“Let me put you at ease,” Georgiana went on, “so you don’t need to follow me home. Mr. Mallet has agreed to serve as my tutor. As you so obviously know, I sought training at his home while he was ill. Now that his health has improved, he attends me at Helsington. Is that what you wished to know?”
Georgiana swelled to her full height, chin up and eyes blazing. A more intelligent woman might have cowered; Molly Harding did not.
“Oh my, dear, I didn’t need to know anything. There are those, well, that intrude and gossip, but I always say what a man does in his home is his own business. Unless, of course, he wishes to be–but it doesn’t matter. No offense intended.”
“No offense taken, Mrs. Harding. I’ll be on my way now. Enjoy the cinquefoil. Good day to you.”
There was always talk, and it shouldn’t have surprised her. She could simply ignore it. The implication for Andrew, however, distressed her. What men did in their own homes was, as Molly said, their own business. “Unless, of course, he wishes to be … What? Respected as a scholar?
When Andrew so sarcastically implied that his reputation would suffer when she demanded his help, she hadn’t paid attention. She never considered that he might have meant his standing in the scholarly community. Dunning said he had work from Selby. Now she wondered what had become of that?
Georgiana stopped abruptly, struck dumb. In truth, she hadn’t considered the cost to him at all. When they made their bargain, her only concern had been her own need. She felt like an idiot.
She brushed aside low hanging branches and ducked under them when the path took her closer to the river. Would the wagging tongues of Cambridge find her presence in his house to be the biggest scandal, or, if they knew about it, the nature of the work? Before she began to study with Andrew, her work garnered mostly derision, not outrage. If he wished the respect of the University community, he had good reason to avoid involvement with her. That derision would make any pretense of scholarship impossible.
She walked faster now. John footman ran to keep up. Why should my work, my private business, outrage anyone? Georgiana gave a rock on the path a very unladylike kick. It flew into the river with a satisfying splash. She picked up another and threw it. It felt good to make an impact on the river.
John Footman stood an appropriate distance away and tried to seem invisible. It would, of course, be reported in the servant’s quarters that Lady Georgiana acted peculiar.
My life is exactly like that, she thought. When it is invisible, it is greeted with silence and quietly ignored. When I make an impact on the river of life, it is greeted with shock, horror, and outrage. She picked up a larger rock and flung it as hard as she could. The splash was truly splendid.
“See me? I am here. I am alive!” She shouted into the wind. That would most definitely be talked about below stairs.
Determination gave force to her steps. I will do this work, she thought, turning back across the fields toward home. Determination also gave vitality to her thoughts. There is no one else who cares to draw together the women of ancient Greece. I care, and I will do it. She kicked at a tall clump of grass. “I will do it!” she shouted.
Deep inside, a quieter voice warned, “With Andrew’s help.”
Georgiana tripped and almost tumbled; a hand immediately appeared at her elbow. The ever-present servant.
She felt like she could do anything with Andrew’s help, but she didn’t know how long he would continue. Fear that he might quit became a canker inside her; she needed him. She needed his access to the libraries and resources of Cambridge. She needed the workings of his mind. She needed his confidence in her in order to do her work.
Georgiana’s face turned upward, struck with the realization that she needed him like she needed sun and air. The realization buffeted her like the winds. She thought perhaps her questions should be “How long will he continue to help? How long before he disappears from my life again?” When he left–and he would leave eventually–she would sink back into the half-life she had before he returned to Cambridge.
Helsington lay ahead of her, burnished yellow by the sun that dropped low in the sky, flashing light off the empty windows. Without Andrew, it would gape like an open tomb. Today she had work, and in the work, there was life. Tomorrow he would come. She wouldn’t look beyond that.
Andrew enjoyed neither sunshine nor visitors that day. He responded to a command of a different sort. He had work to do.
Andrew had at long last translated a slight passage from Proclus, the obscure Neoplatonist philosopher whose work Geoff Dunning brought him weeks before on behalf of Wallace Selby. He worked on it at odd moments during the previous week. It had been trivial, two evenings work at best, but he sent it off with an apology for lateness to Selby.
The great man himself had been too busy to join Andrew and Dunning for coffee or, more likely, too self-important. Selby had come to dinner only once, and Andrew suspected the opportunity to inspect his father’s exquisite library had been the primary attraction that night. When Andrew became ill, invitations ceased.
Selby’s response to Andrew’s work on Proclus, as welcome as it was poorly timed, came while Andrew introduced Georgiana to Great Helicon and choral poetry. It sat unopened by his door. Grateful for whatever wisdom led him to cut his hours at Helsington short, Andrew replied immediately.
Selby approved of the work he sent. There would be more work to fill his evenings, work his father would have admired. Proclus loomed ahead of him, a portent of future success. He wished that he looked forward to Proclus and the Neoplatonists with as much joy as he did Korinna and her sisters.
“The Korinna translations are complete, or as much so as we can make them. Is it your intention to publish merely the poems and poem fragments or a commentary as well?”
Georgiana froze; terror forestalled coherent thought. Publishing had never entered her mind. It seemed far beyond the realm of possibility.
