Page 44 of The Lawrence Browne Affair
Lawrence still held the child’s hand. “You look so much like your mother.” Something unpleasant flitted across Simon’s face, and he looked like he wanted to tug his hand free. “I never thought to have a portrait made of her, but I wish I had, so I could show you the resemblance.”
Simon swallowed. “My aunt has a portrait, but I haven’t seen it.”
“Whyever not?” Lawrence dropped the child’s hand.
“They took it down after she ran off, sir. After”—he tilted up his chin, like a man about to take a punch—“after she disgraced herself.” He said this with a matter-of-fact certainty that broke Lawrence’s heart.
Lawrence drew in a long breath and felt his nostrils flare. He wanted to tell the child that his mother had committed no disgrace, that she had been faced with the choice between a pro forma marriage and utter scandal. Lawrence, while missing the child he had loved, could hardly blame Isabella for having left.
He couldn’t very well say all of that to a child, though. “Your mother was a fine woman,” he said. Simon’s eyes went momentarily wide, and Lawrence heard Georgie’s sharp intake of breath. “Perhaps you’ll deal me in to whatever interesting card game you’re playing here. I’ve always wanted to become a card sharp.” He said this with a sidelong glance at Georgie, hoping to elicit a smile. But Georgie was staring at him blankly.
“Yes. Quite.” Georgie nervously raked his fingers through his hair. “I apologize. I was only teaching Simon—Lord Sheffield—how to fuzz—damn it—how to recognize sleight of hand in the event he ever finds himself among unsavory people who do that sort of thing. He knows not to behave dishonorably.”
Lawrence had never seen Georgie so uncomfortable. “I see,” he said, striving for their customary ease. “An excellent plan, Georgie.” As he watched, the other man’s face turned red. What the devil? And then he realized: they were supposed to be distantly correct around Simon. They were Lord Radnor and Mr. Turner, earl and secretary. They were not on a first-name basis. They did not speak lightly about cheating at cards or marital infidelity.
To hell with that. He’d give Georgie hisMr. Turnerif that’s what he wanted, but he wasn’t going to play act.
They got through a few hands of loo, which was the only game all three of them knew. Simon giggled whenever he won a trick, while Georgie sat ramrod straight, as if he were listening to a sermon rather than playing a silly game of cards. All Georgie’s conversation was directed at Simon. He scarcely turned his head in Lawrence’s direction. But when Lawrence was bent over his cards, he felt Georgie’s eyes on him. Whenever Lawrence looked up, however, Georgie’s gaze had slipped away.
The rhythm of card play distracted Lawrence from the alien strangeness of sitting in his newly transformed parlor with the child who was, in some sense, his. The room, which he had last seen at sixes and sevens while the laborers worked, was now lit by a multitude of candles that hinted at expanses of rich, soft fabric and polished wood. Lawrence found that if he kept his attention on his cards and his companions, he could avoid the sensation of being in a strange place.
They laid down their cards when one of Georgie’s new footmen—Lawrence couldn’t quite accept that these efficient strangers were his own servants—came in with a supper of cold meat. Georgie murmured something, and a few moments later the same servant appeared with a tray of bread and ham. Lawrence tried to catch Georgie’s eye to give him a wordless expression of gratitude, but Georgie wouldn’t turn his head to look at him.
Soon afterwards, Simon started to yawn and Georgie took the child up to bed.
“Come back when you’re done,” Lawrence murmured.
“Of course, my lord.” Georgie bowed his head with infuriating deference.
The sight of the two of them going off together made Lawrence’s heart jump. He had somehow, over the course of little more than a month, acquired something like a family.
But no. Simon would go back to school and the homes of his more civilized relations, and Georgie would eventually go back to London where he belonged. And Lawrence would be alone, once again. A month ago he would have looked forward to solitude, but now he felt that he was on the other side of a chasm he could not return across.
Lawrence finally allowed himself to take in his surroundings. In his memory, the room was blanketed beneath dust and cobwebs, half the windows cracked and the other half blackened with filth.
But this room looked like a picture in a book. Hell, it looked like a home.
Every sconce and candlestick held a lit candle. The enormous old hearth was filled with a roaring fire, casting a mellow glow on the room. Every available surface was draped with fir boughs and trimmed with ivy and holly. It was Christmas Day, Lawrence realized. The scents of greenery and wood fire, beeswax and furniture polish, filled the air. Somehow, Georgie had found rugs and curtains that looked like they had always been here. He made the room seem like a place fit for happy, sane people, rather than feral cats and wild squirrels.
As unfamiliar as the house now seemed, as strange as his new clothes felt on his body, it all was somehow right, as if Lawrence and Penkellis had been waiting around for Georgie to set things right. Lawrence found himself forgetting that there had ever been a time before Georgie came to Penkellis.
And he wondered what it would take to get him to stay.
He wondered whether asking Georgie to stay would be the maddest thing he had ever done.
Georgie hardly knew where to look. Every time he let his gaze stray to the man who sat beside him, he felt like he had gotten a glimpse of a stranger. A very imposing stranger. Clean-shaven, decently dressed and groomed, Lawrence was every inch the earl. They were sitting on the parlor sofa, and Georgie was at a loss for words for perhaps the first time in his life.
“We gathered rather more greenery than was called for,” Georgie babbled apologetically, noticing Lawrence taking in the room. “It’s a fortune’s worth of beeswax candles, but I thought we might as well do the thing right.”
“I think you’re a magician.” Lawrence was swirling a glass of brandy in one hand; his other arm was slung over the back of the sofa, so near to Georgie’s neck as to almost be an embrace. Georgie could feel the heat radiating from the larger man’s body.
“Not a magician.” Georgie kept his back straight, his eyes fixed on the fire blazing in the hearth before them. He had the sense that if he relaxed a single muscle he’d slide not only into Lawrence’s embrace but into a mess he’d never see his way out of. “Just very good at spending other people’s money.”
“Ha. I can stand the expense, as you know.” Out of the corner of his eye, Georgie watched Lawrence bring his glass to his mouth and caught the glimmer of an unfamiliar ring, its stones the same misty blue as Lawrence’s eyes. Could be blue topaz, but more likely pale sapphires or even blue diamonds. A fortune, in arm’s reach. Didn’t that just sum up these past weeks at Penkellis? A fortune in arm’s reach, and Georgie too addlebrained to do anything about it.
“I liked your beard,” Georgie blurted out. “But you look so very well without it.” He reached out as if to touch Lawrence’s newly smooth jawline, but then snatched his hand back.
Lawrence captured Georgie’s wrist and kissed his palm, sending a rush of warmth up the length of Georgie’s arm. “Is that why you’re being so odd? I thought you were displeased with me.”
