Unraveling the Earl (24 page)

“Then what has caused your sudden madness?”

“You have caused my sudden madness,” he answered, unable to
hold back a smile as he watched her tug at the buttons of one lace glove. “Give
me your hand.”

Georgie complied immediately, leaning forward to offer her
right hand palm up across the space that separated them.

“I hardly think I have single-handedly driven you around the
bend,” she said as he set to work on the buttons at her wrist. “I won’t deny that
I might have given you a little nudge, but you were already on your way.”

“Why?” The tiny amethyst buttons proved to be trickier than
he could have imagined.

“Pull the gems off,” Georgie suggested. “You seem in need of
a smidgeon of madness.”

“No, why—”

“Did I open a floodgate in your sister’s foyer?” she
interrupted. ““It was rather something of a surprise to learn that while I was
promising Lady Joy that I would allow the past to stay buried, a death-bed
promise mind you, she knew I would not hold to my word. I needed a moment to
gather my wits. And your uncle seemed quite ready to raise a ruckus. I had to
turn things around.”

“No, why did you run away?”

“From Idyllwild, you mean?

“From Idyllwild and from me.”

“Just give a good yank, my lord, and jewels will come right
off,” she said, lowering her head over their hands. “Tag can sew them onto
something else. It’s not as if I shall ever wear this gown again so what need
have I for amethyst-studded gloves?”

Henry yanked, the delicate thread snapped and a small
amethyst no bigger than a tear fell to the floor.

“Don’t lose the jewels,” Georgie cautioned, bending down to
pluck up the gem and toss it to the seat beside him. “They belonged to Lady Joy
and I’ve a sentimental attachment to them.”

“You are the daughter of a duke.” In all the commotion of
her latest staged drama, he’d not had time to process that bit of knowledge.

“Did you not know?” she asked, her eyes widening.

“How should I have known?”

“I told you my father was George Buchanan,” she replied.

“And from that one clue I should have deduced all?”

“’Tis true, he was only duke for two years and was never
expected to inherit the title at all, being the third son of a forth son. But
Buchanans were dropping like flies for a time. Why, my grandfather held the
dukedom for only a month. But as Lady Joy liked to tell anyone who would
listen, once a duchess always a duchess and I suppose it holds true for dukes’
daughters, as well.”

As Georgie beamed a smile his way and another gem came loose
to be caught on his palm, Henry made the connection. “Gilroy Buchanan, the Duke
of Mountjoy.”

“Are you acquainted with Killjoy, then?”

“Mountjoy is your cousin.” The duke was a degenerate rake,
an ugly carrot-topped man as tall as a mountain with hands the size of ale
kegs. And odd purple eyes, darker than Georgie’s and forever filled with
challenge, most often involving bare-knuckle brawling.

“Twice removed.”

“I suppose he adores you,” Henry suggested, knowing it was
so. How could anyone, man or woman, spend more than a day or two in her
presence and not come to adore her?

“He likes to pretend I am little more than a pesky burden,”
she replied with a husky laugh. “But I know better.”

“Perfect.”

Henry had been dallying with the Duke of Mounjoy’s beloved
cousin. He’d had her six ways to Sunday and even now, as he held her hand in
his and she smiled at him in the close confines of a decadent boudoir on
wheels, he wanted her again. And again and again.

“Why did you leave me?”

“Oh, you mustn’t take it personally, my lord,” she replied,
tugging at her hand.

Henry refused to release her, bending over to pluck at the
third and final jeweled button at her wrist.

“We made a bad bargain.”

Critchley had said as much when he’d relayed their tea-time
conversation.

“What is your fascination with raspberry crumble?” he asked
as the button came lose.

“Have you never noticed that most people dive right into a
dish of crumble?” she asked.

“I can’t say that I have.” Henry removed the loosened glove,
allowing his fingertips to trace the lines on her palm. Her hands were
beautiful, long-fingered and delicate, her skin pale and soft.

“That tickles,” Georgie pulled her hand away with a giggle
that reminded him with startling clarity that she was but a girl. Twenty years
old and oddly innocent for all that she was a siren, forever luring him into
lunacy.

“I myself like to know what I am eating.” Georgie picked up
the thread of their conversation as she presented her left hand.

“And be assured it was never possessed of a face.”

“What do you suppose your sister served for dinner?”

