Forever and a Day
Page 18
The man pointed at him with a gloved finger. “I am merely laying out your own cards, boy. So don’t you be tossing pawns at me. Mrs. Milton? This way, if you please.”
Setting both gloved hands behind his back, the duke stalked down the length of the corridor. He disappeared down one of the adjoining corridors.
Georgia, who’d been staring at the duke in what appeared to be genuine fascination, also set her hands behind her back. Swiveling on her heel, she strode after the duke, her skirts rustling about her extended long strides in a flurry as she replicated the man’s gait right down to the bloody stagger.
What was she doing? “Georgia?” he called out.
She swung back toward him, those hands still set behind her back. “Yes?”
“I’ve never seen you walk like that. What the hell are you doing?”
She set both hands on her hips. “Observation is key, my dear Robinson. One must first learn what not to do before one can learn what they ought to do.”
His brows came together. “That makes no sense whatsoever. Adhere to only what you should be doing.”
“Oh, you’re no fun at all.” She eyed him and lowered her voice. “Do all men of status walk around like that?”
He blinked. “Walk around like what?”
She thumbed toward the direction the duke had disappeared to and then staunchly set her chin and brow, marching in place with her chest thrust forth. “It’s like he’s marchin’ straight into the pissin’ mouth of hell but is damn proud of it.”
Oh, God. He was going to have to hire several hundred women to instruct her on how to bite that tongue, or twenty years would pass before his father would ever accept her.
He angled toward her. “I adore you to no end, Georgia, you know I do, but can you please not say piss, hell and damn, let alone use them all in one sentence? ’Tis incredibly important you mind your tongue or the man will never learn to see past it.”
She blinked, deflating her overexaggerated stance, and blurted, “I’m sorry. You’re right.” She nodded and eyed him, playing with the tips of her fingers. “Robinson?”
He smiled, sensing she was unusually anxious. “Aside from taming crass words,” he offered, “just be yourself. There is no need for you to panic. I’m not going anywhere.”
“It isn’t that.”
“What, then?”
She hesitated, then lifted her gaze to his and whispered in a tone as if she feared the world would hear, “I love you. I really do. And I can’t believe you’re takin’ me with you.”
His breath hitched at hearing those words for the first time. “And I love you. I couldn’t imagine leaving you behind.”
They lingered in the silence of the corridor, intently and heatedly staring each other down. He could feel her eyes and her stance caressing the length of his body and soul and inwardly yearned to make that caress real.
Knowing he shouldn’t linger, lest he make a dash for her and make a mess of all that he hoped for her and them, he cleared his throat and tried to sound indifferent. “After you settle into your room, shall we meet over a late breakfast?” He playfully lowered his voice. “I have no doubt the food from here on out will be free.”
She giggled, her features brightening. “Free is a price I can always afford. Late breakfast, it is. I should go. Lest your father think me rude.” Turning, she swept down the remaining length of the corridor in her beige stitched gown, her corseted hips swaying with the unexpected grace of a woman in full possession of not only her body but the world.
He drew in a ragged breath, watching those hips. Now that was a walk he could watch all day.
She paused, as if sensing him watching her. Angling back toward him, she smiled and offered a sultry glance over her shoulder, which softened her features and those bright, mischievous green eyes. “I might as well say this whilst we’re still alone.” She lowered her voice. “My room or yours tonight? And what time? I’m feelin’ rather amorous, if you know what I mean.”
His pulse throttled against his ears just thinking about making her gasp beneath the movement of his body and his lust. He edged toward the safety of his room, whose door was still open, knowing they couldn’t and they shouldn’t and therefore they wouldn’t. Damn his insufferable need to make her respectable at the cost of his own sanity. “We can’t.”
Her brows came together. “Why not?”
Only Georgia would need an explanation. “I…” He hissed out a breath in disbelief as to what he was about to say. She needed her respectability for it was the only form of dignity he was going to be able to bestow upon her. Desire and lust held no place in this. Not at the cost of her worth. “We will reserve all intimacy for when we marry. ’Tis best.”
Her eyes widened. “But that may take months.”
Fighting his own angst, he nodded. “I know. I simply refuse to turn you into the mistress my father expects you to be. We already know what we want and need of each other. That isn’t what this discussion is about.”
He cleared his throat, trying to stay focused. “What we did over on Orange Street should have never happened. You deserve more than that and I intend to ensure it doesn’t happen again. I want others to respect you in the same way I do.”
She fully faced him with her hands on her hips. “You expect us to…wait until others approve of us?”
“Yes.”
“What if no one ever approves of us? What then?”
“They will.”
“No. They won’t. Not in the way you want it, at least. I know what I am, Robinson, and they know what I am, and I’ll never be able to change that even if I never bed you again.”
“Georgia, please.” He stared her down. “A relationship can be founded outside a bed, despite what you’ve been taught to believe over in the Five Points. We will survive this and I will prove you wrong.”
She gasped. “Don’t you dare lecture me about the foundations of a relationship! I know what a bed is for and what is shared in it. I also know what happens when nothin’ is shared in it.” She marched back toward him, fiercely holding his gaze as if he had best prepare himself for the worst. “I’m not settlin’ for anythin’ less than all of you. You hear?”
