Forever and a Day (22 page)

The familiar scent of mulled spice and cedar tugged at her senses from the interior. It reminded her of when she’d first met Robinson on the street. It smelled like him.

Catching herself against the doorway, she hurried in and plopped herself onto an incredibly plush, soft seat opposite a stiff, aged man with silvery hair that had been swept back with tonic.

The duke adjusted his well-fitted black coat about himself and leaned back against the upholstered seat as if to better observe her.

Noting those handsome, rather kind brown eyes intently scanning her face and gown, she primly arranged her best Sunday dress about herself, ensuring that it covered her ankles.

She smiled brightly, placing her bare hands on her lap atop each other, as she’d seen wealthy women do whilst riding about in their open carriages, and offered, “Good mornin’, Your Grace. I apologize for makin’ you wait. ’Tis a pleasure to make your acquaintance and I appreciate your generosity in allowin’ me to come.” There. That was certainly polite enough without slathering too much honey all over the man.

Holding her gaze, the duke inclined his silvery head toward her, but said nothing.

At least she got the incline of a head and a direct look in the eye. That was far more than she was used to getting when heading into shops with placards in the window saying
No Irish Need Apply.

The carriage gently swayed as Robinson’s tall, muscled frame entered. He bent forward to prevent his head from hitting the velvet-pleated ceiling above them and seated himself beside his father, directly across from her, as the door to the carriage was slammed shut by the footman. Robinson leaned forward and set her sack beside her on the seat, tucking it deep into the corner. Leaning back again, he set his broad shoulders and cleared his throat, holding her gaze as if preparing her for a very long and very separate journey ahead.

She gathered by the way he had opted to sit next to his father, instead of her, that a man was
not
supposed to sit anywhere near a lady whilst in a carriage. She had a niggling feeling that there were several thousand unspoken rules she had yet to learn. And here she thought wealthy women had it easy.

Georgia paused and glanced around the lavish space of the carriage. Tut, tut, tut, was it ever fancy. One could turn it into a harem given that every inch of its walls and ceiling was fastened with gray velvet.

The carriage rolled ahead, jerking her far forward and toward them. She squeaked, popping both hands out, and caught the edge of the seat to keep herself from spilling forward altogether. She gargled out a laugh in response to her own squeak and slid farther back against the cushioned seat, rearranging her skirts. “I about fell off my seat with that one. You’d think they’d warn a woman with a bell or somethin’. Unlike you boys sittin’ in flaps and trousers, I got a full set of skirts that could’ve damn well left me showin’ nothin’ but arse over turkey. And that certainly wouldn’t have been good.”

Robinson pressed a rigid hand to his mouth and glanced away, shifting toward the glass window at his elbow. He closed his eyes.

Oh, no. She had said
arse,
hadn’t she?

She leaned back awkwardly against the upholstered seat and set her chin, feeling her cheeks growing unbearably warm. She glanced toward the duke, whose gray brows were still lifted toward his hairline. “Forgive me, Your Grace. My mouth has yet to fully kiss the true meanin’ of bein’ civilized.”

The duke leaned over toward Robinson, who still sat with his hand over his mouth. “Oh, London will be impressed with this one.”

Robinson dropped his hand heavily into his lap and blew out an exasperated breath. “London be damned. What do they know about good character?”

Georgia pressed her lips together, knowing Robinson was nobly defending her. Drat his father. If the old man thought she couldn’t be all boring and civilized like him, he had yet to see Georgia Emily Milton at her finest. She’d put every last woman in London to shame even if it meant biting her tongue until it bled, because she was marrying her Robinson and getting her field and her apple trees.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Even God cannot change the past.

—Agathon,
Nicomachean Ethics
(Aristotle)
(as published in 1566)

The Adelphi Hotel

“I
LEFT
EVERYTHING
UNTOUCHED
.
Everything.” The duke gestured toward the large suite beyond the open door. “Mock me for being sentimental, but I was so panicked about your disappearance that I felt if the servants touched even the bed, it would prohibit your return.”

Gripping the frame of the doorway, Roderick leaned in and scanned the overly decadent French-inspired room. A sizable four-poster bed had been done up with mounds of sterling white coverlets and goose-down pillows. No more chairs, thank God. A mahogany table was set off to the side, laden with piles of books. A chair beside it had also been laden with books. This explained all of the stories and words in his head. He apparently had a fancy for literature.

