‘Practice?’
‘You must be the most provoking creature alive!’
‘You are not the first person to say so. But we are dancing around the subject, are we not? I am as guilty as you, for I find an unexpected pleasure in sparring with you. Pray continue. You were saying, most unflatteringly: a horrible mistake. I believe you said something similar last time, too.’
‘Yes,’ she said very quietly. ‘A mistake, a moment of madness on my part. I was tricked there, to that dreadful house – you know I was, I told you so – and then…’
‘And then…? There’s the rub. You could have chosen to leave when I so nobly offered you the chance. You did not. Moreover, you lied to me, and made me think you something you are not, and I acted on that mistaken belief. If you can put what happened next out of your mind, you have the advantage of me, for I cannot. No matter how I try, and God knows I have tried. As I think I said to you once before, you are not obliged to give me any explanation for your behaviour, and I’m not asking forone. But do you really pretend to be surprised I have come to you tonight?’
She put her hands to her burning face. He was not saying anything she had not said to herself a hundred times, and his words were daggers. ‘Why exactly are you here, then? I demand you tell me plainly. Enough with the insinuations. Is it just to talk, as you claimed, or do you have blackmail in mind?’
His beautiful voice was expressionless, but somehow she thought he was angry. ‘Blackmail to what end, Lady Georgiana?’
‘I would have thought it obvious!’
‘I try never to be obvious. I recommend the habit to you, madam.’
‘Certainly,’ she said bitingly, ‘a man who summons a veritable harem of young ladies to his home to choose between them for a bride, and then comes to another in secret and proposes to make dishonourable love to her, while all the others sleep in happy innocence, cannot be said to be obvious. Many choice adjectives could be applied to such a man, but I am sure that “obvious” is not one of them.’
He sighed, and was silent for a moment, looking down at his hands. ‘I suppose that that is all too true. Consider me duly chastened. The trouble – one of the troubles – with having a reputation for outrageous behaviour is that sometimes I allow it to run away with me. I am not, after all, as you so pertinently remind me, the Grand Turk.’
She refused to soften at his almost-apology. ‘You owe me nothing, sir, but only you can say what duty you owe to your future wife.’
‘Yes, yes,’ he said with a touch of impatience. ‘Consider your point sufficiently well made, Miss Prim. To the victor, the spoils. I will leave you to your virtuous slumbers, and trouble you no more.’
‘Good!’ she said, standing, flushed with triumph. She had bested him; the new and more prudent Georgiana had won. She had, just this once, defeated her worst self. Perhaps there was hope for her yet.
And then their eyes met, and held, and despite all Georgie’s resolutions something flared to instant, insistent, undeniable life between them, as it had done before with such disastrous consequences.
He rose too, and only now did he approach her with lazy confidence, like some big cat sure of its prey. ‘Your words are very fine,’ he said, his tones silken once more, and lazily amused, ‘and I applaud the noble sentiment. Your concern for your sisters, even the ones you don’t like one bit, is most affecting. But, my little liar, we both know – do we not? – that if I reached out and touched you now, your body would take fire at my lightest caress. Be damned to sisterhood and virtue, the blood in your veins is saying to you now. Be damned to caution and respectability. Put your hands and your mouth on me, Gabriel, and give me what I crave so desperately!’ He was very close, and his voice was little more than a whisper when he said, and now she was unsure if he spoke for her still, or for himself, ‘Give me what you gave me when first we met, and give me more than that before I die from wanting it!’
She gasped at the images his words called up in her, and he laughed softly, and then he did reach out one well-formed hand and touched her face. It was the lightest and most innocent of caresses, but the effect was electric, all-consuming. She tried to repulse him, or if she could not repulse him to stay still as a statue under his touch and betray nothing of the effect he had upon her. But it was too late, for he knew already, and in any case she could not dissemble; her physical being simply would not let her. Her face turned instinctively into his palm, her bodyyearned towards him. And he bent his silvered head and kissed her.
8
He kissed her very briefly and casually, a mere tantalising brush of the lips, as if it meant little to him, and then without another word he left, closing the secret panel with exaggerated care behind him. Georgie collapsed onto her bed with a sob that combined frustration and anger. Frustration that he had not done any more than kiss her; anger that she had so intensely wanted him to. And on top of all that, hot shame that he had known it.
She thought that Louisa was entirely correct: this was a man who could seduce you, and convince you it was all your own idea. It would not surprise her, she mused bitterly, to hear that women by the dozen had been known to beg him to make love to them. Perhaps he thought that she would do so, if not now, then later. Perhaps that was a part of the game for him.
Perhaps she would.
She had before, after all.
When he had turned to her in that room, in that house of sin and temptation, and accused her of naïveté and folly, some species of madness had possessed her. She had no other explanation for all that had followed. In that moment, shesimply could not endure that this man of all men thought her an inexperienced little idiot, even if it was all too true. She had summoned a brittle smile and said in a low voice, ‘I was tricked into coming here, you are quite correct to guess as much. A friend, or one I thought a friend, brought me here under false pretences. I had no idea… But you need not fear for my virtue. I am not the innocent you think me. I am a widow.’
She heard the words she uttered as if someone else was saying them. She had no idea where they had come from.
‘A widow?’ He seemed amused rather than sorry. ‘I offer you my condolences, madam. You must have been married and then left cruelly alone soveryyoung.’
He did not believe her, and no wonder. But she was committed to the deception now. She cleared her throat, and blurted out, ‘I was. My husband died at Waterloo. We were only married a few months.’
‘Ah.’ No trace of humour in his deep voice now. ‘Many of us lost dear ones at Waterloo. And many were widowed cruelly soon. You have all my sympathy. But that does not explain why, being brought here by deception, as I can well believe, you stayed. I imagine a young widow might well be lonely, but I assure you – and you must have seen for yourself – that you will find no companionship here. Or at least, not any kind of companionship that will be of use to you. Indeed, quite the reverse. This place is for those who know what they are doing, and despite your long months of experience, my dear, it is all too plain that you do not.’
She did not know why, but sudden tears stung her eyes at his words, even though they were spoken gently enough. He saw – he saw too much – and in a second he had closed the space between them and was standing perilously near to her. He put up her chin with a gentle finger and said, ‘Oh, do not cry. Unconscionable! I am sorry.’
‘You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m not crying,’ she said uselessly, and sniffed.
‘Of course you are not; forgive me. I expect you have had a trying time, finding yourself abandoned here. Were you frightened? That can paralyse one, certainly. Outrageous of me to question you.’