God save him. She was like a blazing fire and he the log. He shifted closer toward her. “This isn’t Orange Street anymore, Georgia. Your world as you know it and all of the rules have changed. Just as you did everything within your means to prevent me from getting dirked by pistol-toting bastards, I am now doing everything in my means to prevent you from getting dirked from moral-toting bastards.”
She glared up at him. “Whilst I agreed to put on a jig and a show for the world to clap along to, I didn’t agree to sell my soul to a man who’s goin’ to lecture me on the sins bestowed unto us by Adam and bloody Eve.” She pinned him with a self-righteous stare. “Last night, you asked about the dancin’ hole and what it meant to me.”
He blinked, half expecting her to say more, but when she didn’t, he prompted, “Yes?”
“I’m ready to tell you.” She thrust out a reprimanding hip. “Does respectable society allow for intimate conversations? Or is that banned, too?”
Her words stung, and the bewitching devil that she was, she knew it. He shifted toward her. “You can always share in an intimate conversation with me. That is far different than us sharing a bed.”
“They’re actually one of the same, you prude. Only one involves the body and the other involves the soul, linkin’ the two together and makin’ them one. And regardless of what you and respectable society may think,” she now shouted, pointing toward herself and then the floor, “I need both to call this a bloody relationship!”
Gritting his teeth, he snapped a finger to the open door of his room at the insult. “Given that you clearly wish to keep talking well above a rational tone, I demand you step into my room. Because I am not about to let you make a strumpet of yourself like this in public.”
Her lips parted. She slowly stepped back, searching h
is face. “You’re not my Robinson. I don’t know who you are.”
His gut twisted. “I am still the same man, Georgia. What you don’t seem to understand, however, is that men of my status do not go about bedding women outside of matrimony. Do I need to tell you what people will whisper about you? Do I?”
She kept on shaking her head from side to side, tears welling her eyes. “’Tis obvious you’ve got two opposin’ voices in your head. One belongin’ to my Robinson and the other to this—this…Tremayne. But you can’t be both, Robinson. You can’t. Because they’re not the same men. What Robinson wants for me is what I want for me. Love with every breath, laughter when everythin’ is dire, kindness above all else and never-endin’ honesty even when the world has none. As for what this Tremayne wants for me? Hell if I know what he wants!”
He threw his head back, praying he had the strength to survive against that fire that always seemed to sear him. “You and I were born unto two different circles, and though we may love each other, if this is going to work, you will have to be the one to bend to the rules of my world. Because if I bend, Georgia, it will send us straight into poverty, and I will not have that for you or my children. I will not. Not after living it.” He leveled his head. Glancing down the empty corridor to ensure their privacy, he met her gaze again. “I want and need to know all about the history of the dancing hole and ask that we retire into my room to ensure your privacy.”
“You think I care what the world thinks of me? They already passed judgment on me long ago.” She crossed her arms over her breasts and shot him a cool, disapproving look. “Once upon a time, there was a girl set to marry a dashin’ mason known as Garvin the divine. Every woman in the Five Points wanted to wear her apron, given he made almost four dollars a week. Though she wanted to bed this Garvin well before the weddin’, he wouldn’t let them, given he was a good Catholic. At the time, it irked her to wait, but she was glad for it, because she most certainly didn’t end up with the bastard.”
Roderick’s lips parted, knowing Georgia was actually talking about herself. Though he wanted to give way to a sweltering fury knowing that she had been involved with yet another man outside of her husband and John, he sensed this story was about to toss itself into a dark corner he had yet to understand. “So why didn’t you marry this Garvin? Why did you marry Raymond?”
She glanced off to the side and blinked rapidly. “The night before she and Garvin were to marry before a priest, they went out to celebrate and have themselves a bit of mince pie and whiskey over at the dancin’ hole. That’s when the ever kind, ever serious and ever respectable Mr. Raymond George Milton, whom she’d lived with since he’d nobly rescued her out of a coal bin, followed them there. He sat in the corner of that dancin’ hole all night, quietly watchin’ her and Garvin. He sat there and sat there without movin’ until the place was empty of but three and a fiddler.”
Roderick couldn’t breathe. “What did he do?”
She trailed her gaze up back to his, her features tightening but her face remaining strong. “What I hoped he would. He kneeled before the door and said, ‘Georgia, I know you are set to marry, and fool that I am, I waited until the last breath, but to live without you would only make me feel as old as I already am. Say you love me. Say you love me, because I love you.’ I was as moved and astounded as I was overjoyed. He’d never once breathed his affection to me, even though I had secretly yearned to be with him since I was fifteen. Raymond was kind, noble and educated and dashin’ in a way no man in the Five Points was and always treated me with far more respect than I’d ever given myself. It didn’t matter that he was thirty-five years older than me. I was madly in love with his mind and his soul and everythin’ he’d given me as a person. He taught me to always want more for myself.”