“Lady Georgiana, did you hear me?” The gentle voice came from far away. His dark eyes, when she finally looked at them, were wrinkled with concern, the tiny lines in the corners of his eyes deep.
“Yes, yes, of course. I just don’t know the answer. I hadn’t thought of it.”
“You hadn’t considered commentary? Who better to do so? It is customary to explain your word choices and your interpretation of a classical work. Your notes are extensive, and it would be short work to reformat them into commentary. The additions and expansions you’ve made—”
“We’ve made. The newer additions were your doing. Commentary is the least of it. I hadn’t considered publishing.”
“Why ever not? What on earth did you plan to do? Pack it away and take it out once a year to read in splendid solitude? You have an obligation as a scholar, my lady, to expand knowledge.”
Her brows rose in amused skepticism. “I suppose you would like me to commandeer a lecture hall at Trinity to present my findings?”
“Yes. No.” He laughed. “I suppose not. But they should be published. The Grande Dames may not let their daughters read them, but their sons would benefit from seeing what women can do and have done. If you hide them away again, you would be condoning the sin of neglect. Your work–”
“Our work,” she said.
“Your work,” he insisted.
“I couldn’t have gotten this far without help,” she returned. “Each fragment of text came into sharp focus when you added the background and setting. Until then, they lay slack. Any commentary would be as much yours as mine.”
Fire lit his eyes, but she didn’t flinch. “Stubborn woman,” he said. “Do you suggest that I publish a commentary without you? That is absurd.”
“No, I think not.” He is the stubborn one. “It took ten years of research to find the works we have, and to do the preliminary translations. I won’t give that up.”
She saw approval in his eyes and felt her confidence build, but niggling fears ate at her. Anxieties crowded up inside. “Publish? Where? How? Wh
o would read it?”
“It could be done anonymously. Your family doesn’t have to associate you with it.”
He had read her thoughts correctly. It always came back to her family. A sudden vision of the Duke and Duchess of Sudbury’s reaction to such a book shook her, and she shuddered. It might be possible, however. Publishers often attributed popular works to “A Lady” who remained nameless.
“Critics will savage it.” She harbored no doubt on that point.
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “Will it surprise you to find that some elements of the scholarly community are fools?”
“No.” She smiled. “Your education gives you insights I will never have, and you have access to libraries locked to me. Even if I decide to publish, I couldn’t do it without you. It’s dishonest to pretend our relationship is one of tutor and student. It would be as much your work as mine.”
He looked dubious, but she thought he looked pleased—and perhaps even touched. “They are your ideas and your insights. It is your work, Georgiana. Yours! You don’t need to share it.”
“I already have.” She spoke around a lump in her throat when he used her given name. “And it has brought me great joy. It might be possible to prepare a manuscript for publication if I had a collaborator. As to whether a publisher can be found, I remain doubtful.” Her eyes sought affirmation.
He stood silently. Lending his name to this work might not enhance his own reputation. Surely he is trying to find the words to let me down gently. “You needn’t lend your name if you do not wish,” she said. “Or you too could be anonymous.”
“Collaborator.” He said firmly. “I like the ring of that.”
Georgiana’s heart caught in her throat. She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
He didn’t appear to notice; his carefully schooled voice remained proper. “Are we to consider all debts paid and begin a new relationship, my lady?” His emphasis on my lady was firm, and his meaning clear.
Oh Andrew, very well. I will keep my distance.
“Yes, collaborators,” she agreed and extended her hand to shake his. “Do we need a written contract?”
“I don’t think so.” He held her hand in his firm grip. “Partners it is.”
She left her hand in the warmth of his grasp and her gaze in the warmer grip of his dark eyes. “So, tell me, Mr. Mallet, how does one prepare a manuscript for publication?”
Andrew’s hand, poised over a sheet of clean vellum, shook. Insanity drove him to agree to any working relationship with Georgie. Madness was the only explanation. He wasn’t sure how he would manage this partnership when he could no longer hide behind the safety of a teacher’s authority and the ground rules he had set. Once again, Lady Georgiana Hayden, haughty, self-centered daughter of nobility, had looked at him with vulnerable eyes, and all his resistance fled.
His voice shook also, and that worried him. His new business partner needed a confident businessman, not a randy schoolboy. “How did you plan to organize the work?” He could see from her face, knotted in dismay, that she hadn’t considered it at all. She never planned to make her work public. How could she be so foolish about something she held so dear?
“Take a step back, my lady. Think of the entire body of your work. How do you organize it in your mind? How did you organize it in your boxes?”
“Each writer has her own voice.” She paced behind his chair. “Each has her own things to say, would we but listen.”
That sentence expressed her passion in a nutshell: the attraction to women no one really listened to, women with voices and ideas. “Excellent! Each chapter can be one individual.”
“Some of them will be pathetically small.”
“That can have a meaning also. There are some about whom we know almost nothing. We can let each section seek its own size.” He turned to find her standing over him; his heart beat erratically at her impish expression. “What? Why are you smiling so?”