Though he tried to envision and match at least one of those items in his head and remember what this room might have meant to him, nothing came. Not a whisper and most certainly not a shout. Just beyond that table, a towering wardrobe and several open trunks revealed far more clothing than any one man really needed. And there was not one, but
three
walnut lacquered sideboards that had been tucked against the palomino walls with a mirror over each. Every sideboard had everything he needed to attend to his appearance as well as many daily comforts and extravagances. From tonic to brandy.

He paused, his gaze falling on several crystal decanters of port and brandy alongside matching glasses all perfectly lining the top of the main sideboard. It appeared he liked to drink.

Roderick glanced back at his father. “How long have we been renting here? And what have we been doing with our time?”

His father’s gray brows came together. “You and I have been renting several rooms for about seven months now and spent most of our hours investigating leads and interviewing debauched areas and souls I would rather forget.” A breath escaped his father’s lips. “Your disappearance was unnerving. I didn’t know if it was related to Atwood’s circle of people or because something else had happened.”

Roderick’s brows came together. “Who is this Atwood you keep referring to?”

The duke smiled, his eyes unexpectedly brightening. “Once you have been properly tended to and settled in, we will talk more and get you reacquainted with your life.” The man set his aged shaven chin and turned toward Georgia, who lingered quietly in the corridor behind them. “Follow me. There is no need for you to linger about this corridor.” The duke paused and flippantly tossed back at him, “I had the footman assign her to room eight and twenty. That will ensure she is within your reach whenever you feel the need to call on her.”

Roderick drew in a ragged breath in agitation, feeling both his honor and Georgia’s being slapped. And this was just the beginning. “Whilst I appreciate the arrangement, Your Grace, I ask that you not insinuate before her
or
myself that her only purpose is one suited to a bed.”

The man pointed at him with a gloved finger. “I am merely laying out your own cards, boy. So don’t you be tossing pawns at me. Mrs. Milton? This way, if you please.”

Setting both gloved hands behind his back, the duke stalked down the length of the corridor. He disappeared down one of the adjoining corridors.

Georgia, who’d been staring at the duke in what appeared to be genuine fascination, also set her hands behind her back. Swiveling on her heel, she strode after the duke, her skirts rustling about her extended long strides in a flurry as she replicated the man’s gait right down to the bloody stagger.

What was she doing? “Georgia?” he called out.

She swung back toward him, those hands still set behind her back. “Yes?”

“I’ve never seen you walk like that. What the hell are you doing?”

She set both hands on her hips. “Observation is key, my dear Robinson. One must first learn what
not
to do before one can learn what they
ought
to do.”

His brows came together. “That makes no sense whatsoever. Adhere to only what you
should
be doing.”

“Oh, you’re no fun at all.” She eyed him and lowered her voice. “Do all men of status walk around like that?”

He blinked. “Walk around like what?”

She thumbed toward the direction the duke had disappeared to and then staunchly set her chin and brow, marching in place with her chest thrust forth. “It’s like he’s marchin’ straight into the pissin’ mouth of hell but is damn proud of it.”

Oh, God. He was going to have to hire several hundred women to instruct her on how to bite that tongue, or twenty years would pass before his father would ever accept her.

He angled toward her. “I adore you to no end, Georgia, you know I do, but can you please not say
piss, hell
and
damn,
let alone use them all in
one
sentence? ’Tis incredibly important you mind your tongue or the man will never learn to see past it.”

She blinked, deflating her overexaggerated stance, and blurted, “I’m sorry. You’re right.” She nodded and eyed him, playing with the tips of her fingers. “Robinson?”

He smiled, sensing she was unusually anxious. “Aside from taming crass words,” he offered, “just be yourself. There is no need for you to panic. I’m not going anywhere.”

“It isn’t that.”

“What, then?”

She hesitated, then lifted her gaze to his and whispered in a tone as if she feared the world would hear, “I love you. I really do. And I can’t believe you’re takin’ me with you.”

His breath hitched at hearing those words for the first time. “And I love you. I couldn’t imagine leaving you behind.”

