Forever and a Day (30 page)

She clasped her hands together. “Exactly. Upper levels of government use propaganda to bend the public to its will by slippin’ whatever farce they want the world to believe into every crack of society until it fills every tongue and mind and becomes fact due to its source. What we’ll be doin’, Your Grace, is fillin’ in
my
cracks and slippin’
me
into your circle.
That
is the political game we’ll play and
that
is the political game that will win. Are you in? Or do you need to be more sober to agree to any of this?”

The duke lowered his chin. “Bloody on high. Am I even hearing this?”

“That you are. You have the money and I have the will. We’ll pay people to mold me into the sort of woman London would accept, and introduce me as such to society.”

The duke set his jaw and rounded her, his gait uneven but determined. Scanning the length of her appearance, he drawled, “It takes a lot to impress London.” He scanned her again.
“A lot.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not lookin’ to be canonized here. I’m as tough as any blade and am fully aware of what is and isn’t possible. The real question is, what do you think would be easier for London to swallow? A Five Points widow your son met on the street here in New York? Or an American heiress he met in the drawin’ rooms of London and wishes to court and marry?”

The duke swiped his face and glanced toward her, his brows coming together. “An American heiress, no doubt.”

“Exactly. So make me one.”

He stared. “But you would be turning away from all that you are. He doesn’t want that for you. He made that very clear.”

A small smile touched her lips. “Sometimes men don’t really understand what women want. Sometimes a woman has to tell a man what she wants before he mucks everythin’ up. I’m not about to tear your son away from you, nor am I about to turn away from him merely because a bunch of snobs think me incapable of bein’ a lady. The only solution is to eliminate the divide without the world knowin’. And only you and your money can do that.”

“Me and my money. Huh.” Setting his hands behind his back, he lowered his gaze and slowly paced back and forth, back and forth. He paused. “This idea of yours intrigues me. It would depend on…the people we involve. It would also have to be incredibly well done. You and Yardley would have to conduct a public courtship before London for any of it to be mildly believable. The Season is over for the year, but will be opening again in…early April, I believe.” He winced. “That would barely give us ten months to orchestrate this. It wouldn’t be enough time. We would have to give ourselves the following year of ’32.”

Her pulse fluttered like a butterfly caught in a capped jar. “I’m not willin’ to be apart from him that long. I’m just not. We’ll have to make all of this come together in the ten months you speak of.”

“Mrs. Milton, I like you, but I don’t think—”

“If you and he were to go back to London in ten days’ time as planned, and leave me here with a sizable fund to oversee the creation of my identity, I know it
could
be done. Whilst I build my name here, you could assist by building my name in London. What do you think?”

“’Tis a bit…ambitious. Rumors can easily be seeded within the upper circles in as little as a few months. But you…” He gargled out a laugh. “Not to offend, but you are not even a sliver of what my circle would consider to be acceptable. Ten months would barely cover etiquette, let alone the rest of you.”

She glared at him. “I’m from the Five Points, Your Grace, and we Five Pointers know how to outplay anyone. I have full faith it can and will be done. I can do this in ten months’ time. Just give me a chance and I promise that everyone is not only goin’ to sit down for the show but they won’t even question what the hell they’re seein’. But I can’t do it without you. I’m goin’ to need money. Lots of it. Because as with any campaign, I’ll have to wine and dine my way into every level of society here in New York by feedin’ them the same farce London will be feastin’ on.”

He swiped at his mouth. “But that would only leave us…ten days to…launch this. Tremayne and I leave for London in ten days.”

“Ten days is doable if we make it count. You’ve been here for seven months, Your Grace. I’m certain you’ve met plenty of men in the upper circles here on Broadway. Haven’t you? All we need to do is to find
one
of those upper-crust New Yorkers with a powerful reputation who’d be willin’ to play our game and play it well. Someone who’d benefit from what we’re tryin’ to do, either financially or through other means.”

He let out a whistle. “No wonder Yardley’s so smitten. You bloody have a mind to match.” Rounding her, the duke grabbed the decanter, refilling his almost empty glass. Slowly setting the decanter aside, he paused and turned back toward her. “Mr. Astor.
He
would play along.”

Georgia lifted a brow. “And who is that? How well do you know him? Well enough to entrust him with our scheme?”

He leaned against the sideboard, causing it to hit the wall. “I would venture to say yes. His connections are astounding. From street to heaven.
And
he is quite the eccentric.” He snorted.

“Good. I want to do this. Can we?”

“Consider it done.” The duke smiled, reached out and patted her cheek affectionately as if she were already his daughter-in-law. “I will call on Mr. Astor in the morning when I’m not so…bashed out of my senses. The room is still spinning. Just a bit, but it’s spinning.”

Georgia flung herself against him, wrapping her arms around his waist and squeezing him tightly against herself. “How I pray you’ll feel the same come morning. Oh, how I pray. Will you even remember our conversation?”

