Page 67 of Ladies in Hating
—from Selina, Duchess of Stanhope, to Georgiana
Jem and Pauline peppered Cat with questions when she arrived back at their apartment two days earlier than planned. She distracted them with descriptions of Renwick’s mysterious passages and bird-infested library, and rather thought she’d got away with the omission of the corpse until Pauline eyed her suspiciously over the top of Jem’s head.
Later,Pauline had mouthed silently,the truth.
Cat had pled a headache and fled to her chamber.
Perhaps she had not been as convincing as she ought. Her mind had been not quite focused to the task, what with the way it kept furnishing visions of Georgiana in the bath. And also against the wall. And then, sometimes, the shocked pleasure on Georgiana’s face when they’d arrived back in London and Cat had yankedthe curtains down in the carriage so that she might kiss the life out of Georgiana before they were parted.
Georgiana seemed so surprised by each tiny touch, any gesture of familiarity or affection—as though when Cat reached toward her, she expected a slap and not a caress.
It would be so easy, Cat thought, as she stared up at the plaster-patched ceiling, to let Georgiana break her heart.
The following afternoon, they met at Belvoir’s with the indecipherable papers. Selina, the Duchess of Stanhope, deposited Cat and Georgiana in her office and then went back down to wait for their scholarly friend.
Cat could not stop herself from prowling the perimeter of the duchess’s office. She trailed her fingers over the rows of books, bound in the emerald-green cloth that was Belvoir’s signature.
She slipped an anonymous-looking volume off the shelf and leafed through it, then paused in astonishment. “What an extraordinary collection your friend keeps.” Her voice squeaked slightly, and she cleared her throat.
Evidently Georgiana had approached her from behind, because she laid a hand on Cat’s shoulder, and Cat nearly dropped the book in her haste to shove it back onto the shelf.
Georgiana laughed, just a little. “Many of the Venus catalog books have to be requested specifically. Selina does not keep them downstairs on the shelves. For obvious reasons.”
The Venus catalog, Cat knew, was the selection of books that was only available to women—the most provocative novels, the engravings on prophylactics and sexual mechanics. The Venus catalog was the duchess’s pet project and the reason she had purchased Belvoir’s in the first place.
Cat’s novels—and Georgiana’s, so far as she knew—were allavailable to the general public, in a section designed for the merely mildly scandalous, not the potentially illegal.
“Did she know about you from the first? The duchess?” Cat asked curiously.
“That I fancy ladies? We have spoken of it occasionally, in the years of our friendship. Her aunts are”—Georgiana’s face softened—“like us. I knew I never had to question Selina’s acceptance, and that meant a great deal.”
Cat’s heart squeezed. She settled her hand at Georgiana’s waist. They had not touched yet this morning—not even linked their arms on the street. Cat supposed that some part of her had feared Georgiana might grow stiff beneath her touch.
But she ought not have been afraid, it seemed. Georgiana turned into her, and her lips brushed, very softly, over Cat’s temple.
“I meant about your books,” Cat said, and she tilted her face up to press a kiss to Georgiana’s mouth. “But I can see why you thought the other, given our surroundings.”
“Oh,” Georgiana managed, and then kissed her back for a long moment before drawing away. “No. Selina did not. No one did, then, except Laventille. I might have kept on that way, publishing under various pseudonyms and hoarding my guineas, except my father found out that Selina was behind Belvoir’s Library. And so—I revealed myself.”
“I don’t understand.”
Now Georgiana did go stiff, as she always did whenever her father was mentioned. She pulled into herself, almost imperceptibly, and Cat gripped tighter to her waist to anchor her to the present moment.
“He threatened to bring her up on charges,” Georgiana said shortly. “To tell everyone that she was a peddler of pornography.I knew that if I told him that I was one of the library’s authors, he would not want the Cleeve family name drawn into the trial.”
“So you revealed yourself to him? To save your friend?”
Georgiana’s lashes fluttered closed for a moment and then opened again. “You have the kindest instincts. The way you see things…” She breathed out, a sound too raw to be a laugh. “You’re incandescent. The whole world ought to be brightened by your light.”
Cat was so taken aback that she could do nothing but stare. Her heart kicked up, beating in giddy triple time, as Georgiana kept talking.
“No. I wish it had been so. I revealed myself because my father’s discovery of Selina was my fault to begin with. He was suspicious of Belvoir’s, and I was too afraid to speak to Selina directly. I wrote her an anonymous letter, and then my father intercepted it. It was my cowardice that endangered her in the first place.”
Was that truly how she saw herself? God, she had been—what—eighteen? And desperately alone.
“Georgie,” Cat murmured, “don’t say that. I recall your father. He was not an easy man to cross.”
Georgiana’s face only shuttered further, and Cat lifted her hand to press her thumb into the downturned corner of Georgiana’s mouth.