They lingered in the silence of the corridor, intently and heatedly staring each other down. He could feel her eyes and her stance caressing the length of his body and soul and inwardly yearned to make that caress real.

Knowing he shouldn’t linger, lest he make a dash for her and make a mess of all that he hoped for her and them, he cleared his throat and tried to sound indifferent. “After you settle into your room, shall we meet over a late breakfast?” He playfully lowered his voice. “I have no doubt the food from here on out will be free.”

She giggled, her features brightening. “Free is a price I can always afford. Late breakfast, it is. I should go. Lest your father think me rude.” Turning, she swept down the remaining length of the corridor in her beige stitched gown, her corseted hips swaying with the unexpected grace of a woman in full possession of not only her body but the world.

He drew in a ragged breath, watching those hips. Now
that
was a walk he could watch all day.

She paused, as if sensing him watching her. Angling back toward him, she smiled and offered a sultry glance over her shoulder, which softened her features and those bright, mischievous green eyes. “I might as well say this whilst we’re still alone.” She lowered her voice. “My room or yours tonight? And what time? I’m feelin’ rather amorous, if you know what I mean.”

His pulse throttled against his ears just thinking about making her gasp beneath the movement of his body and his lust. He edged toward the safety of his room, whose door was still open, knowing they couldn’t and they shouldn’t and therefore they wouldn’t. Damn his insufferable need to make her respectable at the cost of his own sanity. “We can’t.”

Her brows came together. “Why not?”

Only Georgia would need an explanation. “I…” He hissed out a breath in disbelief as to what he was about to say. She needed her respectability for it was the only form of dignity he was going to be able to bestow upon her. Desire and lust held no place in this. Not at the cost of her worth. “We will reserve all intimacy for when we marry. ’Tis best.”

Her eyes widened. “But that may take months.”

Fighting his own angst, he nodded. “I know. I simply refuse to turn you into the mistress my father expects you to be. We already know what we want and need of each other. That isn’t what this discussion is about.”

He cleared his throat, trying to stay focused. “What we did over on Orange Street should have never happened. You deserve more than that and I intend to ensure it doesn’t happen again. I want others to respect you in the same way I do.”

She fully faced him with her hands on her hips. “You expect us to…
wait
until others approve of us?”

“Yes.”

“What if no one ever approves of us? What then?”

“They will.”

“No. They won’t. Not in the way you want it, at least. I know what I am, Robinson, and they know what I am, and I’ll never be able to change that even if I never bed you again.”

“Georgia, please.” He stared her down. “A relationship can be founded outside a bed, despite what you’ve been taught to believe over in the Five Points. We will survive this and I will prove you wrong.”

She gasped. “Don’t you dare lecture me about the foundations of a relationship! I know what a bed is for and what is shared in it. I also know what happens when
nothin’
is shared in it.” She marched back toward him, fiercely holding his gaze as if he had best prepare himself for the worst. “I’m not settlin’ for anythin’ less than all of you. You hear?”

God save him. She was like a blazing fire and he the log. He shifted closer toward her. “This isn’t Orange Street anymore, Georgia. Your world as you know it and all of the rules have changed. Just as you did everything within your means to prevent
me
from getting dirked by pistol-toting bastards, I am now doing everything in my means to prevent
you
from getting dirked from moral-toting bastards.”

She glared up at him. “Whilst I agreed to put on a jig and a show for the world to clap along to, I didn’t agree to sell my soul to a man who’s goin’ to lecture me on the sins bestowed unto us by Adam and bloody Eve.” She pinned him with a self-righteous stare. “Last night, you asked about the dancin’ hole and what it meant to me.”

He blinked, half expecting her to say more, but when she didn’t, he prompted, “Yes?”

“I’m ready to tell you.” She thrust out a reprimanding hip. “Does respectable society allow for intimate conversations? Or is that banned, too?”

Her words stung, and the bewitching devil that she was, she knew it. He shifted toward her. “You can
always
share in an intimate conversation with me. That is far different than us sharing a bed.”

“They’re actually one of the same, you prude. Only one involves the body and the other involves the soul, linkin’ the two together and makin’ them one. And regardless of what you and
respectable
society may think,” she now shouted, pointing toward herself and then the floor, “I need
both
to call
this
a bloody relationship!”