“We. You said ‘we.’” Her generosity struck him like a cannon shot. Rush of desire at the sight of her radiant face would have buckled his knees had he been standing. He was grateful he wasn’t.
He reached up to draw her closer, unable to stop himself, and she bent her head to his hand. Lilac scent flooded over his defenses when she lowered her joyous face to his. He brushed her lips with his once and then again with feathery touch.
She drew away slightly. Her eyes, wary but welcoming, never left his. He watched for the slightest sign of rejection or denial while he rose from the chair and moved his head with exquisite slowness to touch her mouth again. She closed the distance and brushed his lips with hers. Her innocent response was all the permission he needed.
He slid one hand up her neck to cup her chin, tipping it toward himself. His thumb brushed her cheek, and his long fingers feathered the edges of her hair. He used the other hand to pull her close until their entire bodies touched, until he could feel her breasts pressed against him and the curve of her hip under his hand. It was as he remembered it, as he longed for it. His mouth moved over hers softly at first and then became more demanding. Her immediate surrender held no reservation. He deepened the kiss; she opened to him completely.
It rapidly became impossible to stand. With one hand behind him to find the chair, he guided them, still embracing, down to it. He pulled her into his lap and leaned her soft curves into the crook of one arm so that he could bring his mouth down on hers. At the same time, he caressed her with hands no longer tentative or gentle but questing and demanding.
Her hand, warm on his neck, pulled him closer and sent shivers through him. The small, cautious voice floating inside him drowned in a sea of sensation. He trailed kisses down her face to the base of her neck. Soft noises from her throat assured him that he gave her pleasure, and the power of it inflamed him even further. He could feel her kisses on his hair and forehead when his searching hand found her breast and she moaned deeply.
“Georgie,” he whispered against her mouth, kissing her again, “Georgie.”
He knew, of course, where this would lead, but in that moment he didn’t care. He could take her there in the workroom, and neither of them would be able or willing to call a halt. The scent of her, the feel, and the soft moaning noises drove him on.
A muffled voice penetrated the fog of desire. Andrew raised his head and gulped for air. Chambers announced tea, scratching on the closed door as servants were expected to do. Andrew stilled his trembling hands. He set Georgiana upright and saw her blink in confusion. He began to set her clothing right, all the while watching her deep uneven breaths and her struggle for control.
The scratching sound was repeated.
“Tea is served, Your Ladyship.” Georgiana heard it that time. She pushed Andrew’s hands away and summoned the voice of command enough to say, “One moment, Chambers. Let us set our work aside.”
Her swift kiss stunned Andrew. She pulled back mere inches and shut her lips tightly to suppress a laugh. He couldn’t pull his eyes away from those luscious lips. He watched in fascination as she rose and floated across to the worktable. Her aristocratic instincts reasserted perfect control. She left him to correct his own appearance as best he could and intoned with authority, “You may enter.”
She amazed, bedazzled, and confused him. One moment she was panting in his lap; the next she was the picture of aristocratic self-possession. He envied her. He possessed neither self nor control. The feel of her warm and responsive body against his intoxicated him and put rational behavior out of reach.
Andrew did the only thing he remained capable of. He departed as quickly as decently possible. He wondered how long the redoubtable Chambers, who was used to Andrew leaving before tea, listened at the door before he spoke up. Idiot! Georgiana deserves better than that.
A twinge of discomfort twisted through Andrew’s hip when he climbed the steps to his chaise. Months before it would have been blinding agony. Now, absorbed in what had happened in Georgiana’s workroom, he barely noticed it.<
br />
What in God’s name have I done? A bitter laugh escaped him. What happened was obvious to him. He had allowed erotic longing to overwhelm good sense. Unfortunately, it was obvious to the servants too.
Andrew urged his team to pick up speed and whipped them around Helsington’s lane out onto the highway in a shower of pebbles and dirt. Damned fool. You’re going to destroy the work.
The thought struck like a fist in his gut. He realized with a shock that he had come to treasure the work as much as she did. Their sparring and the bursts of creativity that exploded from it gave joy to his days. It gave him a reason to live. Now, he was letting schoolboy lust threaten that very partnership.
Lust outweighs the work by far, he thought. It gets worse every day. No good would come of it, he was certain, and yet another thought, one buried deep behind the black cloud of his confusion and frustration, danced into the light: Georgiana struggles with the same problem.
He couldn’t stop the smile that began with a slow twitch in the corner of his mouth and spread until it transformed his mangled face. The coming weeks may be riddled with traps, but they would be interesting. She asked for knowledge, and knowledge she would get.
Chapter 15
Bufflehead! What do you think happened?
Georgiana cringed at the mockery of the voices in her head. She needed time to sort out what had happened the day before. Andrew kissed me–or perhaps I kissed him. No! We collaborated. It had been an impossibly pleasurable collaboration. There was nothing to it, really, she tried to tell herself, but the mere recollection flooded her with liquid heat.
This wouldn’t do. She needed time–time for perspective and time for control. She didn’t have it. A message, one she neither hoped for nor anticipated, lay on her worktable.
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