An Elegant Façade (Hawthorne House Book #2)

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  Colin groaned. He didn’t think Lady Jane and Lord Howard were communicating about the same kind of passion.

  “Jane, you’ll be ruined if you do this.” Georgina tried to pull Jane toward the door. “Let’s go home and talk about this.”

  “Oh, no, I see what you’re worried about.” Jane smiled again. Did she even realize Colin and Trent were in the room? Could she be that obtuse? “John has promised to keep me pure until we say our vows.”

  Colin couldn’t take it anymore. “Is that why he sent you to his room for the night?”

  “Well, I . . .” Lady Jane looked around again. Her face changed from confused to hurt to scared as she accepted where she was. “I’m sure it’s a mistake.”

  Trent shook his head. “Mistake or not, you don’t want to do this.”

  More glazed staring. Did Lady Jane live in the real world at all? “But it’s love.”

  Colin cleared his throat. “It will be nice, won’t it? You and, er, John joining with your family for Christmas, visiting each other’s homes during the Season. Your father showing his grandchildren how to . . . to . . . whistle?”

  Had Colin McCrae lost his mind? They were supposed to be convincing Jane to leave, not encouraging her to marry the hideous man downstairs. And whistle? Who dreamed of having their children whistle?

  “Oh, yes!” Jane clasped her hands together. “My family dances by the light of the yule log every year. That’s the only time Mother lets Father whistle so that everyone can dance and no one has to play the pianoforte.”

  Colin nodded his head enthusiastically. “Yes, yes, and do you think your father will be as welcoming if he doesn’t have a chance to give you away at the wedding? He’ll be hurt.”

  Hurt? The earl was going to be furious, not hurt. Georgina covered her eyes in defeat. Why had she insisted on bringing him?

  Jane’s soft wail had Georgina snapping her head up again to find Jane’s trembling hands covering her heart. “Georgina, what have I done?”

  Colin McCrae was apparently a genius.

  “Nothing. Which is how we’re going to keep it.” Georgina started across the room. “Let’s go.”

  Heavy footsteps sounded in the hallway. Colin’s sappy speech had taken too long and Lord Howard was about to enter. Colin looked at Trent and nodded at Lady Jane. Both men grabbed a lady by the arm and hauled them to doors on opposite sides of the room.

  Colin shoved Georgina through and slid the door closed with a barely audible click. He turned from the door to find himself surrounded by shelves and hooks filled with clothing. They had managed to escape into the dressing room. Was this all Lord Howard’s? The man must be doing more than occasionally visiting. Was he living here? It could explain the long hours at the club. Lord Howard was notoriously low on funds, but Colin hadn’t realized it was bad enough for him to try to live off his grandfather.

  Not that Colin cared overmuch about Howard’s living arrangement at the moment. What mattered was that he and Georgina were trapped in a room with one door, one window, and no weapon. With any luck Trent and Lady Jane had passed through to another bedchamber and were even now making their way down a set of stairs.

  Any moment now, Lord Howard was going to realize his quarry had escaped and go after her. Hopefully he wouldn’t need to change clothes in order to do that.

  Georgina stood a foot away, hands clasped in front of her, not moving. He wasn’t even sure she was breathing. For a woman who plotted everything down to the perfect mix of dance partners, this situation must be intolerable.

  The moonlight through the window was enough to make out the hulking shape of a large skirted chaise lounge on the far side of the dressing room. He pulled Georgina across the room and pushed her down behind the furniture. “Get back here in case he comes in.”

  “What about Jane? What are we going to do?” Her whisper was barely audible, forcing Colin to lean in until his nose brushed her curls. She smelled like lemons.

  “Trent has Jane.” He aimed his whisper at her ear. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of here.”

  Georgina sank to the floor and crossed her arms over her chest. “Thank you.”

  Kneeling behind a chaise lounge in the dressing room of a man who may or may not be dangerous didn’t exactly make him feel as if he had earned her thanks. She needed to be prepared that he might not be as sure as he wanted to be. “You can thank me when I’ve managed to actually get you home with your reputation intact.”