She shook her head, lowering her gaze. “And that’s when Garvin hit him. Raymond took the blow but never fought back, sayin’ he had to say it and I was so glad he did. Because I loved him. I’ve always loved him, but never once thought he’d want me in that way, given I was nothin’ but a rag he’d patched up. So I married Raymond the next morn despite bein’ spit at by Garvin’s family. You think I cared? ’Twas bliss I’d found, and though I tried lovin’ Raymond the best I knew how, he always shied away from all things physical. It wasn’t that he didn’t lust for me. He did, and he proved it when I forced him to, but he had this—this voice in his head that kept tellin’ him his age was a vice in our relationship. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t dig that voice out. He kept thinkin’ he was debauchin’ a young girl he’d managed to drag into his mess of a life, even though I was willin’ and a full eighteen and his wife.”
A lone tear trickled down the side of her cheek and a choked sob escaped her lips. “And then Raymond, damn him, died all but seven weeks later, on his own at three and fifty. His heart stopped. I cried over that bastard to no end knowin’ that I gave him everythin’—my heart, my body and soul—only to be left with nothin’. And I fear I’m goin’ down that path again with you. What if I give up everythin’ and only end up with nothin’? What then, Robinson? What then? My heart can only be patched up so many times.”
Roderick swallowed, unable to quell the choking angst writhing within him. He reached out a trembling hand and cupped her tear-streaked cheek, utterly and madly in love with everything she was. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t the first man to touch her or love her. What mattered was that she was giving him a chance to love her. “Georgia,” he rasped. “I would force my own damn heart to beat beyond its years to be with you. Everything I am doing, I am doing for you.”
She pushed his hand away, swiping away tears. “And there’s Robinson again, reachin’ out for me in a way I know Tremayne wouldn’t.” She sniffed and sniffed again, waving her hand about. “I’m done tryin’ to figure out who you really are. Just tell Robinson, if he’s listenin’, that I fear this Tremayne is goin’ to break my heart because he and I were born of two different worlds.” Her expression stilled and grew serious as she held his gaze. “Just tell me. And be honest. Will you really be able to love me with enough fire to make this last for the rest of our days? Even if your father should turn against us?”
“Georgia.” Feeling the temperature of his body warming his still-rain-dampened clothes, he edged back to ensure he didn’t grab for her lest he unravel and take her up against another wall. “I know this fire and this passion within me will outlast everything and everyone around us. Let there be no doubt in that.”
She shook her head, her lips pinching together as if she were trying to fight the last of any emotion she felt. “The words came out so beautifully, but instead of you steppin’ toward me, damn you, you stepped back.”
His throat tightened. “Georgia, I—”
“Don’t you ‘Georgia’ me. You asked me to never again kneel on broken glass and yet you’re makin’ me kneel even though I’m tryin’ to get up.” Her green eyes were no longer streaked with anguish but with a raging fire that threatened to burn him to ash. “I’m willin’ to play whatever role you want me to durin’ the day, but I’m not doin’ it when the curtain falls and the audience goes home at night. I need more than words to cradle against my heart whilst I sweat like a pig dancin’ in silk for you and the world.”
Still staring him down, she added, “I’m just not about to settle for a man who is goin’ to do the same thing to me that Raymond did. Makin’ me feel undesirable because of who and what I am. If I were you, Robinson, I’d be in my room and in my bed at nine tonight or we’re done. You hear? We’re done.” She pointed at him one last time as if he were responsible for all of their troubles, then swung away and marched down the length of the corridor where the duke quietly lingered with both of his hands in his coat pockets.
Roderick swiped his face in exasperation only to wince given his hand was still tender and raw.
“Your Grace,” Georgia demurely intoned to the duke in a form of artificial passing. “I’m sorry. It needed to be said.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.” She glanced back toward Roderick, set her chin and majestically swept out of sight as if she were the duchess and he the derelict.
Damn her.
The duke slowly made his way toward him. “Yardley.”
And so, yet another battle was set to begin. “Yes, yes. I know, I know. There is a problem.” Roderick gestured toward the open door of his room. “Can we take this inside?”
“Yes. I would prefer that.” The duke strode past and into the room beyond.
Roderick followed him in. Quickly shutting the door, he swung back, meeting those overly serious brown eyes. “How much of our conversation did you actually overhear?”
“Her voice carried itself down every single last corridor long before I made it back into sight. I heard everything. And I do mean everything.” The duke winced and adjusted his black morning coat.
Roderick groaned and bit back his frustration. “I ask that you forgive her. She is incredibly passionate.”
The duke reached out and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder, bringing the scent of cigars and port. He leaned in and lowered not only his gaze but his voice. “Yardley. You will never hear me say this again, for it is none of my business who you love, but you would be a bastard of the worst sort to destroy that poor woman by dragging her into your life. It sounds as if she has already endured more than enough. You shouldn’t ask her to endure more.”
Roderick glanced toward him in heart-pounding astonishment. The man had indeed heard everything and apparently had wanted to hear everything to have lingered about so damn long.
Violently shoving that large hand away from his shoulder, Roderick stepped back. “Setting aside that you had no right to willfully impose and listen in on what you knew to be a private conversation, I am not about to stand here and listen to you prattle on as to how I seek to destroy her. You are the one putting your name and wealth before what is most important to me—love.”