She went upstairs and quietly began packing her bags.
It was difficult to decide what she needed to take with her to her new life. She wasn't at all certain that her family would allow her back to remove anything she had left behind. They would be so furious that they might never speak to her again. That was her intent, but the notion was painful, nonetheless.
She consoled herself with the knowledge that it was for everyone's good. Peter deserved a supportive wife, and she would never be one. Her mother didn't need a daughter who would constantly disrupt her life and make her ill. Her father wanted a dutiful daughter and she wasn't. And Daniel... Well, what she was about to do wouldn't really hurt Daniel at all. Men only increased in reputation by this sort of nonsense.
She packed sensible dresses, or the closest she had to sensible dresses. She found good, solid walking shoes. In the midst of June it was difficult to think of winter, but she made sure she had a heavy winter cloak to carry with her.
She had only the one satchel, and she wasn't at all sure how she would carry it, so it didn't take long to fill. She would have to leave all her books and perfumes and ribbons behind. She had some pearls and a few gold and ivory pins that might be sold if necessary. She had her quarterly allowance in a purse she pinned to her corset. It wasn't much, but it would keep her until she figured out what she could do. She hoped Daniel would reconsider and hire her back, but without her camera, he wouldn't have much use for her. Perhaps she could learn to make those sketches she had seen in city papers.
If nothing else, she could sew. Her much-heralded education had taught her that. If the Harrisons could survive by sewing, so could she.
Georgina waited until the house was quiet before leaving her note and slipping out to the small stable and carriage house her father kept. She was an expert horsewoman, but her father kept only carriage horses. She couldn't have saddled them if she had tried. But the friendly pony of her childhood was still here, growing fat and sassy for lack of exercise. She had been able to saddle him since she was a child.
He whickered willingly when she fed him sugar she'd stolen from the kitchen. He wasn't quite as happy when she saddled him and tied her satchel on; he was even less so when Georgina mounted. But he was too old to learn new tricks, and he trotted out of the barn obediently when she applied her heels.
The thunder that had threatened earlier was directly overhead now, and the heat lightning had become something a little more forceful. Georgina jumped nervously as it flashed on the other side of the city and the thunder cracked and rolled. But the rain held off, and for that, she was grateful.
She didn't know if she would be able to keep the pony. Feeding it might be too expensive, but she had worn her heavy riding skirt anyway. She wouldn't have a carriage to get around in any longer, and she would need something practical to maneuver the streets. A riding skirt afforded a considerable amount of freedom.
And Georgina felt remarkably free as she rode through silent, empty streets. A cool wind blew in with the storm, and even the air wasn't hampered by the heavy humidity any longer. She felt light and unburdened and wildly happy for the moment. She would have no one but herself to account to now. It was exciting and scary and exhilarating beyond anything she had ever known.
Of course, the closer she came to her destination, the more she worried. She ought to be worrying about the dark alleys and furtive shadows and the rain that started to drop in great splattering plods in the dust and against her coat. But she was more concerned about the scene that would surely unfold once her father found her gone and read her note. It wasn't going to be pleasant, and she was involving an innocent man.
But she was quite certain Daniel could handle anything. He was an odd man with many facets who revealed little of himself, but from what little she had seen, he knew how to take care of himself. If she hadn't seen him bring down a man twice his size with his bare hands—or feet, as the case might be—and watched him terrify two bullies with a fancy display of gunfire, she might have thought twice about this. He didn't seem the sort to actively defend anyone or anything. With his mild manners and spectacles and limp, he seemed more the type to hide behind books than to lash out at evildoers. He certainly wasn't the kind of white knight a girl dreamed about. But he would do.
It wasn't as if she was asking him to look after her for the rest of her life. She was perfectly content to do that herself. She just needed someone to ruin her long enough to get away from Peter and her family. Someone like Daniel ought to be perfectly adequate for that, and his reputation wouldn't suffer any for it, either.
The rain hit as she turned down the street leading to Daniel's office. In just the time it took to hitch her horse to a post, Georgina was drenched. Under the influence of her newfound freedom, she didn't care. There was no one here to complain or scold if she wished to stay out and play in the rain. She could drip across the floors with impunity. It was her skirt and her life and no one had any right to interfere.
So she climbed the stairs, satchel in hand, with a smile on her face. There was no lantern, but the rapid flashes of lightning through the upper-story windows gave her an occasional glimpse of where she stood. She probably looked like a drowned rat, but she couldn't hold back her smile. Freedom was terribly sweet.
She pounded on Daniel's door with a grin, imagining his reaction when he found her here. He couldn't even put her out on a night like this. The heavens were obviously on her side. She hummed to herself at the muffled sounds from the other side.
A dog began a frantic bark that left Georgina momentarily bemused, but the door finally fell open, and she was looking up into bespectacled gray eyes beneath an unruly cowlick. He'd removed his fancy coat and waistcoat, but from the looks of his rumpled shirt, he hadn't been to bed yet. She could see the lantern gleaming on the table beside the armchair she had noticed earlier.
"May I come in?" she asked with all innocence, pulling her dripping hat from her equally wet curls.