  She sighed. “While I dearly hope we accomplish that, I want to thank you for trying. Even if we fail.”

  Colin lifted an eyebrow, though he doubted she could see it in the dark closet. “Your faith in my ability astounds me.”

  He felt her arms shift in a shrug. “It will be quite ironic if Jane manages to get home unscathed and I suffer the consequences.”

  “I’m going to get you out of here and back to Trent.”

  “Good.”

  Did she believe him? Did it matter? Colin searched the dark. Her breathing reached his ears, quick and shallow. Too quick. “Everything will work out. All we have to do is get outside and we’ll have smooth sailing.”

  “Given our location a good ten feet above the ground in a room with no outside door, forgive me if I don’t find that comforting.”

  A heartbeat passed before she spoke again. “You can’t tell anyone.”

  Colin frowned at the rushed words that had come spilling from her mouth. “Of course not. The whole point of this is to hush the entire night up.”

  He actually heard her swallow. “No . . . you can’t tell anyone about me. About . . . about the reading.”

  A shout from the other room had them hunkering down behind the chaise before Colin could answer. Lord Howard was mad. Colin leaned over Georgina. If anyone or anything came busting through that door, she wasn’t going to be the one it caught.

  Her hair tickled his chin, and her hands pressed lightly against his chest. Even through the coat, vest, and shirt he could feel the pressure.

  His heart jumped.

  Then it stopped beating. It was simply the situation. He was not attracted to Georgina. She was conniving, calculating, grasping, and a host of other things he didn’t admire. The fact that she was also smart, caring, and brave didn’t negate those things. They only made the picture more complex.

  “So why the desperate husband hunt?” he whispered into her ear.

  “What? You want to talk about this now?”

  “We have to wait—we don’t have to be bored. Keep your voice down and he won’t hear us.”

  “It’s what women do.” She’d turned her head to whisper straight into his ear. Suddenly this talking plan didn’t seem like such a good idea.

  “What?” He cleared his throat and shifted his weight so that he wasn’t pressing along her body in quite as many places.

  “Get married. What else would a woman of my station be doing?”

  She had a point, but her actions seemed to go well beyond that of the average marriage-minded female. “Yes, but why so determined? First Raebourne, then Ryland, now Ashcombe. It’s obvious you’re hunting titles.”

  Lord Howard bellowed from the other room, calling for someone named Jasper. His stomps echoed through the dressing-room door, going back and forth across the bedchamber.

  They weren’t going anywhere any time soon.

  With a sigh, Georgina shifted, pressing closer to Colin’s chest before sinking lower to the floor. She wiggled up until her back was to the wall and her shoulder against the raised back of the chaise lounge. She slid her legs under the skirted furniture. She was completely hidden from the door.

  Colin relaxed back onto his heels, allowing the moonlight to come between them, giving him a clear view of her face. Could she see his as well? Or did his angle to the window keep him in shadow?

  Her lips curved softly as she snared him in her direct gaze. She lowered her voice to a whisper, not that Lord Howard could hear anything over the racket his pacing
march was making. “Tell me something about you first.”

  Part of Colin prayed for very heavy cloud cover to roll in. All of him prayed for a miracle to get them out of there.

  “What do you want to know?” he asked, even as he told himself to change the conversation.

  She thought for a moment. “Why you’re in London.”

  Colin’s eyebrows rose. “If I tell you why I live in London, you’ll tell me why you want a husband so badly?”

  Her head tilted to the side as she considered him. “I’ll trade a question for a question.”

  That seemed fair enough, but was it a good idea? There wasn’t much she could ask that he wouldn’t willingly answer. His father, of course, but she didn’t know enough to ask about him. Even his connection to the War Office could be talked about in the vaguest of ways, since she was already aware of it.