“Of course I will.” He awkwardly patted her back and kept on patting her as if silently pleading that their embrace end. “And if I don’t…all you need to do is tell me that Augustine would spit upon my soul from the heavens if I didn’t do this for our son.”

She eased back and smiled. “Augustine was your wife?”

“She was my soul.” The duke’s features twisted as he adjusted the sleeves of his coat and cleared his throat. “Good night, my dear.” Wandering over to the door, he pulled it open, and staggered out, slamming it behind himself.

A big rush of air escaped Georgia’s lips, leaving her standing there dazed and in disbelief. She was going to be a lady. A
real
one. That is if the duke could be trusted not to go back on his word. He was about as soused as any man could get.

Gathering her robe from around her feet, she slowly made her way back toward the large four-poster bed and fell into its divine softness. She let out a shaky breath, rolling herself regally onto her back. Robinson loved her. He loved her and it was time to love him back in the way he not only deserved but would never expect.

Spreading her arms and legs as far and wide as she could, she slid them up and down across the smoothness of beautifully clean and perfect powder-blue linens. Nothing was going to come between her and her man.
Nothing
.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Et tu, Brute?

—William Shakespeare,
Julius Caesar
(as published in 1811)

A
N
HOUR
LATER
,
A
KNOCK
ON
the door startled Georgia into scrambling out of the bed she’d been lounging in whilst examining all the labels of her makeup. Hurrying over to the door, Georgia paused only long enough to quell the fluttering in her stomach. She unbolted the door and edged it open. She paused and drew in an astonished breath.

Robinson lingered in the candlelit corridor outside, a dove-gray top hat in his black leather-gloved hands. His thick black hair had been brushed back with tonic and that square jaw was shaven and soft looking. A snowy silk cravat bound his throat, that well-muscled frame beautifully held together by an expensive embroidered waistcoat, well-cut morning coat, fine trousers and polished black leather boots.

He was even wearing another mourning band. It was as if he had formally returned to being the man she first met, and her Robinson, as she knew him, was no more.

She swallowed. It was as if he had remembered all that had once been.

“Good evening to you, Georgia.” His husky voice was endearingly soft as he heatedly met her gaze. “I missed you.”

The man said it as if he hadn’t seen her in years.

Fingering the rim of his top hat, his gray eyes traced her hair. He searched her face. “Your hair looks pretty. Very pretty, actually. I like it.”

She paused. Patting the pinned curls the chambermaid had earlier arranged for her after her bath, she shyly lowered her gaze. He had never once commented on or noticed her hair before. It appeared as if he had indeed fully reverted to the man she’d met on the street and she honestly didn’t know what to make of it. “’Tis fancier than the rest of me, to be sure. I need a better gown to go with it.” She shook out the calico skirts she had slipped into.

He half nodded and fell back into silence, his features tightening.

She sighed, sensing he was avoiding the conversation he had come to deliver. “So where have you been all day?”

He cleared his throat and shifted from polished boot to boot. “I, uh, I went for a very long walk from one end of Broadway all the way down toward where it leaves the city and touches field. I never realized how big this city was until I started walking it. I took coffee several times and ate a meal on my own. It was depressing as hell, but I needed time to think about our situation. And no matter how many times I laid out those damn cards, Georgia, they still came up the same. Nothing but small cards and all of them unworthy of you.”

She glanced up. She could hear the pain in his tone and could see the anguish in his stance and in those gunmetal eyes. “Everythin’ is goin’ to be fine, Robinson. I promise.”

“Georgia.” He leaned in closer, bringing with him a divine scent of mulled spice and cedar. His freshly shaven face lingered above hers, looking boyishly charming as he sought the right words.

His brows came together as he glanced down toward his top hat, whose curved rim he continued to finger. “We must end this. I ask that you forgive me for submitting to this decision. It wasn’t an easy one for me to make. I am actually hoping that you and I will be able to write and that I can visit you here in the States as often as you will allow. As friends. Because I wouldn’t be able to entirely let you go. Even if you married.”

Tears overwhelmed her. He didn’t even sound like Robinson anymore, and what was worse, this man was giving up on them without even fighting. “You remember your life. Don’t you?”

He wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Yes.”

Raising herself up onto her stockinged toes, she leaned toward him, closing the space between them, and planted a gentle, pleading kiss on his full lips. “Don’t give up on me quite yet. Fight for me, regardless of what you remember. Fight for us. We can do this. We can take on London. I know we can.”

He stiffened.

She pulled away and disclosed in a soft tone, “I’m sorry I was bein’ stubborn earlier and wasn’t willin’ to compromise, given your duty to your father and your title. You have responsibilities to your name and family and I understand that now. I don’t have a family dependin’ on me the way you have your father dependin’ on you. Which is why I intend to bend. I don’t want the west. I want you.”

