out a slow breath as a wave of applause filled the air. Georgia lingered in his arms and tightened her hold on his shoulder, still holding his gaze, even as the violin and the bugle commenced a new, rowdier tune bringing everyone stomping back onto the dance floor around them.
She mouthed something up at him, her brows and face softening, and though he couldn’t hear it against the crowd and the music, he didn’t need to hear her words. He could see the enchantment in those eyes. It was a heartrending form of enchantment that promised him love.
Only…something was unraveling. Something made him feel as if that forever and a day he sought within Georgia’s arms was about to be snatched away. Though he tried to push all thoughts of it away, he was beginning to wonder how it was possible to dance with a woman without remembering how. It whispered of dark possibilities he had refused to consider out of his desperate need to be near Georgia.
What if he had danced like this, so intimately, so lovingly, with the faceless woman who lingered in the back of his mind? What if he had lied to Georgia when he had first met her on the street just so he could crawl into her bed and then toss her? Perhaps the man who had emerged and had claimed her so savagely against that wall was, in fact, him. A man who sought to only…fuck women.
He swallowed and released her, stepping outside of her arms. He turned and quickly veered off the planked floor, a headache pinching his skull. His chest tightened as he frantically pushed his way past people, unable to breathe.
He hurried toward the entrance that led up and out to the street, the light and the darkness blurring into each other. Jumping out onto the landing of the pavement, he threw back his head and stood there, dragging in rancid breaths of air that only seemed to make everything blur all the more.
“Robinson?” Georgia hurried up the stairs and out toward him. She grabbed his arm. “What is it?”
He winced against the headache that continued to penetrate his skull, wishing desperately he could figure out who he was and what he should do. “I’m overwhelmed, that is all. I need to rest.”
She hesitated and whispered, “This is my fault.”
“Don’t apologize.” He glanced away. “I didn’t want it to end. I’m just—”
“Hey, Brit,” John hollered out. “Hey.” John staggered past Georgia with an almost empty whiskey bottle. He gestured with the bottle. “You, uh, dropped something.”
Robinson paused and patted his trousers, wondering if the dollar he’d placed in his pocket was still there. It was. “What did I drop?”
Robinson swiveled toward him just as John belted out, “This!” and sent his other full fist swinging, pummeling it straight into Robinson’s stomach.
Pain exploded up into his clenching chest, momentarily arresting his ability to breathe against the burning ripple that froze his stomach muscles. He stumbled, his boots skidding against the pavement in an effort to regain his stance and his breath.
“John!” Georgia shoved John hard and off to the side, making the bottle slip out of his other hand. Glass shattered as whiskey sprayed everywhere, resounding like the crack of a pistol shot in the night.
Yanking out the flower from behind her ear, Georgia whipped it at John and jumped forward, smacking his face hard. “How could you? How could you ruin this night for me knowin’ I haven’t been here in four goddamn years? Whiskey-slathered or not, what are you tryin’ to prove?”
John leaned toward Georgia and grabbed her by the face. “I’m ready to…head west,” John choked out, momentarily swaying. “I wasn’t earlier, but I am now.”
Gritting his teeth, Robinson jumped toward John and knocked that hand away from her and shoved him with a full violent thrust. “Don’t touch her. Georgia, we should go before I lower myself to his level.”
“Right you are in that.” She grabbed Robinson’s arm and stalked them past John. “We ought to get you into bed, anyway. Come.”
“Yes, get him into your bed!” John called out mockingly after them, waving about a swiveling hand. “And while you’re at it, Georgia…let the Brit feck you up the arse in the name of Ireland like the goddamn traitorous slut that you are.”
Robinson twisted away from Georgia’s grasp and stalked back toward John, his pulse roaring in his ears. “You and that piss-drunk mouth are dead.”
Digging into his coat pocket, John unfolded a razor with a flick of two fingers. “Bleed, you son of a—” Angling forward, John stumbled and lunged toward Robinson with the outstretched blade.
Shit! Robinson skid aside just as the blade cut straight through the air of where he’d been. Knowing he had to stop that razor from lunging again, Robinson jumped back toward John and instinctively snatched hold of his outstretched wrist with both hands, rigidly freezing the blade and his arm so it wouldn’t move. Gnashing his teeth, he used his weight and every ounce of his strength to twist John’s wrist hard and off to the side until the tendons and the bone kept it from going any farther.
Despite John’s grunting resistance, he eventually stumbled forward and against him, the razor slipping from his fingers. It clattered to the pavement at their booted feet.
Robinson shoved him back hard and scrambled toward the pavement, snatching up the razor before John could get to it. Refolding it with a flick into its handle, he turned and whipped the blade far out into the street, where it echoed into the shadows far beyond and disappeared from sight. He pushed out breath after breath, his pulse still roaring in disbelief that the bastard had almost sliced him.
John stumbled back, catching himself against the gas lamppost beside them.
