Unraveling the Earl (29 page)

Killjoy studied her and she fought to keep her features free
of the tumult of emotions ricocheting around within her. Finally he gave a nod
that sent his shaggy curls tumbling. “Good enough. Now where do you suppose a
man might find a bottle of whiskey?”

“I happen to know where Somerton keeps his stash.”

As one the cousins turned to find the Earl of Hastings
standing just behind them.

Dressed in a black jacket of the finest brocade silk over a
gray waistcoat, a starched white cravat tied into an intricate knot that
reached to his chin, and dark breeches that hugged his long, muscular legs, he
might have stepped from the pages of one of the romance novels Tag was forever
reading.

The swelling around his eye had subsided, the color faded to
mottled shades of green and yellow that only highlighted the blue of his eyes.
His golden curls had been tamed and slicked back from his forehead but for one
unruly lock that hung over his brow.

Georgie’s twisting and twirling nerves subsided, her
unaccountable fury and pain ebbed away, leaving her wallowing in a lust so
great, so blessedly pure, she smiled.

Lust was an old and welcome friend, one she understood, one
that did not frighten her, did not cause her to doubt her plans, doubt herself.

“Mountjoy.” Henry gave the disreputable duke his due in the
form of a low bow.

“Ach, leave off with the bloody bowing and scraping,”
Killjoy ordered.

“Miss Buchanan,” the earl turned and kicked out a leg as he
offered the rebuffed courtesy her way, his lips lifting in a crooked smile and
his eyes going all tender. “You are looking especially lovely this evening.”

“Why thank you, Lord Hastings.” Bobbing a curtsy, she batted
her lashes for all she was worth and dipped down low enough to give him a good
look down her bodice.

“So, where’s this stash of whiskey hiding?” Killjoy asked
with a raspy chuckle.

“Did I hear someone speaking of whiskey?” the Earl of
Somerton asked as he joined them. “Lord knows I could use a tot, what with
allowing all manner of ruffians and their womenfolk into my home. Will you join
us, Hastings?”

“I’d much prefer to lead Miss Buchanan about the floor if
she’s saved me a spot on her dance card.” Henry’s hand settled on the small of
her back.

Together they watched as the heads of their families
disappeared from the ballroom, Somerton’s voice booming out a dire prediction
that this would be the last year he allowed his daughter to host her shindig in
his home.

“Where have you been, love,” Henry murmured, his fingers
drifting dangerously close to the swell of her bottom.

“It took an awfully long time to wind our way through the
line of carriages,” she answered, dancing around the true question.

“No, not tonight,” he replied with a chuckle. “These past
two weeks. I’ve not seen you at all but for that one dinner.”

“I saw you at the theater,” she said as he led her to the
dance floor. “Across the pit, surrounded by a harem.”

“It wasn’t as it appeared.” Henry peered at her from the
corner of eyes, his lips twitching.

“As you wanted it to appear,” she corrected with a laugh.

“Saw right through me, did you?”

“Did you imagine I would run into your box and lop off Mrs.
Fontaine’s arm?”

“Only until I realized you would pick your battles better
than that.”

“I hadn’t a sword on me so victory would hardly have been
assured.”

“And there were far too many witnesses for you to claim
deniability with anything even remotely approaching plausibility,” he finished
with a laugh and it occurred to Georgie that she was going to miss this easy
banter, the teasing and laughter, as much as she would miss the wondrously
satisfying coupling.

“Tell me, my lord Henry, how is it done?”

“How is what done, love?” He turned her into his arms the
waited for a space on the dance floor to open.

“How do the ladies go about seducing you in crowded
ballrooms?”

“They don’t,” he replied. “Not any longer.”

“But if a lady, or better still, a shameless tart, had a
mind to have her way with you,” she persisted, “how would she go about it?”

“Don’t tease, love,” he murmured.

“Oh, I am not teasing, my lord.” Georgie rose onto her toes
and leaned in to whisper the words in his ear, lingered a moment to draw in his
scent.