“You might have found out had you not set about deceiving
your hostess.” Henry pulled free the first button, carefully placing it on the
seat beside him with the others.

“Do you think I’ll ever be invited back?”

“Most definitely.”

Olivia would hardly host a dinner without inviting his wife.

Henry was going to marry the saucy wench. He could see no
other option, leastwise one that would allow him to hold to his honor, not to
mention his head, if he continued to bed her.

And he fully intended to bed Georgie as often and as well as
he could manage.

“You dip your spoon right in, never expecting anything less
than sweet cream.”

“When I eat raspberry crumble?” Henry looked up from his
task as the second button came away with no effort whatsoever.

“Each day when you arise from your bed, or some lucky
lady’s,” Georgie replied with a mischievous grin. “You open your eyes and
expect nothing but sugar and spice and everything nice.”

“Whereas you expect fuzzy mold?”

“I don’t expect it, but I sniff about on the off chance I
might find it.”

“You are an uncommon woman.” Henry bent over her hand again,
deciding she’d given him more insight into her mind in the past five minutes
than in all the time they’d spent together previously. Now if he could only
discover what was in her heart.

“And you are an uncommon gentleman.”

“Yet you left me. Twice.”

“You could not hold to your end of our bargain.”

“I did not understand… I did not see…” he stammered, both
shamed and saddened by her whispered words.

“You were willfully blind.”

Freeing the final button, Henry looked up to find her
looking straight back at him with a smile so tender, so soft and sweet, he felt
his heart stutter in his chest.

“No, Georgie,” he replied quietly. “Foolishly, but never willfully.”

“You thought to make me your mistress and thereby slam shut
every door I need to enter in order to find my mother,” she said, not in
condemnation but in acceptance of that one simple truth. “You would have
relocated me, and my neighbors would have known who and what I was before I’d
unpacked so much as one trunk. You wanted to drape me in diamonds and parade me
through the theater on the third Thursday following opening night and sequester
me in a closed carriage and a private box at Vauxhall, thereby heightening
curiosity as to my identity. How long do you suppose it would have been before
my name was mentioned in the papers?”

“Georgie, love,” Henry began, only to realize he’d hadn’t
words to express his remorse.

“Your terms did not suit me.” She shrugged one shoulder. “So
I left.”

“We can renegotiate the terms.” The words fell from his lips
without premeditation and Georgie reared back, surprise and something else,
something cold and brittle shining in her eyes.

“I’ve no desire for jewels or fancy carriages or cramped
little houses on lesser streets, my lord.” When she’d every reason to heap a
dunghill of disdain over his head, she’d given him only honesty and acceptance.
Now she showered him with mocking contempt. “I have no need of an allowance or
pin money. And I’ve hatched a new scheme for locating my mother, one that does
not necessitate spreading my legs.”

“There is more between us than a bloody bargain,” Henry
replied as his temper sparked.

“My entire life has been a series of bargains,” she said,
catching his gaze and holding it. “Tit for tat, my lord.”

“Leave off my lording me,” he growled. “And quit trying to
convince me I was nothing more than a means to an end.”

“Honestly Lord Hastings, have you not figured it out?” she
taunted, her voice rising to echo around the carriage. “I have traded by body
for one thing or another since I was ten and six. My virginity went for a kind
word and a pair of fleece-lined mittens, what little remained of my virtue I
traded to Jacob for his father’s skill with a scalpel—”

“Jacob’s father was a physician of the Hebrew faith,” he
interrupted as comprehension dawned and one more piece of the puzzle that was
Georgie Buchanan fell into place. “You sent Dr. Goldman to mend Charlie’s
foot.”

“Do not attempt to make a saint of me,” she drawled. “I have
schemed and seduced and lied through my teeth to get to where I am today. You
were but the latest in a line of men who offered up something I wanted.”

Henry was shocked silent as her words registered and he
realized that she’d given him the truth, or a warped version of it, for perhaps
the first time since he’d found her strolling through Somerville.

“You have nothing to offer me.” Her voice cut through the
silence like the final lash of a whip unerringly finding its mark on flesh made
tender from the strokes that fell before.

“I have my heart to offer.” The words were out before the
thought fully formed.

