by Jane Ashford
“Of course you could.”
“I don’t know, Sebastian. Joanna used to give me poems to get by heart.” She made a face. “When she was still a governess. I never could manage it. I’m terrible at memorizing.”
“Well, you didn’t need to.” He looked down at the sheet in her hand. “I suppose you’ll be reading to me all our lives.” He couldn’t quite believe that she didn’t despise him for this, despite all she’d said. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“I shall enjoy it,” Georgina replied.
“You will?”
“Yes. It will be one of our secrets. Husbands and wives should have things only they share.” She gave him an enticing look from under her lashes. “Beyond the bedchamber, I mean.”
He’d been aware of her beside him—her arm occasionally brushing his, the bright beauty of her face, the outline of her body under the folds of her gown. He always was. But at this remark, those sensations intensified. Memories flooded him. He ached to hold her as he had on that bed of bracken, to feel the eagerness of her response to his touch.
“Sebastian?”
His voice thick with desire, he said, “Yes?”
“Tonight, after all this nonsense is over…”
He waited as she seemed to gather courage.
“Will you come to my room?” Georgina murmured.
His pulse leaped. The request was unexpected and wildly enflaming.
“I miss you,” she whispered. “I want you. We’re practically married already.”
“I consider you my wife. I don’t need words from a parson.”
“Then you will come?”
“I’ve never wanted anything more in my life. But if we were caught?” He wouldn’t expose her to embarrassment or censure.
“It will be late. If you’re found out of your room, you can say you were upset by the ritual.”
“Perhaps I shall be.”
“Then I can soothe you.”
The images this evoked nearly drove him mad. “If you’re sure.”
“Perfectly.”
He leaned forward and sealed their pact with a kiss. Georgina threw her arms around him, and in an instant they were standing, pressed together, clinging to each other. The kiss went on and on. Sebastian didn’t see how he could wait for the night. Every inch of him burned with need. How would he get through the hours until he could slake it?
He didn’t hear the footsteps on the stairs until Mr. Mitra was upon them. The Indian gentleman’s feet appeared at the top curve of the stone stair. Then his legs and the hem of his tunic. Nearly groaning aloud, Sebastian stepped back. Gently but inexorably, he pushed Georgina down into her chair.
Mitra’s hands and chest and head emerged. He paused to give them a smile and nod. “Pardon the interruption. I must go inside for a few moments.” He started down the next turn of the stair, his feet and legs disappearing once again.
The sound of yapping floated through the narrow windows.
Mitra hesitated, listening.
The sound grew louder. The dogs were clearly approaching.
Mitra sighed, head bowed, shoulders slumped. “I am most sorry to ask it, but would you consider walking with me, Lord Sebastian?”
“I’ll go,” said Georgina, rising. “Mama will be wondering where I am.”
Her cheeks were flushed, her green eyes bright. Looking at her, Sebastian didn’t care about the ritual any longer, or indeed about anything else. Let the evening be as strange as anyone could imagine. Let it be humiliating. Let the rest of them think him an oaf. Georgina didn’t, and that was all that mattered.
She loved him, he thought. She believed in him and respected him. Somehow that eased the years of worry about being discovered, the shame about his limitations. It was a revelation. He hadn’t understood until now how much could be changed by one extraordinary woman’s belief in him. “We’ll all go,” he said, elation bubbling in his tone. “The pugs shan’t trouble you today, Mr. Mitra.”
The older man accepted this buoyant assurance with raised brows. He said nothing, however, merely giving them one of his characteristic bows. And the three of them descended together into the late-afternoon sunshine.
As she returned the key ring to her mother’s desk on the way down to dinner a bit later, Georgina felt, without knowing it, precisely the same as her beloved. Whatever awkwardness the ritual might bring, it didn’t matter. She could anticipate what came after. And then after that. Her life lay before her, a delightful prospect. The only difficulty was impatience for it to begin.
Nineteen
It was an odd-looking group that convened in the room where this had all begun under the influence of Mr. Mitra’s drumming, Georgina thought. They’d looked even stranger around the dining table in the selection of red garments salvaged from the attic trunks. Her father wore knee breeches and a brocade coat with wide skirts, both a rich scarlet. Lace foamed around his neck and wrists, and he kept fidgeting with it in delight.
Joanna had improvised a flowing robe from what Georgina suspected had once been draperies. She looked like nothing ever seen before within the castle walls. Hilda’s deep-red gown had a tight bodice that came to a point at the waist and sweeping skirts that dragged on the floor all around her.
The Gresham brothers couldn’t be less than handsome, but they looked uncomfortable—Sebastian in a crimson tunic over dark trousers and Randolph in a ruby velvet cloak. They’d made Randolph wear the bulky thing through dinner. And then Hilda had said he looked a bit like a Roman cardinal in it. Randolph had been eyeing his reflection in one of the mirrors ever since, seemingly torn between fascination and concern. Edgar, the last-minute addition, had been allowed to get away with just a red waistcoat.
Georgina had been given what Hilda insisted was a red silk gown. It was markedly flimsy, however, and Georgina suspected it was a nightdress of another era. When her protests had gone unheeded, she’d put on two petticoats under it.
