Page 55 of Ladies in Hating
Trust me?she mouthed.
The same words she’d said atop the wall. The same earnestness in her gaze, the same tiny glimmer of vulnerability that Catknewwas not feigned.
And, despite every single good intention she had moments ago resolved upon, Cat nodded.
Georgiana looked relieved for roughly the space of a heartbeat, and then she staggered near to Cat, rolled up her eyes, and swooned directly into Cat’s arms.
Cat nearly dropped her from the shock of it. Bacon launched into a volley of confused barks, and Cat locked her arms around Georgiana’s waist and shoulders, too flabbergasted even to relish the sensation of Georgiana pressed close to her. As gently as she could, she lowered them both to the ground.
“God’s wounds!” exclaimed the magistrate. “Is the lady well?”
Georgiana cracked one eye, met Cat’s gaze, made a series of faces in the direction of the magistrate, and then hastily resumed her swoon.
Herfeignedswoon. By God, the woman was the devil incarnate.
“I think her ladyship has become overset,” Cat said to the magistrate, which was certainly one way to put it. “Perhaps you might fetch her some water from the trough?”
The magistrate mopped his face again. “It could happen to anyone, I’m sure.”
He muttered under his breath as he crossed the courtyard, and he was nearly out the door before Georgiana cracked open her eyes. “The trough?” she hissed. “Really?”
Cat stifled an insane desire to laugh. She still held Georgianacradled in her lap, and, to her extreme dismay, found she could not quite make her hands let go of Georgiana’s waist. “You did not give me much in the way of advance notice. I used my initiative.”
Georgiana peered at the magistrate’s retreating back, then dropped her head back down and clamped her eyelids shut. Some tendrils of her fine blond hair had worked free of their pins and spread, loose and soft, across Cat’s skirts. “There wasn’t time,” she whispered. “I needed to distract him before he saw the papers.”
“The… papers?” Cat tried to focus more on Georgiana’s words and not the complicated scent of her, all amber and woods and lusciousness.
“Yes. The papers in the dead man’s jacket. Did you not notice them?”
“I was trying my very best not to look closely.”
“I could see them,” Georgiana explained, “but I could not make them out. I want to take them off the body, but I need you to distract the magistrate while I do.”
Cat felt her brows shoot up in surprise. “You want to rob a corpse?”
Georgiana’s eyes-closed scowl was a sight to behold. “I am certain that his presence here in Wiltshire has something to do with you or me. If he has a letter on his person—some clue as to his motivation or connections—we ought to know about it.”
“Yes,” Cat said, “it makes sense. But—” She paused and bit her lip, darting a glance in the direction of the magistrate, who had come back through the wall and was heading toward them. His handkerchief dripped scummy water with each step. “I’ll search the body.Youdistract the magistrate.”
Georgiana’s eyes came open. “Wait—”
“Play to our strengths,” Cat murmured and winked.
Georgiana’s mouth had just formed a little O—of surprise or protest, Cat was not sure—when Cat eased her up into a sitting position.
“There you are, my lady,” Cat announced. “You’ll be right as rain in a trice. Put your head between your knees, now—there’s a good girl.” She thrust Georgiana’s head between her knees, and watched with a very reasonable amount of amusement as Georgiana’s face went pink with outrage.
The magistrate hurried toward them, his formerly neat clothing speckled all over with trough water. “Here you are, your ladyship. Just the thing. Anyone would be overset by… by…” He trailed off, obviously loath to recall their minds to the corpse that was a handful of feet behind them. Instead of continuing, he crouched and extended the handkerchief toward Georgiana, who disguised her obvious reluctance to seize it with a sort of full-body shudder.
Cat took the handkerchief and laid it across Georgiana’s brow, an action which rather electrified Her Fastidious Ladyship. Georgiana sat up suddenly enough that the handkerchief fell to the terrace with a wet plop beside Bacon, and then blinked up in the direction of the magistrate.
“If you might help me rise, sir?” she said pathetically. “I feel quite feeble.”
Cat strangled her mirth with some effort. Georgiana Cleeve had never been feeble a day in her life. “Perhaps you might assist her ladyship back to the carriage,” she managed. “I can retrieve her things from the manor.”
The magistrate nodded, caught Georgiana beneath her elbow, and helped her to her feet. But before he could escort her back out of the courtyard, he hesitated, half turning toward the corpse. “I suppose—I ought to see to this first—”
Bollocks,Cat thought, but before she could think of anything to say to dissuade him, Georgiana tottered against his sturdy body. Bacon set up another vociferous round of barking and began to bite at the magistrate’s boots.
