by Norma Darcy
“Let me go,” she said, her eyes searching his face, her breathing fast and shallow.
He did not heed her request but instead pulled her rather tighter against him. “Do you mean to convince me that you have not lain awake wondering what it would be like to let me make love to you?”
She braced a hand against his chest, her heart beating wildly as she stared up into his eyes. “You should not speak to me of such things, my lord. It is highly improper.”
“What nonsense. You are no milk-and-water miss to be shocked by a little plain speaking. I want you and I think that you want me too.”
“You flatter yourself,” she said, hearing the lack of conviction in her own voice. She was trembling from head to foot with fear and excitement and a heady longing that she thought had been exorcised from her heart years ago. Now, here with this man, his strong arms around her, protecting her, cherishing her, she yearned to throw all caution to the wind, lay her head upon his chest, and unburden herself to the one person she had grown to trust above all others. She could not deny her attraction to him. Oh, yes, he was handsome, but mere physical appeal was not likely to touch an experienced heart such as hers. It was a connection between them, this strange invisible thing that coursed from one body to another, binding them together, until they both knew what the other was thinking as if they were one mind.
A voice inside her head reminded her that he was a rake and of the attendant dangers of such a situation. His affairs with the opposite sex had been as notorious as they were numerous. How many other women had fallen for him in such a way? How many society beauties had he held like this, making each of them feel that she was the only woman in the world who mattered? What if he did not truly love her back? What if his feelings for her were nothing more than an infatuation because she was different? She’d had some knowledge of what an infatuation felt like at the hands of Hal Holkham. It had not been a pleasant experience. What if she gave in to the dearest wish of her heart and told him everything, laid herself bare before him—and what if he then could not forgive her?
“If I do not speak the truth, then why are you trembling?” he asked.
“I’m not.”
“You are. Georgie . . .” he whispered with the ghost of a laugh. “I think you have imagined yourself in my arms as I have imagined myself in yours. Deny it if you dare.”
His mouth swooped down to lock with hers in a kiss that shook her almost to her knees. His arm was an iron bar around her waist, holding her tightly to him as if he would never let her go. His other hand lay tenderly against the angle of her jaw, caressing the skin of her throat and the hollow above her collarbone. She felt as if she ought to breathe, but it was beyond her; he had robbed her of the ability to function in a normal manner. Her arms were trapped between them, her hands laid flat against the lapels of his coat, and of their own volition crept up around his neck. He showed no sign of relinquishing his hold upon her, nor of breaking the kiss; rather he took it deeper, tilting his head so that he could have greater access to all of her mouth.
As he felt her arms return his embrace, his tongue found and entwined with hers. He groaned at the pure pleasure of it. God, this was wonderful! She was kissing him back with a passion and intensity that staggered him. The rake in him wanted to carry her over to the bed and make her his. But he wouldn’t. She deserved better than that. She deserved the best of him, and he would not dishonor her in such a way.
He kissed her and went on kissing her even as someone entered the room behind them and gasped at the sight of Miss Blakelow locked in his lordship’s arms.
It was Miss Blakelow who came back to reality first and started to pull away.
“You cannot deny it, Georgie,” his lordship said, staring down at her with eyes the color of a stormy sky, his breathing slightly labored. “Marry your Joshua Peabody if you wish, but don’t expect me to watch you do it.”
He turned without another word, pausing only to retrieve his gloves from the bed.
Aunt Blakelow stared in shock from her niece to the earl and back again as he strode from the room. Their eyes met. Miss Blakelow saw the condemnation in her aunt’s face and turned away.
“Oh, Georgie . . .” said her aunt.
Miss Blakelow held out a hand as if to keep the disapproving words at bay, tears starting in her eyes. “Don’t,” she whispered.
“My dear girl, what can you have been thinking of?” she demanded.
Her niece shook her head, momentarily unable to speak for the choking sensation in her throat.