“Damn me,” Henry growled, his fingers clenching on her back.
“I gave my word I wouldn’t touch you again until the wedding night.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t.” Georgie blew lightly into his
ear, smiling as he drew in a choppy breath.

“Georgie, a gentleman’s word is sacred.”

Their break in the dancers came and Henry swept her into the
waltz, effortlessly leading her around and around the floor crowded with ladies
and gentlemen from all walks of London life. He twirled her this way to avoid a
collision with a portly man and his equally portly partner, spun her that way
to forestall a clash with a couple who’d mistaken the waltz for a country reel,
until he finally found a relatively uncluttered space on the floor in which to
dance and spin her about for the sheer joy of it.

Georgie smiled as he whisked her around a corner, giggled
softly as the music soared and the pace of their steps soared right along with
it, and laughed aloud as Henry pulled her close enough to elicit a few gasps
from the dancers around them.

And all the while he held her gaze, one hand firm on her
back, the other lightly clasping her gloved fingers, his thumb brushing her
palm in time to the melody that surrounded them.

As the final notes wound to a close and the dancers slowed
almost to a sedate pace, Georgie whispered, “I’ve heard talk of a tower.”

“Don’t tempt me, love.”

“That sounds remarkably like a dare and you ought to know
the Buchanan who can resist a dare, or a wager for that matter, has yet to be
born.

“Is that so?” His eyes lit with amusement.

“Shall we place a friendly wager, my lord?” she asked,
stepping close enough that her hip brushed his thigh.

“What did you have in mind?” The music came to an end and he
bowed to her quick curtsy.

“I’ll wager my frilly drawers against your starched cravat I
can get you hard without so much as touching you.”

Henry looked about and, apparently satisfied no one was near
enough to hear their risqué banter, replied in a voice laced with husky
laughter, “That seems an unfair wager as I’ve yet to see a you in a pair of
drawers, frilly or otherwise. And I’m already as hard as I care to be with my
family and friends looking on.”

Georgie glanced down at his crotch with unabashed interest
and sure enough he was sporting a discernable bulge in his trousers. Peering up
at him through her lashes she slowly licked her lips.

“Have mercy, love,” he begged.

“Do you remember the feel of my lips around your cock?”

Henry swallowed, reached for her fingers and placed her hand
on his forearm with an audible slap. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

“I don’t want to kill you. Only swive you silly.”

“I want the same,” he muttered as he led her from the dance
floor. “You’ve no idea how I want you.”

“You want me flat on my back and yours to command.”

“Leave off, Georgie,” he ordered, his voice a gravelly
whisper.

“Or perhaps on my hands and knees with my bum in the air.”

“I gave my word as a gentleman.”

“Mayhap you would rather soixante-neuf,” Georgie mused.

“Soixante-neuf?” he repeated, steering her toward the
refreshment table just beyond the wallflowers lined up amid the wheat and
barley.

“Sixty-nine,” she translated helpfully.

“I am conversant in French.”

“We’ve yet to attempt it together.”

“Attempt what?”

“Soixante-neuf. We can try it if you’d like, but I must say
I’ve never found it terribly enjoyable. It’s deucedly hard for me to
concentrate on my part while…well, you know.”

“No, I don’t know.”

“I get caught up in my own pleasure.”

“All right, I give over.”

“You’ll take me to the tower?” Georgie released his arm to
clap her hands.

“No, what does it mean?” Henry replied around a huff of
laughter.

“Soixante-neuf?”

“That is what we’re discussing, isn’t it? What is it? A card
game? Billiards?”

Georgie blinked in surprise before letting lose a snort.

“Are you going to tell me?”

“Oh, good lord, of course you’ve never…I was your first,
after all. But surely you’ve heard of…no?” Georgie took hold of Henry’s arm and
dragged him past the ladies lined up along the wall and beyond the grains and
weeds in tall urns to a shadowy corner, suspecting she was about to win his
lordship’s starch-stiff cravat and the swiving of her life.

