“I meant it,” Sir Elston growled, turning to look at her. “Is your sister right? Is this man a danger to our household?”
“Of course not,” Georgie said soothingly. “He’s quite wonderful.”
His face turned even more dour. “I trust Norah was simply causing trouble when she said you were in love with him. If I thought there was any chance of Rafferty being forward enough to...”
“Rafferty would never do anything!” she assured him, trying to hide her own regret.
“Because your mother’s...affections for her protégés is something that is not acceptable in an innocent young girl.”
“Oh, it’s nothing like that,” Georgie said earnestly, still not sure why her mother’s affections for her protégés would be a problem.
“Then we’ll keep him on, for the present at least. I imagine there’ll be more than enough to keep him busy. You just keep your distance, young lady.”
She didn’t bother to protest. Her father was too wrapped up in his business worries to pay attention to what went on in his household, and besides, she had no wicked designs on Rafferty. Not that it would have done her any good. And he had no wicked designs on her. Alas.
When she was finally alone, she limped over to her bed, making one last attempt to strip the shoes off her feet, and then gave up, lying back. The window was open—she liked to keep one open even on the coldest days, and this autumn afternoon was no more than mildly brisk. She would lie there and wait until the swelling went down in her feet, lie there and dream of those strange, hypnotic eyes and his warm body, she would dream of...
Chapter Five
Georgie awoke with a start at the sound of a soft knock on her door. No one in the household knocked—everyone from Bertha on up tended to barge in without warning. “Come in,” she said sleepily.
It was Rafferty, carrying a steaming pan of water. “How are your feet doing, Miss Georgiana?”
She resisted making a face at the formal address and quickly sat up. “They’re fine,” she said, trying to tuck the boots up under her skirts.
He closed the door behind him and advanced into the room, and Georgie felt a flush of happiness, one she tried to hide. “You need to soak them,” he said.
He set the basin on the floor by the chair, and she looked at it dubiously. Maybe the hot water would loosen the boots’ stranglehold on her poor abused feet.
“I will,” she said, not moving.
He waited. She waited. Finally, he spoke. “Do you usually sleep with your shoes on?”
She made a sound of disgust, flipping back the hem of her skirt to reveal the boots. “I couldn’t get them off.”
Before she realized what he’d intended, he scooped her off the bed and settled her in the chair, kneeling down at her feet. “You should have called for me.”
“I could have gotten them off my...self.” She swallowed a groan of pain as he began to pull the boot. He was holding her foot in one hand, tugging gently, and after a moment, the boot came free. She had blood on her stockings.
He said nothing, merely applied himself to the other foot, and a moment later both were free. “Take off your stockings,” he said, as calmly as if he were asking her for a biscuit.
“I can’t!” she said, scandalized.
“Why not?”
She thought about it for a moment, then realized to her chagrin that he wouldn’t care if she stripped naked. There was a challenge in his voice, and Georgie was not a one who backed down from a challenge.
“All right.” She contemplated telling him to turn his back, then thought better of it. If he was daring her, she was going to call his bluff.
It was relatively easy to reach up under her skirts to her ribboned garter, easy to untie it and pull it out. It was originally pink silk, but use and many washings had faded it to almost white, and she suddenly remembered that the other garter didn’t match. Fancy undergarments were one of the first things to go when they could no longer afford to go to the modiste.
And she was not going to let it bother her. With a calm efficiency, she untied the other one, pulling out a blue garter and setting it beside the pink one. “They don’t match,” she said disconsolately.
“Luckily, no gentleman will know that,” he said, unmoved.
“You know it.”
“But I’m no gentleman. I’m the butler. Do you want to unroll your stockings or shall I?”