  Lord Howard started screaming, and loud crashes indicated his temper had a physical element to it. The summoned Jasper had apparently arrived, though the servant didn’t seem very concerned about the missing woman. He actually had the gall to ask if Lord Howard had checked under the bed.

  Apparently he hadn’t. And would he then check the dressing room? Colin hung his head. Why couldn’t the man just run after her so he could get Georgina out of this overgrown closet?

  Surprisingly, his fellow trespasser didn’t seem perturbed by the ruckus on the other side of the door.

  There was nothing else to do while they waited but talk, or whisper, in their case. He sat next to her, back against the wall. “All right. I’m in London because that’s the center of business. The stock exchange is there, the people with the investment money are there. Lots of shipping, lots of news. It’s the hub of life for a man like me.”

  “I want protection.”

  The whispered confession slipped into Colin’s heart, making him want to pull Georgina close even though he didn’t understand her statement. Their talk didn’t seem so harmless now. “Protection from what? You’re the daughter of a duke.”

  “Who can’t read or write. What do you think would happen to me if Society knew that I can’t address my own invitations? That I can’t read a cook’s menu? That the household accounts and correspondence of any man I married would have to be handled by someone other than the lady of the house?”

  “Shh-shhh.” Colin wrapped his arm around her, trying to calm her as her voice crept louder than a toneless whisper. He pulled her close and rubbed a hand along her back. He’d never thought about what it meant for a woman to be able to do things like that, but most of the things that an aristocratic husband would expect of her would require her to read.

  “And I need you not to tell them.” The whisper broke as if she were holding back a sob.

  “I won’t. I won’t.” He’d planned to talk to Riverton as soon as they got back, but now it didn’t seem quite so important. She managed so well, did it really matter if her brother knew?

  She leaned into him a moment before pulling away slightly. “I have to marry before everyone finds out, and it has to be to a man powerful enough to protect me when they do.”

  Which certainly wasn’t him.

  His arms dropped to his side at the sudden thought. Why would he think such a thing? Marriage might be something he’d thought about with more frequency of late, but marriage to her had never entered his mind. At least not seriously.

  “Why can’t you read?”

  “No, no, Mr. McCrae. A question for a question.”

  Colin didn’t want to play anymore. The men in the other room had stilled, their voices lowering to normal level, which meant Colin couldn’t hear them. “I’m going to check on Lord Howard.”

  Easing away from Georgina was harder than anticipated. He felt chilled where she’d been pressed up against his side.

  He pressed his ear to the door, hoping he hadn’t missed a vital part of their plan.

  “. . . going to find her.” Lord Howard’s flat voice sent a chill down Colin’s back. “You search all of the rooms up here. She can’t have gone far.”

  “Of course, sir.” The servant sounded bored. Colin didn’t think he’d be putting much effort into the search. Not that Colin could blame the man. It was doubtful that the servants had much respect for Lord Howard, especially since they weren’t even really in his employ.

  More stomping and then a door opened and closed. Only one man had left. Even if the servant wasn’t willing to exert himself in the search, he wouldn’t ignore two unknown people emerging from the dressing room.

  Enough noise passed through the door for Colin to know the other man didn’t immediately leave the room, but not enough to know what he was doing. Colin pressed his ear closer to the crack between the door and the wall, hoping to hear something definitive. His ear grew warm and the wood bit into it, but he learned nothing. All was quiet on the other side of the door. Had the servant left? They were trained to be quiet. Perhaps Colin had missed his exit.

  Wincing at the slight click of the latch, Colin eased the door open enough to line up one eye with the opening and peek into the other room.

  Jasper was certainly doing a thorough job of searching the upstairs rooms. If Lady Jane had decided to hide in the pages of the book, the servant would have her in hand within the hour. Chances were he wouldn’t care about Colin and Georgina sneaking or even walking boldly across the room, but it was possible Howard had sent more servants searching as he left the house. Time for a new plan.

  He eased the door shut and looked around. They had a chaise lounge. And clothes.