And there the resources of the castle had run out. Emma and Mama both wore gowns of their own. Emma’s was more pink than red, her mother’s a garnet shade that was deemed acceptable.
A vase of red roses graced the low table in the middle of the room, and branches of candles all around them once again lit the scene. Joanna had stationed the Greshams on one side of the center and Georgina’s family on the other, planting herself between. “We look like we’re standing at a church altar, as we will be in just a few days,” said Hilda.
“Not exactly,” said Randolph.
“Silence,” declared Joanna. “It is time to begin.” She raised her arms. There was a rustling noise as various people retrieved the pages Joanna had given them as they entered. She glared until it quieted. “We are here to mark the entrance of a new member into the Stane family,” she intoned then. “Though few recognize it in these modern days, this is a solemn occasion. A change to be noted and revered.”
She nodded to Georgina’s father. He stood very straight, looking vastly pleased with the scene as he referred to his sheet of paper.
“‘A bloodline is an ancient thing,’” he read. “‘It stretches back through centuries, and more. Further than we can know. It links us to a host of ancestors. A few we remember; many more we do not. But their legacy runs in our veins.’”
He was truly in his element, Georgina thought. The setting and the phrases had him almost wriggling with joy.
“‘Others have lived in this castle before me,’” he continued. “‘And will after. I am a link between past and future, a conduit for a valued heritage, one man passing along whatever wisdom I can muster to my children. And they to theirs. And so on down the years.’”
Georgina found that she was moved by the sentiments, and she could see that Edgar was as well. Whatever had happened to Joanna, her words exhibited surprising depths. Her former governess—former in more than one sen
se now, Georgina thought—turned to signal her mother.
“‘I came here a stranger,’” Mama began, with less relish than Papa, and yet a definite solemnity. “‘As many women had done before me. And I made this place my home, as others will do when I am gone. It should be acknowledged that this is no easy task. Not for the sake of bemoaning the difficulties, but to recognize the achievement.’”
Georgina watched her mother’s face change as she read the passage she was seeing for the first time. She too seemed startled and impressed by what Joanna had produced.
Joanna moved both her arms, like the conductor of a small eccentric orchestra.
Georgina’s parents read together, though not exactly in unison. “‘Our eldest is leaving us now to found her own household elsewhere. Though she changes her name, she will always be a Stane, and thus we do not let her go but rather welcome another into our line.’”
Joanna allowed a dramatic pause, then pointed at Sebastian.
He held the page just as the others had, as if he was reading from it. He spoke loudly and clearly. “‘I do not become a Stane. But from this day, I count them as my kin, extending the range of my relations. Families spread out over the land like a bright net, bonded and woven together.’”
Every word was familiar as he went on, but Georgina could never have repeated them as perfectly as he did. Watching him pretend to read, she felt proud and full of admiration and so very sad for the boy who’d had to struggle. Before he was done, she had to blink back tears.
As Sebastian came to the end of his part, a candle next to Randolph began to behave very oddly. The flame fluttered and started to hiss. In the next instant it shot up much taller than the others, burning a striking blue. With a wordless exclamation, Randolph backed away from it. Hilda moved closer, eyes bright with curiosity.
“It is a sign,” declared Joanna, making passes with her hands.
They all watched, fascinated, as the candle rapidly burned down under this much-stronger flame. Wax curled and slumped into fantastic shapes, almost seeming to writhe at one point.
“The powers acknowledge our efforts,” Joanna added.
“Astonishing,” Randolph muttered. He’d moved a bit behind Georgina; she wasn’t sure whether the others could hear him. “Imperfections in the wax?” he said. “Some sort of chemical contamination?” He moved further away from the group. “I must make a note,” he murmured. “So much in the world is still a mystery to us.”
“Come,” said Joanna. She beckoned. Georgina and Sebastian obediently stepped forward. Joanna took their hands and pressed them together. Briefly, it seemed she might hold them over the last vestiges of the hissing candle. Georgina braced herself to rebel and felt a similar tension in Sebastian’s fingers. In the end, however, Joanna merely extended them in that direction. “It is done,” she said with a complacent smile.
Georgina’s father broke into applause, which clearly did not please their mistress of ceremonies. Hilda joined in, then Edgar, then Emma. The peculiar candle flared up one last time and went out.
Randolph strode out of the room without looking back. Georgina’s mother lingered briefly, but soon followed him. Her father went over to shake Joanna’s hand. “That was splendid!” he exclaimed. “Better than a play, I swear.”
“It was not an entertainment,” she replied, pulling her hand away.
No, she would not be remaining here as a governess, Georgina thought, as Joanna began to pace the perimeter of the room, making more mysterious passes with her hands. It seemed unlikely that she would even want to stay to aid Papa’s studies. She was going to require greater scope for her newfound talents.
The rest of them moved out of the room and along the corridor. Hilda and Emma chattered to Edgar about the amazing behavior of the candle.
Georgina and Sebastian shared one lingering glance, hot with the promise of what was to follow later tonight, and then avoided each other’s eyes.
