“That was different.”
“How so?”
“Because I was half-mad for you. Now be quiet. I’m thinking.”
“‘Was?’” she repeated.
“Am. Hush.”
Amelia, despite her willingness to shed all of her clothes in his bedchamber, was always fully covered when she went out-of-doors. She’d said something about strong sunlight disagreeing with her delicate complexion, as he recalled.
“Her room will be in the west wing, I think.”
“We could find it faster if we split up.”
He shook his head, tightening his grip on her fingers as they crept along the balcony toward the west-facing bedchambers. Stunned as he was by her sudden appearance in the Johns sitting room window, her skirt hiked up past her knees, he wasn’t about to let her out of his sight now. “They won’t be home from the soiree for hours. We have time.”
At the first door he hesitated, making certain Georgiana was well behind him. He took hold of her shoulder, pulling her close to him. “If anything happens, head back to the window and out through the garden,” he murmured. “Don’t go back out to the street straightaway. That’s where they’ll look first.”
“You too, then,” she returned, her soft hair brushing his cheek.
Tristan closed his eyes, breathing her in, then shook himself. He couldn’t afford to be distracted now. Taking a breath and holding it, he slowly turned the knob and inched the door open. The rooms would be unoccupied, but he didn’t want to risk a squeak alerting the upstairs servants.
The faint sent of lemon wafted toward him on the night air. “This is it,” he mouthed, lips against her ear.
He released her hand so he could feel his way inside. Luckily the curtains were slightly parted, letting a faint sliver of moonlight fall across the center of the floor. The wardrobe stood behind a vanity screen and a full-length dressing mirror, and he slipped behind them, Georgiana close on his heels.
Amelia had said she would keep the stockings safe in her dresser, and as he inched the heavy top drawer open, he sent up a silent prayer that she hadn’t been lying.
A light flared by the bed.
Tristan froze, his arm buried up to the elbow in the dresser drawer. Beside him Georgiana stood wide-eyed as she stared at him, not even breathing. The light dimmed, settling into the more even flicker of a lamp. His fingers touched the edge of a piece of parchment, and he gripped it, not daring to move any further in the deep silence of the room.
“Luxley?” Amelia’s sleepy voice came, barely more than a whisper.
He and Georgiana exchanged glances. “‘Luxley?’” she mouthed.
“You naughty boy, are you there? Where have you been?”
Sheets rustled, and at the sound Tristan yanked his hand free, pulling the stockings and the note with him, and pushed Georgiana into the corner beside the wardrobe. He crouched beside her, hoping the vanity screen and the mirror would keep them in deep enough shadows that Amelia wouldn’t be able to see them.
Bare feet padded to the window, and the curtains were pushed aside. Now would be their best chance to escape. Showing the stockings to Georgiana, he shoved them in a pocket and took her hand again.
The window rattled and opened.
“Amelia, my flower,” Lord Luxley’s melodious voice came, followed by a grunt and a heavier thumping sound as the baron entered the room. “Your groundskeeper needs to have a care about that trellis. I nearly broke my neck.”
The unmistakable sound of kissing followed, and Tristan glanced sideways at Georgiana. She met his gaze, her expression a mixture of horror and deep amusement.
“Close the curtains, Luxley, for heaven’s sake,” Amelia’s soft voice said, and bare feet padded back toward the bed.
Curtains shifted, and the room light yellowed again to the lamp’s glow as heavier footsteps made their way to the bed. More kissing sounds followed, together with some throaty groans from both parties. Good God, Tristan thought, settling down more comfortably in the corner and pulling Georgiana up against his shoulder. Unless Luxley lived up to his reputation for brevity, this might take a while.
“We can’t leave now,” she whispered into his ear.
“I know,” he replied, turning his head to return the favor. “We’ll have to wait until they settle down again, or get too busy to notice us.”
“Oh, dear,” she murmured back, then slowly and unmistakably licked the curve of his ear.