“He was in your bedchamber . . . I cannot . . . You must see the impropriety of such behavior. My dear Georgie, you of all people should understand the very great danger of—”
“Please, Aunt. Don’t,” begged Miss Blakelow, steadying herself with her hands upon the dressing table. She touched her fingers to her lips. Her mouth still tingled from his lordship’s kiss; her body yearned for the comforting warmth and strength of his embrace. Georgiana Blakelow hadn’t been kissed like that in a very, very long time.
Tears swam before her eyes. He was right. How could she deny it? She had responded to his caresses willingly enough; indeed she had returned them most ardently. She was in very great danger of losing her heart to him, if she hadn’t already. All her determination not to succumb to his charm had failed. She was as vulnerable now as she ever had been in the past, to the joy of having a love and keeping it for her very own. She had learned nothing. The brutal, painful lessons of her youth had not rid her character of its passionate will. And she had realized it in the earl’s arms. He had awoken feelings in her that she had convinced herself no longer existed. She had put them out to pasture, buried them deep. But one kiss was enough to rouse her longings. She looked around her, seeing the familiar drapes, the wall hangings, the portraits on the wall, as if for the first time.
“You were kissing him,” said Aunt Blakelow in a low voice, coming farther into the room. “Tell me at once what has happened in this room.”
Miss Blakelow made no answer. She closed her eyes in pain.
“Georgie?”
“Nothing!” cried Miss Blakelow. “Nothing save a kiss.”
“You are certain?”
“Yes, I am certain!”
“I am relieved to hear it. I wish to know to what extent you have been encouraging his advances.”
Miss Blakelow swung around. “Encouraging him?” she repeated blankly. “How can you talk so? Have you not heard me refuse him repeatedly? Have I not told you on several occasions that I have no interest in wedding him?”
“You have,” Aunt Blakelow agreed, folding her hands primly before her, “most emphatically. But I am not a fool. I have seen the way that you look at him. And so it seems has his lordship. I feared how it would be. He seemed determined to set you up as his latest flirt from the start of your acquaintance. And doe-eyed looks to a man of his kidney—”
“I did not give him doe-eyed looks,” flashed Miss Blakelow, annoyed and embarrassed.
“Georgie, have you learned nothing?” asked her aunt, coming toward her. “Are you still so easily lured by a handsome face?”
“You pain me, Aunt, by speaking so.”
“I thought you had more sense.”
“You encouraged me to go out driving with him! You seemed very keen on his company,” retorted Miss Blakelow.
“Yes,” said her aunt, “but only because it was a means to an end. I thought our primary motive was saving Thorncote. Had I any inkling of your feelings . . . Had I known you were foolish enough to fall in love with the man, like the very greenest schoolroom miss—”
Miss Blakelow could stand no more. She swiped her cloak from the chair and ran from the room.
CHAPTER 23
“CAROLINE, WHEN WILL YOU let me take you out of this house,” asked Lord Marcham. It was two days later, and he had come to London to visit his sister. He paced impatiently over to the window of her drawing room and looked out across the narrow street.
> “I like this house,” Caroline replied as she set a stitch in a shirt she was mending. She looked fondly at the garment in her hands, her son’s shirt, her lad who was fast growing up before her eyes.
“It’s small,” said his lordship crushingly. “And wouldn’t James like to live at Holme with all the animals and miles of parkland to call his own?”
“I am sure he would. But I have my pride, Robbie. We are happy here and it’s perfect for my needs. We don’t all need a palatial mansion, you know.”
“You are living like a pauper when you don’t need to.”
“Hardly,” she said, smiling and setting aside her stitchery.
Lord Marcham nodded at the pile of young James’s books on the table. “Does Julius give you anything to help with the upkeep?”
She turned her eyes upon him. “Julius? What, pray, has he to say to this?”
“He is the father, isn’t he?”
Mrs. Weir colored faintly. “Stephen is the father.”
“Stephen had been dead six months when you conceived James. Either yours was the longest pregnancy in history or your arithmetic is sadly awry.”