Daniel blinked in disbelief. "Georgina?" He glanced over her shoulder as if expecting someone to appear to save him. When no one did, he stared at her again, shaking his head. "What are you doing here?"
"Dripping wet and getting cold. If you don't want me in, may I use one of these other rooms to change?"
That was probably the wisest idea, but just the suggestion of it made him throw open the door and move out of her way.
She marched in, dragging her satchel and trailing a line of water. The German shepherd took one look, yipped in happiness, and threw himself at her. Georgina dropped the satchel and grabbed the dog as it rested its massive feet on her shoulders, staggering slightly before she got her balance. She rubbed its head happily as he slurped at her face.
"I suppose if you'd been an armed robber, he would have rolled over at your feet and panted for you to rub his belly," Daniel said, disgruntled.
"He's gorgeous. Where did you get him? Papa never let me have a dog, but I love them."
"He's a..." Daniel halted as Georgina hugged the dog, set him down, and began to pull off her saturated frock coat. The linen shirt beneath was as wet as the rest of her—and much easier to see through. It molded to the perfect shape of breasts round as small melons.
Unaware of the cause of Daniel's sudden silence, Georgina held out the coat with despair. "Do you think it's ruined? I'll never be able to afford another. Do you think I should wring it out? Do you have a basin? I don't want to soak your floors."
"Georgina." Daniel coughed nervously. "I think perhaps you had better go in the other room and change. We'll worry about your wet things then."
Georgina gave him a swift look, but in the light of only one lamp, she could see little of his expression. The lamp light flickered off his spectacles, hiding his eyes entirely. "You don't mind? I had nowhere else to go."
"I don't imagine what I think has anything to do with anything at the moment," he said dryly. "It's raining out, I don't own a carriage, and you need to get dry. We'll take it one step
at a time."
She detected a note of censoriousness in his words, but that wasn't precisely anything new. He wasn't throwing her out, and she suspected she had the rain to thank for that. She smiled, lifted her satchel, and sailed into the room with the press machines.
She would more than likely give him heart failure before the night was over, but the idea of actually shaking up a man for a change was a pleasant one. They always had all the control. It was always their houses, their businesses, their carriages, their horses, their plans. Women had nothing to say about any of them.
But tonight, just for a little while, she would make the men in her life jump through her hoops. Then she would be free of them once and for all and could go on with her life.
She hadn't anticipated getting soaked in the process, but it worked into her plan very nicely. Daniel had evidently never considered her as a candidate for seduction. She would never have showed up here had she suspected he might. So if she hadn't arrived soaked, she would have had some difficulty in providing the correct atmosphere for the next scene of this play. Of course, there was every possibility that her father wouldn't show up until sometime tomorrow when she was fully dressed again and Daniel was gone to find someplace to dump her, but she meant to be fully prepared for any development.
"Do you have a towel?" she called as she pushed the heavy material of her skirt to the floor.
Georgina heard Daniel muttering in the far room before a hand came around the door, dangling a fresh towel. So he had someone to do his laundry. She was glad. She didn't like a sloppy man.
Covered by her shirt and petticoat, she stood behind the door and took the towel. She wouldn't risk giving Daniel any ideas, even if she meant to convict him of them. The hand abruptly disappeared, and the door closed once she held the linen.
Peeling off the rest of her soaked clothing, Georgina briskly dried herself. The girls she had gone to school with had never stripped to the skin in their lives, but they hadn't been the types to get themselves soaking wet either. Georgina liked the feel of being naked.
Her hair was a saturated tangle that kept dripping down her back. Unpinning it, she tried to brush out the worst of the water, then wrapped it in the damp towel. She didn't think Daniel would look at her as any more than a drowned rat, but she would have to make it look a lot worse than that. With her hair secured in the towel, Georgina rummaged through her satchel.
She drew out the filmy Parisian nightgown the girls had given her when she had left finishing school. They had told her it was for her wedding night, but she had never been able to imagine wearing it. The silk was so fine she could see right through it. There wasn't any lace or ruffles to disguise the bodice. There weren't even any sleeves to speak of, just little ropes of silk. It was the most scandalous, decadent thing she had ever seen, even worse than anything she had ever bought on her own. Even for a good cause, Georgina had doubts about wearing it.
But it was the only nightgown she had brought with her, and it would be much more effective than if she pulled on a cotton chemise with all its girlish frills. She just couldn't decide if she ought to wear her cotton drawers under it.
At home she would have worn her drawers beneath a linen nightgown and not thought anything of it, but something about the drape of the silk told her that this nightgown wasn't made for drawers—at least not the bulky ones like hers with cotton ties and elastic at the knees and accented with eyelet ruffles.
Georgina contemplated the problem long enough for Daniel to call out from the other room to ask if she was all right.
Taking a deep breath, she decided against drawers. She was, for all intents and purposes, naked. But she really didn't want Daniel to know that. Not just yet.
And so she called for a blanket and prayed.
Chapter 12
Daniel wasn't certain what he had expected when Georgina came out, but it certainly wasn't this. He could have sworn that the satchel she carried would have contained clothes, but he didn't see much evidence of them now.