“At the same time?” Henry croaked, wanting to be certain he
hadn’t misunderstood Georgie’s rambling, though stunningly vivid, description
of an act he’d never heard of, much less experienced.

His betrothed truly was going to kill him.

But not before he swived her silly.

Forget silly, he was going to roger her senseless.

“The tower. Five minutes.”

Christ, was that his voice? He sounded deranged, as if he’d
come completely and totally unhinged.

“Does that mean I’ve won the wager?”

“Four minutes and fifty seconds. Don’t make me wait.”

Henry turned and started back the way they’d come, lust
coiling low in his belly and pulsing down his pike-hard shaft.

Passing Lord Everett where he lingered near the line of
ladies lacking dance partners, he filched a glass of punch from his cousin’s
hand.

“I say, Hastings, bad form,” Everett called to his back.

Henry downed the rum-spiked libation in three quick swallows
and tossed the glass into an urn sprouting wilting green grass and oat stalks.

Just ahead Lady Talbot and another woman, a raven-haired beauty
whose name he could not recall but with whom he’d once shared a rollicking ride
in his carriage, watched his approach.

“Good evening, Lord Hastings.” Lady Talbot greeted him with
a graceful curtsy while her friend smiled like a cat in the cream.

“Lady Talbot,” he called out without slowing his steps.
“And…er…my apologies.”

Rather than taking offense at his poor memory, the
dark-haired lady laughed gaily as she stepped into his path. “Are you going out
for a breath of fresh air all alone?”

“I’m in rather a hurry,” he answered, stepping left.

She matched his move and laid her hand on his arm. “I don’t
recall you being the sort to hurry. Shall I accompany you outside to determine
if memory serves me well?”

“Have you not heard?” Lady Talbot asked her friend.

“Heard what?” the other lady replied.

“I’m off the market.” Henry feinted to the right and dodged
to the left, leaving the lady teetering over her own two feet. “Tell all your
friends.”

Every french door on the wall was thrown open in deference
to the warm August night and Henry sailed through the first one he came upon
only to find the terrace packed with bodies.

“Hastings,” Jasper Clive called out from across the way.

Beside him, Cybil Fairley beamed a smile at her former
lover, no matter that her current lover was standing not two feet away.

“I say, chap, come and join us,” Benedict Edwards, Lord
Carlton, invited with a wave. “We’ve heard the damndest bit of gossip about you
and a certain Scots lass.”

Ignoring his two friends and his former mistress, Henry
turned to the left, nearly knocking Lord Casterbury off his feet.

“Pardon,” both men mumbled, doing a little jig in an attempt
to get around one another.

“For pity’s sake,” Henry ground out, taking the older man by
the shoulders and bodily moving him out of the way.

His name was called out a dozen or more times as he plowed
through the laughing and flirting throng, tossing out nods to this acquaintance
and that and evading one gloved hand after another until he reached the edge of
the terrace and took another left.

The north section of the stone veranda was less populated
and measurably darker without the light spilling from the ballroom. Passing a
couple arguing in one corner and another flirting behind a potted palm, he
found the door to the tower.

He twisted the ornate handle, his fingers tangling in a fat
pink ribbon someone had discarded on the cool iron.

Inside all was dark and quiet, the space cool and slightly
damp, and he speedily picked his way up the spiraling stairs.

Dizzy from the winding ascent and the simple fact that all
of the blood had rushed from his head to his cock in anticipation, Henry pushed
open the door and barreled out onto top of the tower.

A circular stone balcony wrapped around the tower. London
spread out as far as the eye could see, lights glinting and flickering,
transforming the city into a wonderland of twisting roads and passageways
beneath a dark sky.

It might have been a lovely sight, breathtaking in fact, had
it not been for the pale arse pumping away between a pair of stocking-clad legs
at the hip-high wall encircling the balcony.

“We’ve company,” a woman’s voice warned with no apparent
concern.

“Is it your husband?”

If Henry wasn’t mistaken the gentleman’s voice belonged to
one of his cousins, Barron White’s boy down from university.