“Your heart?” Georgie repeated with a husky laugh that
grated over his nerves like sandpaper. “Whatever would I do with your heart?
I’ve one of my own and as far as I am concerned it is a useless, jagged weight
beneath my breast.”

“Then take mine.”

“I do not want your heart,” Georgie retorted, clearly
striving to hold on to amused condescension and missing the mark when her voice
wobbled. “I never sought it. I warned you not to give it, not to fall under my
spell. But you would not listen. You just had to run about lapping up fuzzy
mold believing it to be sweet cream. You are a stupid man, stupid and foolish
and blind.”

For a blind man, the Earl of Hastings had keen eyesight.

“What the bloody hell is Dobbins doing here?”

“Good evening, Bobbin,” Georgie greeted her new butler as
she started up the dozen steps that lead to the immense double doors guarding
her home away from home. “There appears to be a bit of riffraff loitering about
on the walkway.”

“Shall I chase him off?” the tall man asked, his pale eyes
lighting with glee.

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.” She needed his
lordship gone before she lost what little remained of her wits and did
something she would regret. In her entire misbegotten life Georgie had garnered
but one true regret and her mangled heart hadn’t room to harbor another.

“Damn it Georgie,” Henry snarled as he caught up with her.
“Why is Mother’s butler’s answering your door?”

“Mr. Bobbin is now my butler,” she said, handing her
buttonless gloves to the butler in question. “Lord Hastings was just leaving.”

“I am not going anywhere,” the earl argued.

“You’ll leave if Miss Buchanan says you’re to leave.”

“Who’s going to make me?”

“I am.”

“You and who else?”

“I need no assistance tossing you out the door.”

“You might consider what happened to you the last time you
attempted to toss someone out the door.”

“You sound like two spoiled boys,” Georgie said, spinning
around in the spacious foyer. “Next you’ll be dancing around one another,
neither of you daring to throw the first punch.”

Henry and Bobbin eyed one another, the former clearly
itching to prove her wrong while the latter stood balanced on the balls of his
feet, ready to bob and weave.

“Oh, for mercy’s sake,” Georgie muttered. “Stand down,
Bobbin, and send Tag up to help me undress.”

“Miss Alogne is off playing with that so and so from next
door,” her butler replied, stepping back from imminent danger.

“She’s gone off with that bloke, what’s his name?” Brain
asked as he stepped into the hall.

“Ralph,” Georgie supplied, watching Henry from the corner of
her eye.

His lordship seemed inordinately curious about her home, if
she were to judge from the way he was spinning around with his mouth agape. Had
he never seen a great hall done up in plush scarlet damask with gold finishes?

“What’s she doing with him?” Brain asked, proving himself to
be as woefully blind and stupid as the other blond man in her house.

“If you must ask you wouldn’t understand,” Georgie replied
as Henry angled his head back to take in the mural of naked nymphs dancing
across the domed ceiling.

“She won’t allow him to kiss her, will she?” Poor Brain sounded
forlorn at the possibility.

“Might be she’ll allow more than a kiss,” Georgie replied,
losing her patience with the male population as a whole.

“She wouldn’t.”

“Let me give you a bit of advice, Brian Reginald Buchanan,”
Georgie began, advancing on the boy who ought to have been old enough to behave
like a man.

“Buchanan?” Henry repeated. “You’re related?”

“Cousins, four times removed,” she replied.

“Then why is he acting as your footman?”

“Georgie’s a hoot,” Brain said. “And she pays top wages.”

“Listen well, my over-paid cousin.” Georgie clasped his
cheeks in her hands, his downy whiskers soft against her palms.

“I’m listening.”

“A woman likes to know she is desired.” Georgie felt Henry’s
eyes on her as she offered up one of the few truly astute pieces of knowledge
she’d collected in her lifetime.

“Ah, Georgie, I know all about that sort of thing,” Brain
replied, blushing beet red. “How could I not, working for you?”

“And if the man she wants does not demonstrate his desire,
if he does not make it abundantly clear, she will go searching elsewhere,” she
continued. “And like as not, she will never forgive you for sending her into
another man’s arms.”

“You think Tag is searching elsewhere?”

“Have you made your desire as crystal clear as Loch Canon on
an autumn morning?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Then march out back to the mews and pry Mrs. Fontaine’s
pimply faced groom’s hands from your woman,” Georgie ordered. “And when you’ve
dragged Tag away, by her hair if you must, you be sure to leave her with no
further doubts.”

