Page 13 of Private Arrangements
He set aside the ironed copy ofIllustrated London Newshe'd been reading and rose. “Miss Rowland,” he said, all courtesy and impeccable breeding. “Good morning.”
She didn't respond immediately. She couldn't. All she could think of was the way he'd shoved her under him, his arousal pressed fully against her, separated from her thigh by only the flannel of her nightgown.
But he had slept through all of it. He had no recollection.
“Lord Tremaine. Did you sleep well?”
His gaze met hers, level, innocent. “Oh, yes, splendidly. I slept like a log.”
While she suffered for the want of him. While she alternately berated herself and marveled at what she had done. While she went over each moment of their perilous encounter, recalling his topography, his texture, his scent, and his frightening yet delicious weight as he held her captive.
He smiled at her. And it hit her like a mallet to the temple, the realization that she was in love with him. Stupidly, dreadfully in love with him.
Overnight, she'd become a fool.
Chapter Five
9 May 1893
Philippa!” Freddie cried.
Philippa. Less than twenty-four hours had passed since she'd last heard her name on Freddie's lips. She'd loved the sound of the spirant syllables, loved the slight catch in Freddie's voice that always accompanied their utterance, as if he still couldn't believe that she permitted him to address her so intimately.
But all she could think now was that he didn't call her Gigi. He didn't evenknowthat she was Gigi. No other living man thought of her as Gigi.
Only Camden.
“Are you all right, my love?”
She smiled at the man she adored. With his fair complexion, rosy cheeks, and earnest eyes, Freddie was Gainsborough's Blue Boy all grown up. He had a wonderful head of sandy curls, blue eyes the color of Delft chinoiserie, and a gentle, unassuming nature as kind as the sun in May. Her very own Mr. Bingley—everything a young man ought to be.
“I'm fine, darling, I'm fine.”
He came forward to take her hands in his but stopped before he quite reached her, the concern in his eyes breaking her heart. “Can we be sure that Lord Tremaine has really left? What if it's a trap, and he returns to spy on you? He can . . . if he chooses to, he can make things unbearable for you.”
How did she even begin to explain that Camden already had an armory of unbearable-making devices at his disposal? That he held her entire future in his not-so-tender mercy?
“Tremaine has been quite civil,” she said. “He is not the sort to throw tantrums.”
“I can't believe he left town already,” said Freddie. “He arrived only yesterday afternoon.”
“There is nothing keeping him here, is there?” Gigi said.
They were in the back parlor where they usually took tea together, a room done in shades of lavender: the upholstery amethyst brocade, the draperies lilac velvet, and the tea service white with borders of wisteria. In her youth she had disdained all but the primary colors, but now she appreciated a broader segment of the spectrum.
And so it was with Freddie. At eighteen—or perhaps even twenty-three—she'd have scoffed at an alliance with such a shy, unworldly man. She'd have seen him as an embarrassment, a burden. But she had changed. The only thing she saw when she looked at Freddie was the shining goodness of his heart.
“Where did he go?” Freddie asked anxiously. “When will he be back?”
“He didn't bring a valet, so there is no one to tell us anything. I wouldn't even know he had gone off somewhere if Goodman hadn't overheard him telling the cabbie to take him to the train station.”
She was incensed that he made free use of her house and her staff without informing her of his movements—the least courtesy, surely. She was also profoundly relieved by the small respite of his absence.
The way she had ogled him this morning—at his torso, which seemed to have been sculpted by the hands of Bernini himself, smooth, lean, lithe, with long, beautifully sinewed arms like those of a seasoned sailor—could she have done anything more mortifying short of dropping her handkerchief and falling to the floor in a dead faint?
She and Freddie sat down side by side on the chaise longue. “Tell me what he wanted,” said Freddie. “He must have wantedsomething.”
She had been able to think of nothing but what Camden wanted. Even now, with him miles away, she was still distracted and tense. Disaster, that was what he wanted. For what else could bedding her achieve but somehow, somewhen, calamity on an epic scale?