A blonde head rose over Jeremy White’s shoulder and a pair
of dark eyes peered at Henry through the gloom before disappearing again with a
giggle and a hushed whisper.

“Hastings, by God you old so and so,” Jeremy White called
out without so much as slowing his energetic lunging. “Didn’t you see the
damned ribbon on the door knob?”

“Watch you don’t toss Mrs. Miles clear off the tower,” Henry
warned as he turned away and yanked open the door.

He hadn’t a clue what his cousin meant about the damned
ribbon and couldn’t spare a thought to figure it out as he descended the stairs
in the dark, a more treacherous journey than the ascension and one that
necessitated he slow his steps.

Where the hell was he to take Georgie now?

He considered and tossed away a multitude of options without
landing upon a single place that might provide the privacy required.

He’d coupled in gardens and gazebos, dark alcoves and
miniscule pantries, libraries and linen closets all over London but none of
those places guaranteed privacy.

It was one thing to risk the reputation of any woman daring
enough to lure him away from a ballroom but he would not risk the reputation of
his future countess.

Yanking open the door, he strode onto the terrace expecting
to find Georgie waiting for him.

Only the flirting couple inhabited the shadowy space.

Except they’d progressed well beyond an innocent flirtation
to a wiggling, groping, panting embrace. The young man had the lady pressed to
the stone wall, one hand fumbling at the neckline of her gown, the other
lifting her ruffled skirts above one plump thigh.

Henry turned away with a muttered oath the couple either did
not hear or chose to ignore. He ought to walk away but Georgie would be
arriving any moment and he would be damned if he would miss the opportunity to
roger her senseless simply because everywhere he went he found couples in
various stages of the same.

“Harder.” The feminine command whispered around a breathy
moan had Henry peering back over his shoulder.

“Like this?” Her lover asked as he forced his hand farther
down into her bodice.

“Pinch the tip,” she begged, curling one leg around his hips
and pulling him tight against her. “Harder.”

The young man must have been a bit heavy-handed, for the
girl let loose a piercing cry quickly muffled against his shoulder.

“Sorry,” the boy muttered.

“Harder,” she begged, proving that both gentlemen had
mistaken her cry of pleasure for one of pain. “Rub against me…Yes, yes, just
there.”

The young lady certainly was a bossy creature, Henry decided
as he gave up and pivoted around to watch the pair grind against one another
through their clothing. The man’s panting breaths gained volume until he
sounded rather like a locomotive while the lady whispered increasingly louder
and more demanding orders.

The sight of the lovers wrestling in the shadows, the sound
of their passion had Henry’s desire spiking until his vision blurred and his
cock pressed painfully against the buttons of his trousers.

“Yes…yes…yes,” the young lady gasped, her gloved hands
squeezing the boy’s ass, pulling him hard against her and moving his hips in a
circular motion.

The boy let out a low groan and bucked against her as he
found relief.

“Damn it,” Henry rasped, his hands balling at his sides and
his chest heaving with each strangled breath he drew.

By God, he was going to fuck Georgie until she could not
walk, fuck her until she could not see straight, and fuck her some more for
tempting him into madness with her suggestive whispers and vivid descriptions
only to leave him waiting and wanting.

A husky laugh carried on the breeze and he spun away from
the panting couple in time to see Georgie turn the corner. Light from the
torches flickered over her face and set her piled-high curls aflame.

And just behind her, Clive and Carlton watched the sway of
her hips beneath her emerald gown as she hurried along the stone veranda.

The sight of his future bride walking away from two of
London’s most notorious libertines with the remnants of her laughter hovering
on her lips did queer things to his innards. Tangled his guts into a tight ball
and shot a sharp pain to his chest.

There was something both inherently wrong and innately right
in the picture the trio presented, as if they were but a portion of an old
tapestry whose threads had frayed, leaving the tableau distorted. If he could
just weave the tattered strands together he might comprehend the significance
of the scene portrayed.

