Her niece regarded her with misgiving. ‘You think…?’
‘I think he is the sort of man who could make an impulsive young lady like you throw her cap over the windmill and never regret it until it was far, far too late. I’d wager he could seduce awoman and make her believe it was all her own idea. And I say this to you, never having so much as looked at a man seriously in my life. So have a care, Georgie!’
6
It had been a strange evening, Georgiana reflected much later, and it was no wonder that it left her unable to sleep, a dozen jumbled impressions whirling in her head as time dragged slowly by and still she was wakeful.
She climbed from her bed and crossed to the window, picking up her shawl as she went and wrapping herself in it. Drawing back the heavy velvet curtains, she looked out pensively on the scene revealed to her. The moon was waxing and stood low in the sky, with dark clouds scudding fast across it and obscuring its silver face, and then tearing away to reveal it once more. When it was exposed, it laid down a shining path across the gunmetal waves that bit at the beach. There were no other dwellings on the tall cliffs close to the Castle, and she could see no other part of the building from here, no lights or manmade structures, so all that she beheld was nature, but a much fiercer nature than she was accustomed to at home in Hampshire. There was nothing manicured or cultivated here. She was reminded of mountain vistas that she had seen while travelling abroad last year, in Italy, Switzerland and Germany. Not by any means comfortable or reassuring prospects, and many peoplefound them unsettling, alarming, even sinister, as Louisa had said. But she had found that she loved them, and she loved this too – the fierce wildness of it spoke to her, somehow, and certainly echoed the turmoil that she felt inside her tonight.
The young ladies and their mamas had arranged an impromptu concert to show off their musical accomplishments. This was quite a usual way of passing an evening in polite society, of course, but it must take on a deeper significance now. Georgiana had been torn – she did not want to participate, did not at all wish to be included in the list of young ladies vying for the Duke’s attention, but if she refused to take her part that also would draw attention to her, and perhaps give the impression that she thought herself above her company and wished to stand apart from it. She was the highest ranking of the young unmarried ladies here, and she could already tell that Mary Debenham and her crony Miss French saw her as serious competition, for that reason if for no other. She did not herself believe, though she could advance no solid reason for such a belief, that the Duke would give a fig for such distinctions. Nor did she think that he was in all honesty likely to choose one lady as his Duchess above another merely because she gave a superior performance upon the pianoforte or sang an Italian song in an affecting manner. This was not an audition for a role upon the stage, it was real life. But she would sing, if she must – she thought herself very cunning in manoeuvring matters so that she did so in a duet with Alice Templeton, rather than alone and exposed. She declined to perform again once their piece was done, and though she was sure that Miss Debenham sneered at her for it and whispered that she was an indifferent singer and knew it, she did not care. She had felt Northriding’s eyes on her as she sang, and whether this was in common courtesy – she was singing, he was looking at her singing, just as anyone might – or some more disturbing reason, or even her own feveredimagination, it made her uncomfortable and she wanted no more of it.
They had had no private or public speech after the brief, snatched interlude before dinner, and Georgie was glad. He unsettled her beyond all measure, and her own recollections unsettled her more. She would do her utmost to avoid him for the rest of her stay, and certainly she would take Louisa’s words to heart and be very sure never to be alone with him for as much as a second. She had better reason than her aunt could possibly suspect to know that Louisa had been entirely right when she warned of his dangerous charm. He was perfectly capable of mesmerising a young lady into behaving in a scandalous manner and casting all thought of propriety to the four winds. His beautiful voice alone could cause one to…
The silence of the bedroom was broken by a distinct and very curious noise: a sort of sharp creak, which seemed much more distinct than the usual sounds of an ancient building of wood and stone settling as it cooled. Georgie chided herself for falling prey to Gothic terrors in such a cliched setting – she had grown up in a castle and knew better – but all the same she could not prevent herself from turning, and scanning the panelled walls and moonlit four-poster bed with anxious eyes. Perhaps there were mice; she didn’t like mice. Could there be rats, even? Surely not.
If there were rodents, they must be unusually clever ones. The moonlight fell full upon a long, straight, perpendicular crack in the linenfold panelling, and as she watched in frozen horror it grew wider, longer, as a gap opened, large enough at last to admit a person. A cloud obscured the moon for a second, or perhaps she blinked, and when the fitful light reappeared she saw that there was a figure standing in the room with her, a tall, familiar figure clad in a sumptuous silk dressing gown. Themoonlight drew gleams of silver from his hair and struck sparks from his glinting eyes.
The Duke.
