“I mean it, George. Marry her, and I will write you out of my will. I won’t have your bastards inheriting the Worthington title, and you may be certain that she won’t break the habit of a lifetime and only warm your bed.” He coughed into his handkerchief, thin shoulders shuddering. “I’ve never known you to be so foolish.”
George relaxed back into the chair, flicking a speck of dust from his sleeves. “Is that your final say on the matter?”
“I should think so. Marry her, and you won’t see a penny.”
“Thank you for making the matter so clear, Father.” He rose and bowed. “Forgive me for taking up so much of your time.”
“What are you going to do? Answer me, or by God I will call my solicitor.”
George ignored him. Let him call his solicitor, if that’s what he wanted; let him give his fortune to someone else. He had a reasonable independence that would allow him to live comfortably, and if he must sell himself into marriage to inherit, he did not want the money.
But no matter what, whether she married him or no, he would find a way to keep Caroline Spenser.
Chapter Nine
Caroline hadn’t expected to miss George the way she did. After the picnic, she didn’t see him for another four days, during which point she started to wonder if the distance had made him lose interest. This was, naturally, the best-case scenario, but the pinching sensation in her chest didn’t feel like best case.
When she sought out books on Greek plays so she might discuss them with him when he visited her again, she knew things were worse than she ever could have imagined.
To act as an equilibrium, she took some of his more outrageous gifts and pawned them, sending the money into the countryside. That, unsurprisingly, made her feel no better. This was the first time she had ever felt guilty for selling another man’s gifts. Usually, she was offered gifts as a form of payment; their arrangement was transactional. Yes, she enjoyed it, and had she enjoyed a little more wealth she would have taken lovers regardless, but she knew they were paying for the pleasure of her company.
George, she knew, was giving her things because he wanted to see the joy they brought her. Items that were not merely expensive fripperies, but things explicitly in her style, or that he thought she would like.
That was what made parting with them so hard.
That, and because she found herself ridiculously attached to the items in question.
It was madness.
But nothing, not even poetry, could soothe the ache his absence left behind.
On the fourth day, the madness infected her brain, and she could not have stayed away even if she had wanted to. Whether she was going to end their arrangement or claim his attention, she didn’t know, and still didn’t when she arrived outside his house to find his carriage on the street.
“Here for Mr Comerford?” his valet asked, holding the front door open for her. She smiled quickly at him, ducking inside, and came face to face with George. He looked tired, his coat a little creased from having sat in the carriage, and his face careworn. At the sight of her, a wide smile broke across his face.
“Caro,” he said, catching her around the waist and pulling her close. The valet disappeared through a door behind them, his butler melted away as though he had never been there, and suddenly it was the two of them again.
Caroline fisted her hands in his waistcoat. No, now was not the time to end their arrangement; perhaps she was condemning her heart, but so long as he remained unmarried, she would continue to see him.
“Did you walk here?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“What for?” He tweaked her chin. “I was intending to come and see you tonight.”
“I could hardly have known that without prior warning.”
“No,” he murmured, brushing her flyaway hair from her face. “Am I to infer that you missed me?”
“Stop asking such ridiculous questions and kiss me.”
He laughed, but then he was tugging at the ribbons of her bonnet, dragging it roughly from her head and pressing her against the door. His mouth settled on hers, demanding and biting, and it was as though the tension in her body simultaneously loosened and tightened. She was beer in a stopped bottle, shaken and frothing, fizzing with urgency and need.
“You did miss me,” he said, dragging her skirts to her hip. “Admit it.”
“Never.”
“Why else would you be here?”