Between one breath and the next, Henry gathered the tattered
threads only to discover they weren’t threads of a tapestry at all but rather
missing pieces of a puzzle. Pieces bargained away by a girl who’d lied and
schemed and seduced in order to become the lady who came to a stop before him.

From behind him or perhaps beside him, all around him,
bouncing off the wall and beating against his temples, he heard the soft sounds
of an old lullaby, the same lullaby Georgie had been humming as she cooked
breakfast in the kitchen at Idyllwild.

“Henry, I’m sorry I’m late, but I didn’t know where the
tower was located.” A slow smile bloomed across her face, lighting up her eyes,
and it was only when her lilting voice drowned out the melody that he realized
it was in his head.

Through his shock and awakening horror he felt the force of
her smile and the pull of her sensuality, like a magnet holding him in place
though he knew he ought to turn and walk away, to search out a private place to
quiet his thoughts and rein in his sparking temper.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” Jasper Clive called
out. “You’ve chosen a fine woman.”

“The finest,” Lord Carlton added with chuckle that mocked
everything Henry had believed about the fine woman standing before him.

Without a word, Henry latched on to Georgie’s hand and
turned back the way he’d come, ignoring the niggling voice in his head that
warned he was starting down a path that could only lead to disaster.

Georgie laughed as they passed the couple murmuring in the
shadows while they fumbled to right their disheveled clothing and it occurred
to Henry that she’d likely witnessed dozens of couples frolicking in the years
she’d lived in Mountjoy’s crumbling castle, allowed dozens to witness her at
the same.

“I think the tower’s occupied, as there’s a ribbon tied to
the knob,” Georgie pointed out with a giggle, and the sweet, innocent sound was
so entirely at odds with the carnal woman he knew her to be that it was all he
could do not to howl in rage.

Where in all that was holy could a man find some privacy in
this great mausoleum?

He barked out a raspy laugh when the answer came to him.
Tightening his grip on her fingers, he ducked beneath a stone arch and hauled
her down a short flight of stairs to a narrow, little-used door to the oldest
wing of the house, a door that creaked as it opened into a dim hall and shadowy
staircase. With his heart beating a tattoo in his chest and his blood roaring
through his veins, he towed her up to the fourth floor of his uncle’s house
where all was quiet but for the sawing of his breath and the tap of her
high-heeled slippers on the floorboards.

Georgie said not a word but simply followed where he lead,
as docile as a lamb. Her silent compliance seemed an admission of some kind,
one he could not work out in his mind.

Pushing open a warped old door, he pulled her into a room
crammed with trunks piled atop half a dozen wooden pews and discarded furniture
stacked nearly to the beamed ceiling. Two stained glass windows set deep into
the gray stone wall caught the moon’s rays, creating a muted prism of shifting,
shimmering red, green and blue light. Atop a raised dais sat a listing pulpit
and an immense chair fashioned of intricately carved wood and frayed velvet,
the forgotten throne of some bygone clergyman with illusions of grandeur.

“A chapel?” Georgie sounded scandalized for the first, and
only time, in their acquaintance.

“Not since the sixteenth century.” Henry yanked her into the
room, releasing her hand and watching as she twirled down the aisle, coming to
a stop before the dais, her skirts swirling around her legs.

Painted red moonlight streamed over her face, turning her
eyes into iridescent jewels and coloring her smile a deep burgundy. Blue light
shimmered across the swell of her bosom rising above the neckline of her gown
and trailed over her slim waist and narrow hips. Green light limed her long
legs as her skirts settled above silver slippers. .

“Gracious, my lord, how wicked you are.” Georgie sashayed
back up the aisle, deliberately swinging her hips from side to side in a
blatantly sensual manner and tugging at the glove covering her left hand.

She slowly prowled nearer, the light playing over her
features, shifting from red to green to blue until she no longer resembled his
Georgie at all. She was a kaleidoscope of colors splashed over canvas. On that
canvas was painted the image of a naked girl sprawled across a tangle of linen
and velvet, bound hand and foot, faceless men and women crawling over her,
pawing between her legs and squeezing her breasts.