Page 81 of Lessons for Marquesses
He walked her to the settle, bending her, one hand to her angular shoulders, another at her slim middle, to get her to sit. He eased in beside her, their arms brushing intimately.
She inched away.
He wanted to soothe her fears.Liar. He wanted more. He would start at her hair, letting the tousled crimson waves slip through his fingers. He lifted his hand, and in the sudden softening of her lithe form he saw that she waited for him, wanted him to touch her.
Nicholas dropped his hand. He would never, never give in to his fantasy.
Shoving from the settle, he found a safe distance from which to observe her objectively. He’d have to leap over a chair and a tea table to get to her. Still, he took one more step back.
“Why don’t you divulge your debt troubles further with me?” he asked.
“Have you decided against the partnership?”
Seven days. If he agreed, she would expect the miracle of his funds before this. “I will have my decision after I view Chedworth.”
By the look of it, she felt a little ill at his delaying tactic.
“Nothing happened with Lady Sybil,” he said out of the blue.
Her gaze turned cool as she lifted her chin. "I’m sure I don’t know your meaning.” Leaping to her feet, she tugged her sleeves over her lace cuffs. “I will go, now. My apologies for interrupting you.” She took the long route about the breakfast table and skirted him widely.
Nicholas blocked her path in two steps. “Have you offered yourself to others?”
Color flamed her fair cheeks. Georgiana had learned to detect sexual innuendo in a few short weeks. She had also learned to ignore it. "If my aunt finds me here, she promised to nail the door shut.”
“She doesn’t trust you?”
“She doesn’t trustyou. And if I may be frank, I rather don’t trust you either.” She finished her bold statement with a glance to the narrow space between them, less than an arm’s length and easily closed.
"I like it when you are frank,” he said. "Have you any more opinions on me?” Why did he need to hear them? Why did her esteem feel suddenly as important as breathing?
She swallowed and answered the bare flesh at his throat. "You confuse me. I…I sometimes think you dislike me. And then you are kind to me. And I know you wish to be kind just as you wish to be callous when you are.” She straightened, frowning as she worked for words and met his eyes with courage shining from their depths. "I think you are confused as much as I am.”
A musket ball couldn’t have felled him so cleanly. He held her gaze, fighting the warmth flooding his rotting soul. He jerked his head to her bedroom door, his lips a firm slit. “You can go now.”
She winced. "Yes, I…” Blowing out an exasperated breath, she smothered her face in her hands. "Blast! What a ninny I am. Please ignore everything?—”
Nicholas curled an arm about her waist and scooped her into his embrace, pressing her head to his shoulder and holding it there with a hand at her crown. She trembled against him as he combed his fingers through her hair, gently like a lover. He kissed the brow where behind it the fiercest, kindest, most unexpected thoughts resided. He suspected she wore no perfume except her own. But she smelled good, like soap and leather and the crisp scent of a spring wind. She was tall and fit perfectly in his arms. No contortions were required on his part to hold her close and feel her breath bate against his neck.
He knew Georgiana was a fantasy of vengeance. But he didn’t want to fight his desire. Not now.
"I don’t want you to go,” he said, drawing her chin up and once again felled, this time by her eyes glassed over with uncertainty and her trembling mouth. He wanted to kiss her. He was going to kiss her.
A knock beat three times on the door leading to her bedroom.
Georgiana stumbled backward. "Oh God. Charlotte.”
Nicholas caught her before she toppled over a chair and led her to the settee. Placing a book in her hand, he pushed her headdown in it because if left to her own devices, she’d be spread over the carpet.
“You’re reading,” he whispered, cursing her aunt’s timing. "And if all else fails, lie.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Mr. Wolf’sbedroom door clicked softly as hers opened and Charlotte surveyed every, single, solitary, piece of furniture in the salon. She sniffed her petite nose, bent her neck like peering over spectacles, and found the evidence she sought. Mr. Wolf’s glass of whiskey.
“I thought we had an agreement,” Charlotte said.
Georgiana was too rearranged, too someone else, too uncomfortable in this new skin, to lie as directed. “I’m sorry.”