“What if I am too late?”

“You’ll learn to live with the loss,” she said, patting his
cheek and stepping back. “Likely in the arms of another woman, or a string of
other women. You might begin with Mrs. Fontaine as she seems the sort to
welcome any man to her bed, even one with no idea what to do when he gets
there.”

Henry let loose a guffaw that turned into the sorriest
excuse for a cough she’d ever heard as Brain hurried down the hall as if chased
by the hounds of hell, or Mrs. Fontaine attempting to goose his bottom.

“Now then, I’m stitched into this god-awful gown.” Georgie
turned about to find Henry looking back at her with the remnants of his aborted
laughter shining in his eyes and pulling at his lips while Bobbin stared up at
the ceiling. “As Tag is otherwise occupied, one way or another, you’ll need to
cut me loose, Bobbin.”

“I’ll slice off your hand if you so much as reach for a pair
of scissors,” Henry told the older man with quiet precision.

“Call for one of the maids, will you?” Georgie requested.

“Cindy’s assisting Cookie in the kitchen,” Bobbin replied,
already turning away.

“Cindy has fingers like sausages,” Georgie replied with a
frown. “Is Maryellen already abed?”

“I believe the maids all went off to their quarters some
time ago.”

“I suppose I must trust that you won’t slice up my back,
Lord Hastings.” Georgie breezed past Henry and started up the curving
staircase, suspecting that instead of finding her scattered wits she would
likely find herself flat on her back.

Ah, well, what did her wits matter when compared to spending
just one more night with the too beautiful and too damn sweet earl.

Henry was beside her before she’d reached the third step. “I
won’t slice up your back.”

“You’ve likely more experience cutting away a woman’s gown
than the average lady’s maid,” she agreed, peaking at him from the corner of
her eye. “Have you been in Mrs. Fontaine’s bed?”

“I only just made her acquaintance this afternoon.”

As sidesteps went, Henry’s was a tad on the weak side but
Georgie let it slide. She was no longer his mistress, after all. What right did
she have to demand fidelity from the randy earl who would swive anything in
skirts?

And if the thought of him in another woman’s arms filled her
with fury and a hollow sort of pain, it would pass. If not today or tomorrow,
then in a week or two, a month at the most.

When she found her mother she would disappear from his life,
and he from hers.

Until such time, she need only avoid him as best she could,
no easy feat considering her success depended upon the kindness of his
relations.

She should have thought of another way to coax Lord Somerton
from his blustery temper fit. Alas, all thoughts of strategy, of manipulation
and tactics, had flown right out the window the moment Henry had scooped her into
his arms, pulling her tight against his chest and crooning in her ear.

“I desire you, Georgie.” Henry’s voice was low and oddly
fierce. “You will never have cause to doubt it, to search elsewhere and fall
into another man’s arms by default.”

Georgie blinked against an unaccountable moisture gathering
in her eyes.

“I haven’t your gift for words,” he continued. “I’ll likely
say the wrong thing, or say nothing at all when words are required. But I will
demonstrate my desire as often as you will allow.”

“I don’t…I haven’t…a gift…” she stammered, staring straight
ahead lest he guess he’d chosen just the right words to soften her heart.

“I imagine I will muck things up on a daily basis, become
unhinged no less than twice weekly and possibly lose my mind altogether at some
point in the not too distant future.”

Laughter tripped from Georgie’s lips, broken and weak.

“You will be forced to forgive me time and again.”

“And will you forgive me?” she whispered, knowing full well
her sins, past, present and future, were beyond forgiveness.

“I cannot imagine you ever needing my forgiveness.”

“There you go again,” she cried, pulling her hand free of
his arm and sprinting ahead of him on the stairs. “You cannot continue to
wander through life seeing only the good.”

“I don’t,” he protested, hurrying to catch up with her.

“Everyone is not so good as you, so bloody principled and
blasted sweet.” Georgie reached the landing a step ahead of the earl and turned
about to face him.

Henry came to a halt, one hand gripping the railing, the
other reaching for her.

She batted his hand away. “I will not be the cause of your
disillusionment.”

“Of course you won’t,” he replied, his head angling to the
side and his eyes going all soft and mushy.

