Page 107 of Marry in Scarlet
She shrugged. “I won’t catch cold from a little rain.”
“Probably not, nevertheless, if you’re coming, we’ll take the traveling chaise. It won’t take much longer, and if we need to, we’ll hire mounts in Quainton.” He tossed his napkin aside and rose from the table. “How long will it take you to be ready?”
“Half an hour.”
He gave her a skeptical look. “Most women would take two hours at the very least.”
“I’m not most women.”
His slow smile warmed her. “Indeed you’re not.”
***
The carriage left exactly thirty-one minutes later. The extra minute was for Finn, as George’s maid, Sue, had brought him with her, and George couldn’t leave him alone in a strange house. “Besides, it’ll be good to have his company,” she told Hart as Finn clambered into the carriage and sprawled across his feet.
“I’m sure it will,” he responded with unexceptional politeness and a distinct lack of enthusiasm. He eyed Finn and added in a severe tone, “And you’d better not have gorged on leftovers from the wedding breakfast, my lad, or you’ll be riding on the roof.” Finn wagged his tail.
As they drove out of London, George asked Hart how he had come to be the guardian of a small boy and trustee of his estates.
“I’ve no idea. The boy’s father is a distant cousin, and the first I heard of these arrangements was after he’d died. He certainly didn’t ask me. I suppose he assumed that as head of the family it was my duty.” He sounded irritated.
“Didn’t you want the responsibility?”
“It’s not the responsibility so much as the mess my cousin left things in. He was a hopeless gambler—and I use the word ‘hopeless’ advisedly. Despite his losses, he couldn’t break the habit. In the ten short years since he inherited, he managed to run a decent estate into the ground, leaving his son with nothing but debts to inherit.”
It was that last that was responsible for the suppressed anger in his voice, George thought. Leaving the boy’s inheritance in a mess.
“Do you gamble?” A lot of men did, she knew. And some women.
“Rarely. Sometimes I do when I’m playing cards, and I bet on my horses when I race them. When I do gamble, I generally win.” He glanced at her. “You don’t need to worry about me—I never gamble more than I can afford.”
“Horses? I didn’t know you raced horses.”
He nodded. “Are you interes— Foolish question. Of course you are. The next time I have a horse running I’ll take you to the races.”
He was being remarkably kind. And surprisingly open, George thought. Was that because they were married? Or was it because of the intimacy established through their activities in bed?
She’d always been unsettlingly aware of him, but since their wedding night, that awareness had sharpened. It was as though her skin had become extra sensitive, and every touch, even the brush of his sleeve against her skin, sent a small reverberation through her. The same went for his scent, the clean tang of his shaving soap, the cologne he used, the smell of freshly washed and ironed linen—he was fastidious—and beneath it all the dark, musky man-smell ofhim.
He stretched out his legs, crossing his boots at the ankle, and she was intensely aware of the muscled thighs beneath the snugly fitted buckskins.
He cracked his knuckles and a shiver ran through her as she recalled the way he’d stroked her nipples with those same knuckles.
She forced her gaze elsewhere and tried to focus on the conversation. “What happened to the boy’s mother?”
“Died giving birth to him.”
“And there was no other family he could go to?”
“No.”
Poor little boy. George knew what it felt like to grow up having no family—none that she knew of at the time, anyway, thanks to her father keeping her existence a secret. She was eighteen before she knew she had a family—one who actually wanted her.
“Couldn’t he—I didn’t catch his name—couldn’t the boy live with you?”
“Phillip? With me? In London? The city is no place for a child. Besides, I know nothing about children. No, I moved the boy to one of his father’s minor properties that I gather had been quite overlooked in his scramble to sell all he could. I’m in the process of reorganizing the main estateand one other that was stripped of all valuables and mortgaged to the hilt. If all goes as planned, by the time the boy is of age, he should have a substantial inheritance.”
She nodded. To repair the damage Phillip’s father had done was admirable, of course, but to move a small boy to a new place, when he’d just lost his father...
