Page 23 of Ladies in Hating
The raindrops on Georgiana’s cheek ran down to the corner of her lips, and her breath came faster, her pulse throbbing at the base of her throat.
Longing unfurled inside Cat. Recognition. She wanted to taste that delicate skin, and she knew—
Somehow, down in her belly, sheknewthat Georgiana wanted it too.
And then Georgiana’s gaze snapped back up. Her flush deepened, and her mouth went tight.
“It was a mistake for me to come,” she said again. Her voice was brittle, and the exquisite geometry of her face seemed frozen. “All of this has been a mistake.”
And then she spun on her heel and fled.
Chapter 8
I have placed your newest manuscript into the publication schedule six months early, per your request. By the by, I recently encountered a bizarre rumor that you and your uncle drowned in a deluge in Epping Forest. I trust you are well?
—from Jean Laventille, publisher, to Georgiana Cleeve
“Do we keep brandy in the house?”
Edith Cleeve, the dowager Countess of Alverthorpe, blinked up from the engrossing state of her correspondence. “I beg your pardon?”
It had been three hours since her mad confrontation with Cat in Epping Forest, and Georgiana was still reliving it, regularly and repeatedly, with an unfortunate pinpoint focus upon the precise shape and color of Cat’s mouth.
She stifled a groan and tipped her head back against the armchair. She brought one hand up to cover her face, which wasscrubbed of rainwater and still somehow vaguely hot. “Nothing. Never mind.”
“Does this have something to do with your abortive trip to the haunted churchyard? I had thought you meant to remain there all day—I was planning a lengthy walk with Bacon in the park—and yet here you are back in time for tea.”
Bacon, at the proximity of his name to the wordwalk,began turning hasty circles on the floor, and so Georgiana picked him up and relocated him to her lap. His little body was heavy and soothing, and she attempted to get hold of herself. “Unfortunately, yes. I encountered Lady Darling there. Again.”
Now her mother truly seemed interested. She replaced her correspondence within the writing desk and turned to face Georgiana. “Is that so?”
“Mm. Hence the desire for something alcoholic and, er, searing.”
Edith gave a delicate cough. “I see. I take it that your encounter did not bear fruit?”
“You could say that.” Georgiana resisted the urge to bury her face in Bacon’s fur and whimper.
“Do you suppose she followed you there? That does seem irregular.”
“Unfortunately,” Georgiana said, “no. She arrived first. She was—” She pondered explaining the cart situation and decided not to attempt it. “She was certainly there first. I am quite sure of it. I believe I… surprised her.”
“Do you think she means to set her next novel there? At Saint Botolph’s?”
“I don’t know.” Georgiana stroked the fine edge of Bacon’s floppy left ear. “I did not come to the point of inquiring, somehow.”
Hannah, their maid, entered with the furnishings for tea before Edith could mount a suitable reply. There was a brief wrangling of cups and saucers and small cakes, and then, when Hannah withdrew, Edith’s gaze returned to Georgiana’s face. “Does it seem possible to you that you might simplyspeakto Lady Darling? If you discuss your next project with her, perhaps you can agree to take divergent paths.”
“If she is deliberately imitating my work, do you not think that divulging my plans might effect precisely the opposite outcome?”
“Hmm.” Edith took a sip of her tea, steam rising around the planes of her face. She looked younger than her years, though in truth she was not so far past youth. She had been seventeen when she had married Georgiana’s father, the late earl, and only twenty-two when she had given birth to Georgiana, the third and last Cleeve child. At forty-seven, her face was unlined and angled at the jaw, her chin pointed and her eyes the same light blue as Georgiana’s own. “If you cannot diverge from Lady Darling, has it occurred to you that you might converge with her instead?”
Georgiana choked briefly upon tea vapors. “I beg your pardon?”
“Collaborate, I mean. On your next book. Publish together.” Edith’s voice was bright and earnest, as though such a thing were notutterly and completely impossible.“You are both so adored by your enthusiastic readers. To combine your efforts would neatly eliminate any chance of similarity or imitation, while also providing your zealous admirers with a novel… er, a novel novel, as it were.”
“That is not—”
“Perhaps a special binding,” Edith went on blithely. “Gilt edges—have you had a printing with gilt all the way around yet?”
