Chapter 5
Get thee to a nunnery!
—Hamlet, Act III, Scene i
By the time the household finished dinner and the quartet left for their evening at the opera, Georgiana was ready to reconsider her obligations to the Misses Carroway. She had no engagements this evening herself, feeling that her duties to Milly and Edwina should come before soirees and balls.
And now that she’d been abandoned by the aunties, she was left with an entire evening of nothing to do but think about being all but alone in a large house with Tristan Carroway.
He was an arrogant, impossible man; and the worst part was that she could still see how Amelia Johns could be enamored of him. If she could forget for a minute how awful he’d been to her, she could even imagine herself with him again, in his arms with his knowing hands and knowing mouth—
“Georgie,” young Edward said, galloping into the library where she’d taken refuge, “do you know how to play ‘Vingt-et-un?’”
“Oh, goodness. I haven’t played that in years.”
“Don’t interrupt Lady Georgiana,” Dare’s deep drawl came from the doorway. “She’s reading.”
“But we need four players!”
She forced a smile, but could feel the blush creeping up her cheeks. “But you and I only make two.”
“No. Bit and Tristan and I make three. We need you.”
“Yes, we need you,” Tristan echoed.
She tried to read his expression to see whether he was being anything less than innocent, so she could retaliate, but she couldn’t tell what he might be thinking behind those light blue eyes.
If she declined Edward’s invitation, she would look like a coward and a snob; even worse, Dare would be sure to call her one or both names, since he had no inclination to be a proper gentleman. One of them would have to rise to the occasion, and better she than he. “Very well,” she said, closing her book and standing. “I would love to play.”
She ended up in the drawing room seated between Edward and Robert, which meant that she had to face Dare’s knowing gaze all evening.
As Edward dealt the cards she turned to Robert, mostly to avoid looking at Tristan. She knew little of the middle Carroway brother, except that years ago Robert had been talkative and witty and very funny. Everyone knew he had nearly been killed in the war, and she had seen him in public only rarely since his return. Except for a slight limp, though, he looked as fit as he ever had.
“How did you manage to get talked into this?” she asked with a smile.
“Luck.”
“If you don’t mind my asking,” she pressed, despite his uncommunicative response, “how did you get your nickname? Bit, isn’t it?”
“I named him Bit,” Edward said, setting down the remainder of the deck and examining his cards. “When I was a baby that’s how I said his name.”
Young Edward must think her and his brothers ancient. “Do you have nicknames for any of your other brothers?”
The youngster squinted his dark gray eyes in concentration. “Well, Tristan is Dare, and sometimes he’s Tris; and Bradshaw is Shaw; and sometimes we call Andrew, Drew, but he doesn’t like that very much.”
“Why not?”
“He says it’s a girls’ name, and then Shaw calls him Drusilla.”
She tried not to laugh. “I see.”
“And they call me the Runt.”
“That’s awful!” Georgiana glared at Tristan. How typical, that he would use such a demeaning name on a member of his own family.
“But I am the runt! I like it!” Edward squirmed upright, sitting on his folded legs to give him more height in comparison to his tall brothers.
“He likes it,” Tristan drawled, drawing another card from the pile at the center of the table and setting it before her.