“Why are you here, Robbie?” she demanded.
He held up his hands. “Alright, alright, I’ve said my piece. I just think you could do with a little financial help now and again, that’s all. You won’t take anything from me.”
“Stephen left me amply provided for.”
“He left you with a small competence,” the earl corrected gently.
“Robbie, are you here for any other reason than to criticize my housekeeping arrangements?”
“Do I need a reason?” he asked, turning and leaning his hips against the windowsill.
“No,” she said, folding her hands in her lap. “But you have one all the same, and I don’t imagine that you were just, well . . . passing. So? What brings you here?”
“Damned if I know,” he muttered, running a hand over his jaw.
Mrs. Weir looked at him thoughtfully, her head to one side like a watchful bird, observing the tired look about his eyes and the pensive look on his face.
“Are you in trouble?” she asked, watching him.
He looked surprised, and for a moment the frown on his brow lifted. “Me? God no . . . well, not the sort of trouble you mean.”
“I see.”
He fell once more into brooding silence.
Mrs. Weir folded her stitchery and placed it in the workbasket at her feet. She smiled. “Who is she?”
He moved away from the window and came to sit beside her. “Is it that obvious?”
“A little,” she replied, patting his knee. “Tell me all.”
“You said you wanted to see me make a fool of myself over a woman?” he said bitterly. “Well, now you have your wish.”
“I don’t wish to see you unhappy, Robbie. Never that.”
He put his head in his hands. “She won’t have me.”
Mrs. Weir blinked in surprise. “Oh.”
“I’ve never felt like this . . . I mean . . . oh damn it all, she’s different. This time it’s different.”
“I see. And is she beautiful?”
He shrugged. “She is beautiful . . . to me anyway. She is not what you’d call . . . obvious. But her figure is good.”
“I’m sure it is.”
He glared at her. “I have not laid a finger on her.”
“Do I know her?” asked Mrs. Weir, wisely changing tack at that moment. “What is her name?”
“Georgiana Blakelow. Daughter of Sir William Blakelow of Thorncote.”
His sister raised a brow in surprise. “Blakelow? That’s one of your neighbors, isn’t it?” At his nod, she frowned. “Georgiana . . . I cannot place the name.”
“No,” he said gloomily, “and neither can anyone else.”
“A mystery, Robbie?”
“A mystery indeed.”
“Describe her to me. Is she blonde like the other Blakelows?”
“Not in the least,” he said, getting up again to pace around the room. “She has brown hair and green eyes.”
Mrs. Weir blinked at this very un-lover-like appraisal of the woman’s attributes. “Is she tall? Short? Round? Elegant? Really, Robbie, you are hardly painting a portrait for my imagination. How do you expect me to remember her on such a description as ‘she has brown hair and green eyes’? You have just described a good percentage of the women of Worcestershire.”
He sighed and rubbed his fingers across his brow. “She is tall and very slim . . . perhaps too slim if you listen to Sarah. She is intelligent and pretends that she is bookish for reasons that I have yet to discover. In fact, she plays the bluestocking very well, and most of society is fooled by her little act. She would have the world paint her as a recluse, a moralizing bore, and she wears those infernal spectacles to keep the world at a distance—and, I might add, to aggravate me . . .” he said, pausing as his eye kindled with annoyance. “But I have seen the laughter in her eyes, and I know that she is not as straitlaced as she would have us all believe. It’s an act, a ruse. She dresses continually as if she is in deep mourning, wears a hideous cap upon her head so that no one can catch a glimpse of her hair, and plays the part of the governess and guardian to her younger brothers and sisters, when I suspect that she would like nothing better than to waltz the night away in a man’s arms. She is hiding something from me . . . from the world . . . and I do not know what it is. She won’t tell me what troubles her even though she knows that she might confide in me and that I will do my best to help her if I can. I have asked her to marry me countless times, and she has refused me on every occasion. I suspect that she would like children of her own, and I want nothing better than to give them to her, but she pushes me away. She has built a thirty-foot-thick wall around her heart and as fast as I tear it down, she rebuilds it again.”
