“Of course, you can, Miss Georgiana. You’re looking a bit pale still. A walk would do you some good, get you fresh air. Shall I ask Rafferty to escort you?”
“No...er, no, I don’t think so,” she stammered. Rafferty didn’t seem to want to have anything to do with her and she wasn’t about to force herself on him. Not until she decided exactly what she was going to do.
“I’m going to kill him,” Martina said with deceptive calm.
“Martina...” Georgie began, but Martina had raced from the room like a cyclone, leaving her alone, and she slid out of bed and poured herself a cup of tea, her toes freezing in the early morning air. How had Martina known? Was there some scarlet sign about her that announced to the world she had lost her innocence? Where in the world had she gone?
“You rat bastard!” Martina found Rafferty on the fourth floor, among the deserted servants’ bedrooms.
He didn’t bother denying it. “Don’t you think I know it?” he replied. “I never should have touched her.”
“Then why did you? Did she throw herself at you?”
He wasn’t about to tell her the truth. “She was too tempting.”
“You’re a man who can resist all sorts of temptation. I thought you were looking after the girl, when all this time you were just trying to get beneath her skirts! Shame on you, Rafferty. She’s just a child.”
“She’s not a child,” he snapped. “Apart from that, you’re right.”
“So you spent the last two days rolling in bed with her.”
“It was just once. One night,” he amended truthfully. “I told her it would never happen again.”
“And she believed you? You need to leave here, Rafferty, before you do any more damage. She thinks she’s in love with you!”
“Don’t you think I know that?”
“Then why did you seduce her?”
He started to deny it, then shut his mouth. It didn’t matter that she’d thrown herself in his arms—he was man enough to resist even the strongest temptation. And that’s what she had been—more temptation than he’d known what to do with, and he’d given in like a fool. “I’m never touching her again.”
“You think that excuses you? What if she’s pregnant? Did you pull out?”
“Of course I did,” he said irritably. He didn’t want to be making excuses to Martina, he didn’t want to be thinking about Georgie all the time. She haunted him, his dreams, his waking hours, and Martina was right, he should get the hell away from her. But he couldn’t, as long as Stiles posed a threat.
“You need to tell her what to do when she gets married,” he said.
“I don’t think we need to worry about that—she’s nowhere near ready to look at anyone else but her beloved Rafferty. Damn you!”
“I’ve tried to talk her out of it,” he snapped.
“Try harder! What if she’s pregnant?”
“She won’t be!”
“Withdrawal is never a sure thing. Will you marry her if she is?”
“I’d ruin her life.”
“You already have!” Martina slammed the door behind her as she stomped off to rejoin her young mistress.
She shut the door carefully behind her. She’d regained her calm, and she smoothed her dark chignon and brushed her skirts as she approached the bed, as if girding herself for war.
“First of all,” she said in voice far removed from her subservient maid’s voice, “Did he hurt you?”
Georgie didn’t attempt to dissemble. “Of course not!”
“Don’t lie to me, Miss Georgiana! Whose idea was this?”
