His writing desk was open, and she dipped his pen and wrote a quick note, laying it and her stocking on the pillow beside him. That done, she retrieved the box from his drawer and opened it, leaving that beside the note, as well.
He deserved it, she reminded herself fiercely, refusing to look at his face. He’d done it to her, and he deserved it.
Making no sound, she gathered her dress and her shoes and slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her. With luck, she would be out of the house before he woke up. With more luck, she’d be able to go home to Shropshire before he decided to retaliate. With immense luck, she’d be able to get out of Carroway House without crying.
Georgiana wiped at the tears on her face. She didn’t have that much luck.
Chapter 11
Puck.
—A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, Scene i
The light scent of lavender clung to the bedsheets and the pillow on which his cheek rested. Eyes closed, Tristan breathed deeply of her, of Georgiana.
Six years was a damned long time to wait for her, but he would have waited longer. As he came more awake, he still couldn’t quite believe that he’d been forgiven. He wanted to thank her again—several more times, in fact—before the household rose and she had to leave his room.
But even then he wouldn’t let her escape from him or his bed for long. Now that he had earned another chance with Georgiana, he wasn’t going to ruin it. Thank God he hadn’t proposed yet to Amelia; at least in Georgie he’d found a wife with whom he enjoyed sex.
He stretched carefully, not wanting to wake her, then opened his eyes. Her side of the bed was empty. Tristan scowled, sitting up. “Georgiana?”
Silence answered him.
As he shifted, something slid against his bare backside. He reached back and lifted it. The box. For a long moment he looked at it, willing his sated brain to begin working again. Swiping his hand through his disheveled hair, he turned his attention to the pillow where the box had been. A stocking lay neatly across it, a folded paper beneath.
With all his being, he didn’t want to look at that note. Neither could he sit naked in bed all morning staring at it, though, so with a deep breath he picked it up and opened it. In Georgiana’s neat hand it said, “Now you have a pair of my stockings. I hope you will enjoy them, for you won’t have me again. Georgiana.”
She’d planned it all along. And he’d fallen for it with all the ardor of a schoolboy suffering his first crush. Anger ripped through him, and he crushed the note in his fist, hurling it into the fireplace. A single curse tore from his chest, quiet and vehement.
He shot out of bed, grabbing for trousers and a clean shirt. No one played him for a fool. He’d been planning proposals and entwined bodies, and she’d been waiting for him to wake up, laughing about how she’d waited six years to do it, but she’d finally gotten even.
Deeper than the anger, a knot of solid hurt wound tighter and tighter inside him, as though someone had kicked him in the gut. He tried to push it aside, but it remained, keeping him from breathing. This was unacceptable. He did not like feeling this way.
He slowed, yanking on his boots. When he’d bedded her six years earlier, it hadn’t been to win the damned wager. It had been because he’d wanted her. He hadn’t been thinking any further than finding pleasure in her body; he hadn’t expected to spend the next six years remembering and wanting her again.
Tristan strode to the wardrobe, grabbing a waistcoat and a jacket, pulling them on with cold, black anger. Last night had been different, even better than before. He’d been thinking beyond the moment this time.
He scowled, reaching for a clean, starched cravat and knotting it around his neck. Georgiana had been thinking beyond the moment, too. She’d been thinking about how she planned on getting even.
Even. They were even. The word was somehow significant, but he was too furious to dwell on it. Tristan stalked to his door, slamming it open and striding down the hallway to the east wing of the house. He didn’t bother to knock on her door, but shoved it open. “Georgi—”
She wasn’t there. Clothes lay strewn across the coverlet and the floor, but the bed hadn’t been slept in. Drawers hung half-open, clothes dripping from them to the floor in multicolored falls of silk and satin, and half the toilette items on her dressing table were gone.
He assessed the chaos. She had gathered some things together quickly, not bothering to hide the fact. That meant she hadn’t packed yesterday, in advance of her little coup de grâce.
Turning on his heel, he went back to his bedchamber. The note lay just inside the fireplace, and he picked it up, smoothing it out and brushing off smudges of charred coal. Her writing wasn’t as precise as usual, the ink smeared a little because she’d folded the missive before it was dry. She’d been in a hurry.
The question was, why? Had she wanted to finish before he awoke, or before she lost her nerve? Shoving the note in the drawer of his nightstand with both stockings, he returned through the hallway and down the stairs. Dawkins stood in the foyer, yawning.
“Why are you up already?” Tristan demanded, the frayed rein on his anger threatening to pull loose and run rampant over the next person he came across.
The butler straightened. “Lady Georgiana summoned me nearly half an hour ago.”
“Why?”
“She requested that I call a hack, my lord, for herself and her maid.”
She’d taken her maid. That meant she didn’t plan on returning. Tristan’s muscles were wound so tightly with fury and tension that he shook. “Did she say where she was going?”