“And quit looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I am a puzzle you might solve if you only apply
yourself.” She poked him in the chest. “You cannot solve me. I am missing far
too many pieces.”

“Georgie.” Just that, just her name on a sigh had her vision
blurring.

“Stop it,” she shrieked, turning on her heel and marching
down the wide hallway, past a life-sized gilded statue of Atlas holding the
world aloft.

No good could ever come of the passion that sparked between
them, that even now had her heart racing and moisture pooling between her legs.

He’d offered up his heart, the foolish man, offered it right
up like a sacrifice to some vengeful goddess. Oh, what was her name? The
remorseless Greek goddess who turned herself into a goose egg only to have Zeus
turn her into a swan and have his way with her.

Pushing open two doors with giant roses carved into the
heavy wood, she strode into her bedchamber and turned to close the doors behind
her.

Henry was quick of foot if not of mind, she’d give him that.

“Rhamnusia,” she blurted, accountably relieved to have
pulled that one single bit of knowledge from the tumult of thoughts zigzagging
around in her mind. “I am Rhamnusia.”

“Who does that make me?” he asked with a crooked smile.

“A man made ridiculous by his stubborn desire to see a swan
in a goose-egg.” Determined not to be swayed by his amusement, by his charm and
by his too beautiful face and form, she stepped back until her bottom bumped
against the tall post of her bed.

“Rhamnusia was the goddess of what? Justice?” Henry turned
away, took two steps and halted, his gaze swinging from left to right and
finally to the ceiling above. “Holy mother of God!”

Georgie looked about the bedchamber she’d painstakingly
decorated over the course of the year she’d been in and out of London, choosing
each and every item, from the white lace drapes billowing at the open windows
to the wallpaper, a beautiful pattern of fat pink and yellow roses and trailing
greenery. A plush carpet in the same pastel shades covered the floor while a
fluffy down comforter and a dozen pillows picked up the pattern of the
wallpaper. The canopy above the bed was more white lace, pink and green ribbons
tying back the draped fabric.

All around, on nearly every surface, strewn across chairs,
tables, chests and a long settee, were dresses and shoes, corsets and
stockings, hats and fans. Jewels dripped from a vanity table crowded with
bottles and jars of perfume and lotion, ribbons and gem-studded hairpins, pearl
and ivory backed brushes and combs.

One lone stocking, gossamer thin and embroidered with
butterflies, hung from the chandelier, languidly blowing in the breeze.

“Did a milliner’s shop explode in your bedchamber?” He
ambled across the room to the vanity table.

“Of course not,” she huffed out, caught between indignation
and amusement.

“You’ve more lotions and potions than an apothecary’s shop,”
he continued, lifting one bottle to sniff at the stopper before replacing it on
the crowded table and carefully lining the lot of them up in order of height.
“No Dalrymple’s cream, I see.”

“I don’t have freckles,” she replied, giving in to
amusement.

“Neither does Miss Jillian Johnston,” he tossed back over
his shoulder. “Leastwise none that I noticed while leading her through a reel.”

“You danced with Silly at the assembly?”

“Someone had to,” he replied. “And the task fell to me, as
all of the other gentlemen seemed put off by her unfortunate choice of gown.”

“They were put off by her gown?”

“Celery green it was, the exact shade of her complexion.”

“And Mr. Martin, how many sets did he dance with Miss
Eleanor Brookes?” Georgie demanded as he moved on to inspect a petticoat so
stiff with starch it stood on its own in the corner.

“You turned that poor girl’s skin green solely to shift the
man’s gaze toward your friend,” he accused with a chuckle.

“How many sets?”

“Three,” he admitted, turning to cross to a mountain of silk
and muslin strewn across the settee. “You need a lady’s maid.”

“Tag has settled into the role.” Georgie watched him lift
the top garment, a simple walking dress of pale green, celery one might call
it.

“You wouldn’t know it by this room.”

“I like to see my ensembles spread out so that I can decide
which to wear,” Georgie replied a bit defensively as he made his way to her
desk.

“All of them?” He pawed through a pile of corsets, each one
frillier than the last.

“Of course not. These are only those garments I considered
and discarded.”

“In the last year?” Henry lifted a yellow bonnet, turned it
this way and that before tossing it back onto a listing mound of shifts,
sending one lacy pink garment tumbling to the floor.