“Shall we have a brandy to celebrate?” suggested Papa.
He must be wrapped up in the ritual still, Georgina thought. This was hardly a company for brandies. “I’m quite fatigued,” she said. “I shall say good night.”
“I, too,” said Sebastian.
“What, so early?” the older man asked.
“This evening gave me much to, er, contemplate,” Sebastian said, earning Georgina’s wholehearted admiration for the quick-witted charm of his answer. How could he ever have imagined he was stupid?
“Oh.” Her father looked nonplussed, as if this should have occurred to him.
“I’ll join you, Papa,” said Edgar.
“I should like a brandy, too,” said Hilda. “As would Emma.”
“Oh…I…no,” stammered their middle sister.
Emma needed a bit of time away from Hilda, Georgina decided. She’d have to see about that when she was married. Warm anticipation ran through her. Only a few days to wait now, and tonight… She dared a glance at Sebastian. He was looking at her with a tender hunger that was unbearably exciting. Georgina caught her breath. “Good night,” she murmured, and headed for the stairs.
Behind her, her father was saying, “Not that special an occasion, Hilda. You may have some sherry, however.”
“Can’t have you befuddled with drink,” Edgar added.
Their sister’s giggle followed Georgina into the hall.
* * *
Sebastian paced his bedchamber, wondering how much longer he had to wait. Could bear to wait. He’d sent Sykes away, after satisfying the man’s curiosity about the evening’s events, saying that he wished to sit up for a while. His valet no doubt suspected that something was afoot—the man was too clever to miss such things—but he would say nothing.
They should have set a specific time, Sebastian thought, checking his pocket watch yet again. But how long would Hilda, for example, be allowed to stay up carousing? How long would her father and brother linger over their brandy? Would Miss Byngham wander the corridors reveling in her triumph? Would the pugs be restless, reflecting their mistress’s mood?
He could manage if he encountered one of them as he made his way through the castle. It wasn’t that. He could simply claim to be restless after his…investiture? He was just…eager. And what a poor little stump of a word that was to express all he felt, Sebastian thought. If he could say everything that swelled inside him right now, he’d be like one of those fellows in a play, striding about the stage waving their arms and declaiming for ten minutes at a pop.
The hands of his watch crawled around the face. More than once, he was certain it had stopped. Finally, he judged it was late enough. At least, he could wait no longer.
Sebastian stepped silently into the corridor outside his room. He listened. Silence. Moving with a hunter’s care, swiftly but silently, he walked along it, turned into another, and carefully counted doorways in a third. This one was Georgina’s.
Despite the risk of being seen, he stood still for a moment. What if she’d changed her mind? She might be regretting her invitation, with no way to tell him. Well, if she was, of course he’d go. No question. But he truly hoped she wasn’t. He took a deep breath and knocked softly.
The door opened at once. Georgina grasped his coat sleeve and pulled him inside, closing the door behind him. “I thought you’d never come,” she said, throwing her arms around him.
Sebastian pulled her close. She was wearing a thin, lacy nightdress, and he could feel the warmth of her skin under his hands. The heady scent of her perfume made his head spin. It would be all too easy to lose himself in wanting her. But he was still worried. “What if someone comes looking for you?”
“Why would they?”
“I don’t know. Bad luck. The perversity of fate.”
“If they do, you can hide in the wardrobe,” she whispered, a laugh in her voice.
“Not sure I could fit in
there,” he replied, smiling down at her.
“You’d have to crouch down among my gowns.”
“Like the hero in a bad farce?”
“Exactly.”
They laughed together. Then he kissed her, and jokes were forgotten as their hands and lips communicated more passionate sentiments.
When she strained against him, Sebastian thought he could feel the desire rising in her as strongly as it did in him. The idea filled him with a novel sort of pride. This extraordinary woman—as wise and beautiful as any he’d ever met—loved him. How had he managed that? Wasn’t it more than he deserved? But she’d said not.
All thought evaporated as she pushed his coat over his shoulders and down his arms to pool on the floor. Her hands came back up under his shirttails, caressing his back, slipping round to his chest and making him shiver with desire. Sebastian went into a flurry of pulling off boots and stockings and breeches. He reached the end of his clothing just as Georgina let her filmy gown fall to the carpet.
They stood facing each other, utterly revealed. Well matched, Sebastian thought, and then wondered at himself. She was perfect, and he was…desperately in love with her. Perhaps that was enough. He held out his hands. She took them. Their eyes held as he led her to the bed.
With a soft laugh, she let go and jumped onto the mattress. Lying on the snowy linen, she held out her arms. He went to them.
Their lovemaking was the most exciting and tender and satisfying he’d ever known. Every touch seemed to deepen the bond they were creating, like an echo back and forth, only stronger each time rather than weaker. He reveled in the soft sounds he drew from her and the way she clutched him as she reached the pinnacle. He couldn’t imagine anything finer than to be with her, in this way and all others, for the rest of his life.
Afterward, they lay side by side, hands clasped, letting their pulses slow. What he finally recognized as joy bubbled up in Sebastian. “I never knew how it would be,” he murmured. “I never even imagined it.”
