Page 57 of Ladies in Hating
Cat liked that too. Unfortunately.
“We could stay at Renwick House until the mail coach comes tomorrow,” Cat suggested.
“Absolutely not. Unless you’ve managed to translate those papers into something resemblingI have no accomplices and absolutely was not here to murder any novelists.”
Cat had not expected Georgiana to agree, but she bristled anyway. “I don’t desperately wish to spend a night slowly freezing to death—”
“We can take rooms at the inn for the night,” Georgiana said. “There is one in town. I saw it as we passed.”
Cat gritted her teeth. She had not planned to have to pay for her lodgings, and the food she’d procured throughout her stay at Renwick House had cut deeply into the supply of coin she’d brought with her for emergencies. “You may take a room at the inn, if you like. I will do for myself.”
Perhaps she could find a handy stable—she wasn’t un-fond of straw—
“I can pay for your room,” Georgiana said, “if that is your concern.” She was not quite looking at Cat. In fact, she seemed very interested in Bacon, who was nosing blissfully at her boots.
“I would rather eat my last pair of stockings than let you pay for my room.”
Georgiana’s lips compressed, and when she spoke, her voicesounded even more diamond-sharp than it usually did. “You’d rather freeze to death than allow me to help you?”
“I would rather freeze to death than accept your charity. Yes.”
Georgiana’s lips parted, closed, opened again. Her tongue pressed against the back of her teeth, and Cat tried to ignore the bolt of heat that shot through her at the sight of that tiny flash of pink. “We could share.”
Cat felt her knees wobble. Despite the snow, heat washed through her—her cheeks, the tips of her breasts, her belly. Lower.
We could share.
Words seemed difficult, suddenly. “We—” she repeated blankly. “That is. I—”
“Surely,” Georgiana snapped, “you would not rather freeze to death than share a chamber with me for a handful of hours.”
“I—can’t accept—”
“Do as you like.” Georgiana plucked Bacon up off the ground and settled him into the top of her travel bag. “I am renting the room either way. I shall tell them my maid may be following on.”
She swept off in the direction of the inn, and Cat stared after her spare, striding form for a long, dumbfounded moment.
Her maid? Did she meanCat?
Dreadful, infuriating, impossible creature that she was, no doubt she did.
Cat scooped up her snow-dusted belongings and scrambled after Georgiana. “If you tell the innkeeper I am your maid, I will make you eatyourstockings.”
Georgiana did not turn back to look at her, but she’d gone pink again, a blush slowly staining her neck and chest.
“Did you say that on purpose?” Cat demanded. “To vex me?”
Georgiana did not reply, only moistened her lips, and Cat—
She swallowed as she watched Georgiana’s flush deepen. She wanted to put her mouth there—at the pulsebeat of Georgiana’s throat. She wanted to taste the heat of Georgiana’s skin.
She didn’t, of course. Bleeding hell, she was no glutton for punishment. She did not fancy a third rejection at Georgiana’s elegant hands.
But God, how she wanted those hands on her body again.
She realized, when they had made their way inside the inn, that she’d forgotten to keep arguing about the room.
It took them a few dizzy minutes to find the innkeeper. The public room was busy with people, shouting customers and harried barmaids. They finally located the innkeeper—a tall, handsome woman with a strong jaw and even stronger arms—in the kitchens, where she was vigorously washing glassware. She did not pause to greet them as they made their way through the mad swirl of the obviously shorthanded kitchen.