Robinson swung toward him and narrowed his gaze. “If you go near Georgia ever again, I’ll do more than fist you up. I’ll break your arm and detach it from your shoulder and toss it down the street so that your little razor has itself a friend. Are we plain in this?”
John pushed himself away from the lamppost, jerking toward him. “You deserve to be sliced. Sliced!” he roared through his slurring. “Do you think I didn’t see you…pounding and grunting into her? Do you think that I didn’t place myself against a wall and restrain myself from…killing you and her with the cleaver I grabbed from the kitchen?”
Robinson pointed at John, his chest heaving in disbelief. “How we choose to love each other is none of your goddamn business. You are pathetic and vile!”
With gnashed teeth, John lunged at him again, flopping a fist toward his head.
Robinson darted aside, his heart pounding. Jumping back and forward, he threw out a raging fist, his bandaged knuckles connecting up and into that nose with full force. A sharp pop sounded in the night air as his arm jumped back. His hand writhed at the contact, causing him to push out a seething breath and stagger back. Wincing, he shook his bandaged hand out. Gash aside, had he never hit a man before?
John covered his nose with a quick hand, stumbling and wheeling forward. He gasped as blood slowly seeped through his clamped fingers, glistening in the low glow of light from the lamppost.
Georgia
grabbed his arm. “Robinson, you’ve made your point. Now let’s go.”
He yanked his arm from hers. “I just have one last point to make, dearest.” Rounding John fast, Robinson took advantage of his hunched position by grabbing hold of his shoulders and shoving John straight down toward the pavement in full force. “That is for watching us, you prick.”
John stumbled to the ground, catching himself with his bloodied hands. Collapsing against the pavement, he rolled onto his back and choked up at him, “She deserves far more respect than you’ve been giving her…and you know it. You know it.”
Robinson’s chest knotted with regret. Though a vicious and dark part of him wanted to send a double fist crashing down into that sniveling face and into his gut, he knew John was right. Georgia did deserve far more than he’d been giving her. She deserved her field, she deserved her apple trees and, above all, she deserved a man who knew his own goddamn name.
Rounding John and the pavement, he gently took Georgia’s hand and kissed it, wordlessly leading her down the street, their movements echoing in the darkness. Whoever the hell he really was, and whatever the hell his reasons for originally engaging her on the street had been, he only hoped he was worthy of Georgia.
ROBINSON SAT QUIETLY IN Georgia’s dimly lit kitchen, fingering the scrap of linen she’d resoaked in whiskey and rewrapped around his hand. Though the wound no longer bled after the blow he’d delivered to John, it still stung. Christ help him if he really did have a wife. Or…children. Oh, God. What if he had children?
Georgia reappeared in the doorway of the low closet, her slim body outlined by the glow of the oil lamp she had lit beside her bed. “Robinson?”
He glanced up and drew in a breath, noting that she wasn’t wearing a corset or a chemise beneath that thin linen nightdress. Through the wavering light filtering from her room, he could see the outline of breasts and nipples, slim thighs and sinewy limbs peering out through the sheer, plain cotton that swept down to the floor.
He met her gaze, trying to pretend he hadn’t noticed her near-nudity, even though every muscle in his body roared with tension. “Yes?”
She leaned her braided hair against the frame of the door. “You were rather soft on John. Considerin’. I’m impressed.”
“He was drunk,” he muttered, lowering his gaze.
She sighed and tapped on the door. “Remove your clothes, save your undergarments, and get into bed. I’ll not let you sleep in that chair another night. The bed is small, but there’s more than enough room for the both of us.”
He shook his head. “The chair is fine.”
“Robinson—”
“No. The chair is more than fine.”
She bit her bottom lip before dragging it loose to say, “You need better rest than what you’ve been gettin’.”
“I’ll be fine.”
She leaned against the doorway, swinging out playfully toward him, those small breasts jiggling beneath the fabric of her nightdress. “We’ll keep it respectable and only sleep. I promise.”
He averted his gaze from those breasts he wanted to cup. The damned woman didn’t even realize that everything about her made him want to toss the last of whatever gentlemanly ways he had.
Robinson removed his boots and let them thud against the floorboards. “I am not getting into that bed with you, Georgia.”
Leaning far back against the chair, he crossed his arms, stretching the rough, yellowing linen of his shirt. “You and I should not touch again. Not until my mind is what it should be. My own.”
She tsked, her nose crinkling. “You really need sleep.”
He glared at her. “What if I’m married, Georgia? What if I have a house full of children and have yet to know it? What becomes of this or of them? By God. I have knowingly made a whore of not only you but myself.”
Her grin faded. “Is that what’s been weighin’ on you?”
“What sort of man goes pounding a woman into a wall, only to then almost break a man’s skull?”
She shook her braided head. Padding over to his chair, she leaned over and kissed his cheek soundly with soft, warm lips. The stinging scent of lye and starch still clung to her skin after their long day of laundry.