He flung away to the window and leaned his shoulder against the wall, looking out. “We are good friends . . . or at least we were until last Wednesday . . . and I hoped that perhaps she was beginning to feel something for me . . . but she doesn’t. She manages very well to keep me always at arm’s length. She teases me—actively flirts with me sometimes—and then retreats behind her shell again. She frustrates the hell out of me. She doesn’t believe that I am in earnest, and she won’t believe that my intentions are honorable. She’s damnably infuriating—and . . . and I can’t stop thinking about her.”
Mrs. Weir stared at her brother in amazement. “Well,” she said at last. “That has given me a picture now, to be sure.”
“So? What’s the verdict?” he asked grimly.
“You certainly seem . . . taken . . . with her.”
He gave a short laugh as he picked up a small vase and examined it. “Taken . . . yes, I think you could safely say that I am taken with her.”
“But, Robbie, are you certain? I would hate for you to make a mistake. Do you desire her?”
“Undoubtedly. I spend far too much time thinking about our wedding night.”
“But is that all you feel?”
He went very still, thinking, and then he said quietly, “I want to protect her. I want to take her troubles off her shoulders. I want to sleep next to her every night for the rest of my life.” He came back to the middle of the room and sat down beside her once more. “What am I to do, Caro?”
She took his hand in hers and squeezed it. “Have you kissed her?”
He looked so uncomfortable that his sister was hard put to it to repress a smile. “I’m not really sure that that is relevant—”
“Of course it is relevant!” she cried. “If you want me to help you, then I need to know what has happened . . . Have you kissed her?”
“Yes,” he admitted reluctantly.
“And?”
“And what?”
She rolled her eyes. “How did she react? Did she like it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know . . . We had argued and I . . . I forced the kiss upon her to prove a point. I was
angry, jealous too, I suppose, and I let my temper get the better of me.”
“I see. And did she slap your face?”
“No.”
“Ah. So then, did she kiss you back?”
He cleared his throat.
She patted his knee. “So, this is good. She is not adverse to you.”
“Then why has she accepted Peabody?” he demanded.
Caroline blinked at him. “Mr. Peabody? She’s going to marry that dreadful man of the lavender pantaloons?”
“The very same,” said his lordship gloomily.
“Oh, dear.”
“Quite,” he muttered.
She thought for a moment, then took a deep breath as if coming to an astounding conclusion. “She doesn’t believe that you mean marriage.”
It was the earl’s turn to roll his eyes. “I know that! I told you only a minute ago that she won’t believe me to be in earnest. Honestly, I don’t know why I bother—”
“Have you told her?” she asked.
He stared at her, somewhat taken aback. “Told her what?”
She laughed. “Heavens, Robbie, of all the numbskulls . . . that you’re in love with her.”
He glanced at her, then at his hands, and then at the floor but said nothing, lost in his thoughts.
She squeezed his arm affectionately. “While you debate and hesitate, she is no doubt forming the opinion that you are amusing yourself with a little flirtation while you are in the neighborhood. She needs to know how you feel.”
“Will you come to this wretched ball and meet her?” the earl asked.
“Do you wish me to?”
“Yes. You may convince Sarah that Miss Blakelow is not a she-devil who has come to emasculate me. Do come, Caro, if only to prevent me from drowning Mr. Peabody in the white soup.”
His lordship left his sister and went immediately to his club, where he was hailed by several of his friends, who wished to know where the deuce he had been hiding himself for all these weeks. He smiled faintly and refused their invitations to dine, but requested from them the address of the lodgings where one Sir William Blakelow currently resided. On finding one of his particular friends, Sir Julius Fawcett, seated by the bay window reading a paper, he greeted him but declined to sit, on account of his needing to speak to Sir William. Sir Julius, citing boredom, folded the newspaper and declared that he would come with him.