7
He stepped towards her, and she shrank back against the windows, clutching her shawl about her in an action that some part of her knew to be both futile and ridiculous. Being fully clothed – at least at the start – had not helped her before. A light flared, and she saw that he held a closed lantern, and had uncovered it.
He set it down, his lips quirking wryly as he regarded her. ‘You are quite safe, Lady Georgiana – or at any rate, as safe as you wish to be. I give you my word I merely came to talk. We have matters to discuss, do we not? Private matters, best examined without any fear of interruption?’
As safe as she wished to be. She forced down the traitorous thoughts his words, his damnably seductive voice set roiling within her. ‘How do I know I can trust you?’ she said bluntly.
‘Have I not given you sufficient proof on our most memorable previous meeting that I will go precisely as far as you desire me to and no further? No matter how strongly my own inclinations might urge me otherwise?’
She flushed hotly from head to toe, and grasped the windowsill for support. It was true, she could not deny it.Neither violence nor coercion nor even any form of persuasion had played the least part in what had happened between them. If he had bewitched her, she must admit that she had been a willing victim. More than willing: eager.
‘And besides,’ he said, settling into the chair beside her bed and making himself comfortable, just as though they were having some quite ordinary conversation in an ordinary setting, ‘you forget that your most excellent aunt and her chère amie are close by. Should you feel compelled to scream, or make any other kind of loud noise, I feel confident they would hear and come running to your rescue. You need not fear scandal, either, since no one else besides your little family party is staying in this tower. Shriek away, the instant you feel threatened, I beg you. There is no denying that it would be a little awkward for us both if you were to choose that course, but I doubt your aunt would spread the matter abroad, for the sake of your reputation – and as for my reputation, of course, it could hardly be any worse than it is already. Sit down,’ he added in a less satirical tone. ‘I’m not going to pounce on you.’
She came over to the bed, and sat where she could see him, but not too close, her back straight and her hands primly clasped in her lap. Though it was a little late for that. ‘Did you have me put in this chamber on purpose?’ she asked suddenly.
He laughed softly. ‘How could I? I did not know your identity until I set eyes on you this afternoon. I am seldom surprised, but I admit I was then. No: the whole building is honeycombed with secret passages and hidden stairs. My ancestors were both Catholic recusants and shocking libertines, the whole pack of them, and it seems the results in terms of domestic architecture are much the same. In the unlikely event that I should wish to pay a nocturnal visit to Lady Debenham, for example, I may easily do so.’
She felt a wild impulse to laugh, and suppressed it ruthlessly. ‘But how did you know I was here, then, and not in one of the other rooms in this tower?’
He waved a languid hand. ‘Blanche has a list, which I purloined. She is terrifyingly organised. You might, of course, have for some inscrutable feminine reason swapped chambers with your aunt or Miss Spry, in which case you cannot doubt that I would have vanished as silently as I came. I doubt you would have heard my arrival, you know, had you not been awake and up already. Why were you, I wonder? A guilty conscience?’
She refused to rise to his bait, and would certainly not be discussing her conscience with him. She doubtedhepossessed such a thing. ‘I would have heard even so, I think. The panel creaked most shockingly.’
‘I thank you for the information,’ he said gravely, though somehow she knew his voice and the tiny, fleeting expressions on his face well enough by now to tell that he was mocking her still. ‘I will make sure to oil the hinges for the next time.’
‘I insist you close up the secret way immediately! Because there will not be a next time!’ she shot back, and then moderated her tone for fear Louisa or Miss Spry might hear. ‘There will never be another such improper occasion!’ she hissed in further emphasis. It was a sentence that lent itself to being hissed, and she was pleased with the sound of it. ‘I do not see that we have anything at all to say to each other!’
‘Do not be disingenuous,’ he said, his eyes glittering in a highly disturbing fashion. ‘It does not suit you, my dear. I had thought you fearless.’
God, his voice when he spoke the endearment, even if it was meant ironically! It was like the lightest of caresses across bare flesh, arousing, tempting, promising much more. She could very easily see why so many women had succumbed to him. But shewould not be one of them. Not again. She bit her lip, and then realised he had seen her do it, and wished she had not.
‘You know we must talk.’ He was relentless.
‘Why? There is nothing to be said. It was, it is, all a horrible mistake,’ she said very low. ‘You were in ignorance of my identity, and I of yours – I hope you know that?—’
‘I do know it,’ he said lightly. ‘I have good reason to. I do not think anybody – apart of course from a jealous husband on one particularly memorable occasion in my wild youth – has ever been so appalled to see me in all my thirty-one years of existence. Myamour proprehas never been served such a severe blow. Mr Summerson would no doubt tell me it is good for me.’
‘I do not know how you can make a joke of such a serious matter!’ she hissed.