“Should you change your mind and wish to sleep on the straw mattress beside me,” she murmured, nuzzling her nose against his cheek, “I’ll not think any less of you. In my eyes, you will always be a gentleman worth knowin’ and havin’.”
Brushing her roughened fingers alongside the curve of his unshaven face, which caused his body and his jaw to tighten, she straightened and lingered. “Is there anythin’ else botherin’ you? Be honest.”
He glanced up at her. After a long moment, he asked, “What happened to you at the dancing hole? Why is it John knows and I don’t?”
She quietly stepped back, her features tightening. “I’d prefer to tell you another time. All right?”
“Do you not want me asking?”
“Nah. ’Tis all right to ask and I’m glad you did. I’m just not in the mood to cry.” She lowered her gaze, fingering the waistline of her nightdress. “Set aside whatever guilt you feel about tonight and know that waltz made me forget for one beautiful moment that I’d ever danced with any man but you. Somethin’ I never thought possible after my Raymond. So thank you for that. I needed to know that I could move on and leave him behind. And tonight, I got my answer.” She blinked rapidly, nodded and padded her way back into the closet. “Good night.”
“Good night, Georgia.” He swallowed, tilting his head back against the hard wood of the chair, and squeezed his eyes shut. Something kept chanting that time was ticking toward his departure, calling his mind out of the void and into a different reality.
Part Two
CHAPTER TEN
Scarcely knowing where he was, or what to believe,
for a few moments Verezzi stood bewildered,
and unable to arrange the confusion
of ideas which floated in his brain…
—Percy Bysshe Shelley,
Zastrozzi: A Romance (1810)
A RAPID POUNDING AGAINST the entrance door startled Robinson into bolting up out of the chair and onto his feet. He staggered, all of the muscles in his shoulders and thighs tightly knotted and sore from sleeping in an awkward position. He winced and then groaned, knowing he couldn’t keep living like this. He’d be dead by the end of the week.
Thunder boomed in the distance, making him pause as the floor, as well as the windows, rattled. The rushing of rain whipped at the glass when the thunder silenced, wind pelting it hard on an angle. It was morning already. Though not a very welcoming one given the menacing weather.
“Georgia?” John yelled out from the other side, rattling the door. “Georgia! Where’s Robinson? Get him out here, will you? And hurry it up!”
He was going to bury that bastard in an unmarked ditch outside of New York. Stalking toward the door, Robinson unbolted the locks one by one and swung the door open. “What?”
John’s hardened blue eyes met his gaze. His swollen nose and bruised face were sleeked with rain, his unshaven square jaw dripping wet like the rest of him. Drenched, frayed clothing clung to his lean body, and his almost whitened leather boots trailed not only puddles of water but clumps of mud onto Georgia’s doorstep.
Robinson stared him down. “I suggest you and the mud leave. Because I’m done with this. I’m done with you.”
“I’m not here to put up fists,” John muttered, shifting from boot and boot. “I’m sorry about the…razor. I was being stupid and had far more whiskey than I should have. Marshals were going door to door in the building looking for you. No one wanted to talk, thinking Georgia was in trouble, but as it turns out they’re here to help you. So I…I told them which door you were at.” He stepped back and thumbed toward the stairs behind him, where four large men in drenched uniforms were jogging up the stairs, their muddied boots echoing around them.
Robinson’s breath hitched as all four men in
full military regalia, with swords at their sides, filed onto the landing.
“This be the one,” John announced in a low tone, gesturing toward Robinson.
One of the uniformed men formally inclined his head toward Robinson and gestured toward the stairwell behind them with a gloved hand. “His Grace will be most pleased to know you are safe and is anxiously waiting for you to join him downstairs.”
Robinson stepped back. His Grace? He knew what that meant. It meant the man was a…duke. It meant that the man was of British nobility. Swallowing, he took another step back. How did he know that? “Who is this man to me?”
The mustached officer closest to him leaned in and offered, “The Duke of Wentworth is your father, my lord.”
A displaced sensation of familiarity clamped down on him.
Imageless memories pierced his thoughts, bringing a rush of not only an estate but servants.
“My lord?” the officer inquired from somewhere before him. “Are you unwell? Do you require assistance down the stairs?”
Robinson refocused his thoughts. “No. I am quite well, thank you. I just…” He held up a shaky hand, feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. “I’m trying to remember things, that is all.”
Another officer held out a sizable leather satchel that tinkered with what appeared to be coins. “This here is for Mrs. Milton. It bears gold coins amounting to an even hundred. His Grace asks that the moment these coins are delivered into her hands in honor of her generosity toward you, that you join him in the carriage outside.”
Oh, God. This couldn’t be happening. Everything was unraveling too fast for him to make sense of it all.
Robinson grabbed the weighty satchel. “Georgia?” He whipped back toward the direction of the closet just beyond the kitchen where she already stood in her calico gown, her hair neatly bundled and her feet bare. It appeared she had been awake for some time.
“My father is here,” he whispered in disbelief, holding up the weighty satchel. “He wanted you to have this.”
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