Page 84 of An Earl to Remember
“Fuck society, Nana,” he said with deliberate and perhaps unforgiving crudeness. “I have the reputation of a libertine, yet I am accepted in their drawing rooms, fawned over in the hopes I will marry one of their daughters or befriend their sons. Now that I would marry a woman who is beautiful, clever, witty, and kind, do you think I would give a damn what they think? I only feel like the grandest of fools to not have realized that the leap in my heart whenever I see her smile means she is my beloved.”
Without awaiting a reply, he stormed from the drawing room, calling for his horse to be readied. It would take at least fifteen minutes for his stallion to be carried from the mews and even longer for the carriage to be called around.
Daniel rushed toward the front door, the butler opening it without a command, and he hissed out a breath, for he no longer could distinguish her hackney from the dozens queuing away from the dinner party.
He searched for coaches that did not bear a crest or had the appearance of a hired carriage. Daniel saw three such equipages in the distance, and he broke into a run, knowing that he could not allow her to spend even a night thinking that he did not love or want her. The very notion cracked open his chest. He dashed down the street, uncaring of the people pushing their carriage curtains aside to watch him sprint.
The scandal of it all would drive Nana to apoplectic shock, but that did not stop Daniel. He tried to flag down a carriage with no crest, but the coachman ignored him. He wrenched open the door, using the power and strength of his body to haul himself upon the top steps of a carriage that still raced ahead.
“Moncrieff!” a shrill voice cried out.
Daniel barely had time to process that his good friend, who had just been at his dinner party, was seated in a disguised carriage next to a veiled lady with a puppy clutched in her hand, for the damn puppy now morphed into a monster launching at him.
“For fuck’s sake,” he hissed, jumping down from the carriage and hurtling toward the other coach that had picked up speed.
Damn it all to hell. She needed to be in the next one, for his lungs and muscles burned with his effort; still, Daniel did not slow his steps.
The alarmed cry of, “Pug, stop!” pushed him to glance over his shoulder to see the damn dog racing at his heels, its jaw snapping.
“What the hell!”
Another snap and the little terror’s teeth sank into his boot this time. Daniel never realized he could kick off a shoe with such ease, given the effort his valet took to help it off his foot.
The few carriages that he presumed moved away from his house slowed, and several faces of ladies and gentlemen of thehaut tonpeered out at the spectacle, wearing varying expressions of shock and alarm. And amid all this, the damn dog abandoned the shoe and still gave chase, painfully reminding Daniel of a cantankerous hen called Hetty.
Bloody hell.
…
Heartbreak tasted like a bitter lemon.
With each rattle of the carriage wheels taking her farther away, it was as if a knife sliced into her belly and twisted. Georgianna was aware of every ache in her body, the lingering feel of the earl’s kisses, and the feel of him inside her body. She swiped the tears off her cheeks with trembling fingers. Had she made the right choice to leave without telling him how she felt?
“Would there be any point to it?” she whispered in the emptiness of the carriage.
Could I bear his indifference if I told him how much I loved and wanted all of him, just not for a few months?
Georgianna gripped the edges of the squabs until her fingers ached. There had been a deep fear upon her heart that if she wished him farewell, he would convince her to stay and be his mistress. This need for him was a burning flame, and surely he would eventually consume her until she lost all sense of herself.
Except she had never been a coward or shied from difficult situations. If that had been her character, she wouldn’t have found the initial gumption to pretend to be the earl’s wife. She rapped on the carriage’s roof, intending to ask the coachman to take her back to the earl’s townhouse.
The coachman did not seem to hear her, for there was some dreadful commotion outside. The carriage rocked precariously, the door wrenched open, and the earl spilled inside, breathing heavily. They stared at each other for a shocked, frozen moment. “My lord!”
She blew out a slow, measured breath even as her heart pounded. His déshabille state and uneven breathing informed her of what had happened, and she stared at him as if he were an unknown creature. “Youchasedthe carriage?”
His gaze gleamed with that wicked, unapologetic light. “I know.”
“You’ve started a scandal,” she said faintly, aghast.
“What is one more in my arsenal?”
The emotions in his eyes stirred an almost painful, sweet ache deep inside her. “Daniel? Are you aware that you are only wearing one shoe?”
His humor faded but his gaze remained intent. “A determined dog has it, I’m afraid.”
She squeezed her fingers until they ached. Georgianna was almost afraid to ask him why he was there. “I…”
“You are leaving.”