R
OBINSON
’
S
JAW
TIGHTENED
AS
HE
resisted his need to grab Georgia and demand she not give him any hope when there was none to be had. A hot, clenching ache arose deep inside his throat as she blinked up at him, bringing attention to those incredible emerald eyes.

He tossed his hat and gloves to the floor and grabbed her. Ignoring the pinch of his still-raw palm, he pulled her roughly into his chest, burying her softness against his body. He possessively wrapped one arm tightly around her slim shoulders and pressed his other hand against her smooth cheek, feeling as if his chest would explode.

She gazed up at him, those pretty strawberry curls swaying against the sides of her freckled face.

His body overheated in anguished yearning. He kicked the door shut with his booted heel, making her stiffen against the resounding bang of wood hitting the frame.

Her green eyes widened.

He firmly pressed his hands to the sides of that silken face. “Georgia,” he whispered, holding her gaze. “Even if I were to change my mind, you would only be molding yourself into something you are not. You deserve so much more.”

Tears traced down her cheeks. “All that matters is that I’m your wife.”

He swallowed. “God, Georgia, don’t…don’t do this to me. I’m not about to let you destroy the last of you by making you kneel before others. I’d have to kill everyone to ensure they didn’t look at you as if you were some—some…rag. I wouldn’t be able to function.”

“I can put up my own two fists, Robinson,” she whispered.

“I know that, and though I love that about you, you’ve been putting them up for much too long and I…” Unable to stay away anymore, he lowered his mouth to hers. Forcing her mouth open, he urgently sought that hot satin tongue and buried his own tongue within the softness of her mouth. He ground his tense body against hers and devoured that mouth all the more, refusing to think about this being their final kiss.

Blindly exploring the soft outline of her smooth face through their kisses, he gently trailed his fingers alongside its soft surface. How he wanted to forever melt into that skin.

Slowly, he dragged his fingers away from her face and up into that thick, silky hair, enveloping himself with the beautiful sensation of touching her. As he sank deeper and deeper into the storming waves of a passion he knew he had never felt for
any
woman. He pressed himself harder against her, pushing her breasts and every inch of her body toward him with the hopes of remembering her without stripping her bare.

Her hands pushed at his chest, breaking their kiss.

She scrambled outside of his embrace. “Don’t be kissin’ me like that unless you plan on keepin’ me.”

He reopened his eyes. He had to be stronger than this. For her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

She smoothed her hair away from the sides of her face. “I’m willin’ to fight for you. I’m willin’ to become everythin’ you want and need me to be. All you need to do is say you want me and it’s done.”

A shaky breath escaped his lips. “I won’t let you crawl in my name. I love you too much. We will simply have to accept that you will never be anything more than my dearest Georgia from Orange Street.”

She stared at him as if she had just been slapped despite his proclamation of love.

Narrowing her gaze, she bit out, “You barely got your mind back and you’re already feckin’ it all up. In case you didn’t know, Robinson, Orange Street is just that. A street. I have two feet to take me to any place I want to call my own. And I plan on doin’ exactly that. You told me you needed a woman to more than love you. You told me you needed a woman willin’ to fight for you even when you’re unable to fight for yourself. And seein’ you’ve stopped fightin’, I’m about to prove my love to you in a way you have yet to prove yours.”

Turning, she hurried over to the wardrobe and flung the doors open with a bang. Yanking all of her dresses off the hangers, she stuffed them into her wool sack. Shoving her feet into her boots, she yanked up the sack into her arms and turned toward him. “I’m headin’ over to Orange Street one last time and havin’ myself some whiskey with the boys. I’ll be back in the mornin’ to settle some business with your father, but just so you know, this’ll be goodbye until we see each other again next spring. I’ll see you at the opening of the Season. That’s when you and I will make our relationship public.”

Heat flooded his face. “What?”

“I’ll be visitin’ you in London,
Lord Yardley
. And I’m announcin’ here and now that I’m goin’ to make you
crawl
in a way you never crawled for
any
woman before. I hope you’re ready for it.”

He glanced toward her, capturing her gaze. “I’m trying to protect you and love you in the best way I know how. Why won’t you let me?”

Her features twisted as she rounded him, tugging her sack tighter against her chest. “Because I love you
and
myself too much to settle for anythin’ less than a life together. I’ll see you next year, Brit. And mind you, look both ways before crossin’ any street. I need you in one piece.” She hurried past and headed toward the door, pulling it open.

He turned to follow her, his chest tightening. “Georgia, I don’t want you doing this. Not for me.”

“This isn’t just for you. It’s also for me. See you in April, Robinson. And don’t worry. I’ll make sure I make you look good.” With that, she tugged her sack of clothes up toward herself and hurried out and into the corridor, disappearing from sight.

Winded, Roderick trailed over to the bed she hadn’t even had the chance to sleep in and sat heavily on its edge, staring at the floor. Dearest God. How he prayed she didn’t come to London. How he prayed. For her sake. Not his.