It should have been reassuring, if she didn’t know that her family simply didn’t care, and her shoulders slumped as she turned.
“I should have taken my time with him,” he said grimly. “He won’t be hurting you again.”
She turned to look at him. He was beautiful in the shadowy kitchen, with his blazing eyes and high cheekbones and that glorious mouth that had kissed her. She had never realized a man could be beautiful.
“Did you really kill him?”
He didn’t answer her, which was answer enough. “Go up to bed, Georgie, and forget about tonight. Forget everything.”
But that was thing she wasn’t going to do. His touch on her skin, his mouth on her breast, his strong arms, had started a fire blazing within her, and despite what he said, she was going to cherish the memory.
“Goodnight …,” she said, then paused. “What’s your full name?”
“It’s Rafferty, Miss Georgie,” he said, sounding annoyed.
But she didn’t bother arguing with him. She trudged up the servants’ staircase, making as little noise as possible, trying to understand her troubled soul. She wanted to cry. She wanted to go back down and throw herself into his arms. She wanted to throw herself on the floor in a temper tantrum like Norah tended to indulge in.
All she could do was climb into bed and wrap her arms around herself, remembering the feel of his arms, his body, his mouth. And she fell into a troubled sleep.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rafferty started the day in a foul humor, one he couldn’t very well indulge, but he snapped at Jane and growled at Martina. It was the least of his problems. The Manning women were at home to guests, and Georgie had come down late, hollow-eyed and refusing to look at him. Andrew Salton wasn’t among the young men who surrounded Norah, which was a blessing. Rafferty was in a thoroughly devilish mood, and Salton had hurt Georgie. He might be tempted to take his revenge.
He headed to the door at the latest summons, opening it to reveal a footman in dark blue livery. Familiar-looking livery. “The Dowager Duchess of Ormond has come to call,” he announced in a damnably loud voice, and the buzz of conversation dropped to a whispered hush.
For a brief moment, he considered shutting the door in the footman’s face, but he knew he couldn’t get away with it. Keeping his expression impassive, he opened the door wider to usher the tiny figure of his grandmother into the house.
She took one long, meditative look at him, wiping out any fond hope that she didn’t know he was here, and then nodded. “You clean up well,” she said in an icy voice, and swept past him into the salon.
Under any other circumstances, he would have found the Mannings’ flustered response to their august guest to be amusing. Liliane Manning had dropped her fan in her hurry to rise and curtsey, and even Norah looked properly cowed. He allowed himself a brief glimpse at Georgie, then wished he hadn’t. She was looking at the dowager duchess, the woman with the same vivid blue eyes that were a match to his, and there was an odd expression on her face.
She couldn’t have figured it out, he thought. How could a butler be connected to a peer of the realm? If he stood still long enough for Georgie to confront him, he’d simply tell her he was a bastard offspring of the old duke, and she’d have no choice but to believe it. It was far more likely than the truth. And he was a bastard in word and deed when it came to Georgie, even if he was as legitimate as Georgie herself. This would convince her that he truly was out of reach, though in fact he wasn’t sure which was lower on the rungs of social acceptability—bastard or butler.
In the ensuing half hour, he might be tempted to think he’d imagined his grandmother’s assessing gaze and cryptic words. She had been brought up by high sticklers, and she was social, gracious, and charming, setting the nervous room at ease. Everyone except Georgie, who kept watching the two of them, as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. Damn it all!
The dowager duchess rose gracefully when the prescribed time had come to an end, and he wondered if he dared disappear. Her footman had remained in the hallway, standing at attention, his eyes straight ahead, so clearly he had no idea she had come for any other reason than to visit her neighbors. When she rose, Rafferty moved to open the door for her, forestalling the footman, and she paused, looking up at him.
“I have requested the receipt for the wonderful scones Lady Manning is famous for. You will bring it.” There was no question of disobedience in her voice, and he nodded, never having seen her famous scones.
“As you wish, Your Grace,” he said in a low voice.
“This afternoon.” She glanced back into the room, and her eyes lit on Georgie for a moment, before glancing at Norah. ”I don’t know what game you’re playing, but enough is enough.”
Fortunately her voice was so low and angry that only he could hear it, though he spared a quick glance into the room to make certain. They were all looking suitably awed by their august visitor. Everyone but Georgie, who was watching the two of them with barely disguised interest.
And then his grandmother was gone, and the room broke into nervous chatter. Rafferty disappeared back into the hallway, out of Georgie’s range of vision. She saw more than he would have liked, but he could only play it as it lay.
It wasn’t until the last guest left that the dam broke. “Would you believe it?” Liliane said in awe. “The Dowager Duchess of Ormond visiting us! We’ve come up in the world. I was afraid they disapproved of the heir’s attentions to you and sent him away, but it must have been a mere coincidence. Mark my words, she was checking to see if it would be a suitable alliance.”
“I’m not going to marry him—he’s too much of a boy,” Norah said haughtily.
“We’ll see. He might not be back from his grand tour in time. Still, it’s very encouraging.”
“Not interested,” Norah said sternly. “Let George have him. He’s better than a butler.”
“Stop that at once, Norah,” her mother decreed. “That’s just silliness.”
“Talk to George about it and you’ll see how serious she is.”