Her hair was a silky wet mass falling over shoulders that were decidedly bare. Bare, as in cream and gold and softer than any human skin should be. He had difficulty even noticing that pale cream straps held up some nameless undergarment beneath the blanket.
He didn't dare look past her shoulders, but he was having a damned hard time keeping from it. With each step she took into the room, his gaze kept dropping to see if any part of that blanket moved. He was itching to know what she wore—or didn't wear—beneath it.
He finally summoned enough breath to exclaim, "Hell and damnation, woman, where are your clothes?"
Georgina's big blue eyes blinked and grew wide. "They're wet. I hung them on hooks in there. Was that wrong?"
She wasn't stupid. He knew she wasn't stupid. She was just making him crazy—and succeeding very well. "Didn't you have anything else to put on?" he asked in exasperation.
She appeared to give that some thought. "Well, I brought only the one chemise, the one I was wearing. I didn't see any reason to put on my dry gown and get it all wrinkled before morning. Which reminds me, is there somewhere I could hang it? It will be dreadfully crushed from being folded into that little bag."
Daniel ran his fingers through his hair and wondered if he had somehow misplaced his mind. He couldn't keep his thoughts off bare shoulders and golden curls. He knew he ought to be getting her out of here. There were probably ten dozen questions he ought to be demanding answers to, but he could only stand here and continue this senseless argument over proper attire.
"I would feel better if you would hang the gown on yourself. The rain could stop any minute, and then we'll have to take you home."
Georgina pulled the blanket up more securely and looked around, finally settling on his chair. She snuggled into the cushions and shifted around a little bit until she was comfortable. Daniel almost had apoplexy just watching and imagining what was beneath that blanket, snuggling into his one and only chair, the one he had been sitting in a few million years ago.
It wasn't until she was comfortable that she condescended to reply. "But there's nowhere for me to go. I've run away from home. My father wants me to marry Peter at the beginning of July, and you saw for yourself tonight that we're just not suited. My father will disown me if I refuse him, so I saved him the trouble. Do you think I could have my job back?"
Daniel had a broad imagination and a nagging sense of something not quite right. With suspicion he checked the street below, seeing only the pony munching on some weeds springing from the building's foundation. He contemplated checking the door again, but that seemed a little ridiculous. She was alone. With him.
"Georgina, have you lost your mind? You can't stay here; you'll be ruined. There must be somewhere else you can go until you settle this argument with your family. What if I take you to Mrs. Banks? She seems an intelligent sort."
Georgina smiled at his naivete. "Loyolla would have my father over in five minutes and the gossip around town in ten. Can you just imagine my appearing on her doorstep in the middle of the night with you at my side?" She shook her head, and a few wet curls left damp stains on the thin gown appearing beneath the slipping blanket.
Daniel caught himself holding his breath, waiting for the blanket to slip enough to reveal the shape of her breast. He was growing angry at this charade, but he wasn't certain if it was at himself or at her. He was twenty-eight years old, and while he wasn't exactly a lady's man like his adopted brother-in-law, he'd known his share of women. There was no excuse for this one to addle his mind like this. But there just seemed to be something about those baby blue eyes and winsome smiles that destroyed his reasoning.
He wished for a kitchen and a coffeepot. He found his bottle of whiskey and poured himself a shot. He didn't make the mistake of offering Georgina any. "Well, you can't stay here, so you'd better start thinking. If you can't come up with any better solution, I'll be obliged to take you home as soon as it stops raining."
Georgina sighed a
nd ran her hands through her hair in an attempt to remove the tangles. "I promise not to be a nuisance. I can sleep right here, and you can take the bed. In the morning I'll look for a job. You can't be making very much with that newspaper. I'll pay you rent and help with the expenses."
That left Daniel pretty well speechless for a few more minutes. Sleep? Here? It was hard enough to get past that possibility before contemplating her next suggestion. Job? Where in hell did she think she would find a job? And doing what? He doubted if she could boil water or make a bed. But the idea that she meant to help him pay his expenses left him flat out flabbergasted. No woman had ever offered to pay his expenses. Even Evie knew better than that.
At this prolonged silence Georgina looked up worriedly. "I'm not interfering with your plans, am I? I mean, if you're courting Janice or some other lady, I can see that I'd be a problem. Maybe I could take a room downstairs."
He wished that was a possibility. Shaking his head, Daniel took another sip of the whiskey. It wouldn't clear his head, but he couldn't be any more confused if he were drunk. "The downstairs rooms have rats and spiders. Besides, I couldn't leave you alone. There's all kind of riffraff wandering these streets. I'll have to take you home."
"I wish you'd quit saying that." Georgina picked up a book from the table. "Sense and Sensibility. I loved that book, but I thought it was just a woman's novel."
"Evie sent it to me, said it would make me understand a woman's mind." Finding towering over her uncomfortable, Daniel took a seat on his pallet and leaned against the wall. He could hear the rain pouring down in buckets even though the thunder was moving away.
Georgina adjusted her position so she could look at him. "Evie?"
"My sister." His adopted sister to be perfectly correct, but his brain wasn't in a position to explain the details.
Georgina nodded happily. "I wish I could have had a sister. Does she live with your parents?"
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