  “Gather up his trousers. As many as you can.” Colin crossed to the window. He was about to ruin some clothes, but Georgina’s reputation was considerably more important than Lord Howard’s trousers, assuming they were in fact his and not one of the other grandchildren’s.

  The window hadn’t been opened in a long time, if ever, and it took quite a bit of effort to raise the sash. There was at least fifteen feet between the window sash and the ground. Even though the wall beneath them was edged with bushes, it was too far to jump.

  “Here.” Georgina dropped a pile of trousers at his feet.

  He tied one pair around the chaise lounge and then tied them leg to leg until he had a decent line of them hanging out the window, scraping the top of the hedge. He pulled them back up and offered the end of the makeshift rope to Georgina. “Hold on tight, and I’ll lower you down.”

  She looked over the line of trousers. “Will it hold?”

  “If it starts to rip I’ll get you as low as I can before you fall.”

  “Comforting.” Despite the flat tone of her whisper, she stepped up to the window.

  Colin stood on the trousers to keep them from falling and wrapped his hands around her waist. Her quickly indrawn breath told him she was as affected by their situation as he was.

  He rather wished he hadn’t learned that.

  He lifted her to his chest and she slid her feet through the open window. Her skirts fell away, baring her stockinged leg.

  He almost dropped her.

  “Colin!”

  “Sorry.” Colin tried not to laugh as he watched her, clutching a trouser leg in her hands, glaring over her shoulder while her legs dangled out the window. She was never going to forgive him for this indignity as it was. If he laughed, she’d hate him for sure.

  And he didn’t think he wanted her to hate him anymore.

  He lowered her out the window. She whimpered as he released her weight, and only her grip on the trousers kept her from crashing into the hedge below.

  Colin lowered her as fast he could, listening for any sign that Jasper was growing curious. At least Lord Howard would credit Lady Jane for the ladder of trousers left dangling from the dressing room.

  Georgina tried to push off from the wall as she neared the greenery below. She almost cleared the hedge, but her shoulders ended up buried in the side of the bush. Still she seemed happy with her escape, looking up at him with a brilliant smile of reli
ef, even as she struggled to roll out of the bush.

  Colin slung his leg over the windowsill and tried to work his way down the trouser legs. Easing his way over the knotted fabric was difficult. A ripping sound filled his ears as his knees cleared the top of the ground-floor window.

  The pants gave way, and he tumbled down, his momentum sending him crashing through the bush and rolling to the lawn below until he landed in a heap at Georgina’s feet. If anyone were actively looking for them, they’d have heard that. He could only hope that all the servants were as apathetic to Lord Howard’s plight as Jasper was.

  He looked up to see her smile, wide and unpretentious. Possibly the first genuine expression he’d ever seen on her face.

  She nudged his shoulder with her foot. “And you thought you’d never be one of the men at my feet.”

  Chapter 20

  An answering grin spread across Colin’s face. Amazing how easy it was to think of him as Colin now.

  The smile fell off her face. It was too easy. She cleared her throat. “I find myself in need of rescue once more, Mr. McCrae.”

  He picked himself up off the ground. “I thought I was Colin.”

  “Oh, very well. Would you care to remove the bush from my hair, Colin?”

  Instead of immediately moving forward to extract her from the hedge, he stayed where he was, staring, his grin growing the slightest bit wider. “You look good in green.”

  Georgina rolled her eyes. It was the only part of her she could move, since the hedge’s hold on her hair was forcing her to stand at an angle that made moving her hands impossible unless she wanted to burrow farther into the foliage.

  He laughed softly but moved forward to inspect her situation. After a few tugs he gave a low whistle. Georgina tried to twist around, as if she’d be able to see what he was looking at.

  “Stay still, won’t you? You’ve got limbs stabbing straight through your, er, arrangement.”

  She tried to breathe calmly while he contemplated how to release her. But then he pulled the knife she’d seen earlier out of his little leather bag. Her heart pounded, and she tugged against the bush. “Oh, no, please don’t cut my hair. I’ll have to hide away for the rest of the Season.”