Tristan jumped. Bit leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, and Tristan scowled at him, wondering for a brief moment how long his brother had been there. “What? Robert the Sphinx has decided to speak, unasked? Is it a miracle, or are you trying to make trouble?”
“I just thought you should know, in case you were tired of hiding. Good night.” Robert pushed upright and vanished back into the hallway.
“I am not hiding.”
He simply had rules for himself where Lady Georgiana Halley was concerned. If she attacked, he would respond in kind; if she insinuated herself into a group of which he was already a part, he would not object. And she could break her damned fans across his knuckles whenever she pleased, because it was his private opinion that for some reason she continued to want to touch him. The contact rarely elicited more than a wince, and it gave him the opportunity to purchase replacements for her, which, of course, annoyed her even more.
But this insistence of hers on living under his roof was different. There were no pages in this rule book, and he bloody well needed to make some before anything happened.
Tristan resignedly snuffed out his cheroot and headed upstairs.
Georgiana sat before the fire in her bedchamber, an unopened book on her lap. She hadn’t slept at all last night; contemplating her plan had kept her up and pacing until dawn. Tonight, though, was even worse. He was in this same house, perhaps only a floor away, perhaps only a hallway away.
A quiet knock sounded at her door, and she nearly leapt out of the chair. “Calm down, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered to herself. She’d asked Dawkins the butler for a glass of warm milk; it wasn’t as though Dare would come calling at her private rooms in broad daylight, much less at this hour of the night. “Come in.”
The door opened, and Dare strolled into her bedchamber. “Comfortable?” he drawled, stopping before the fireplace.
“What—Get out!”
“I left your door open,” he said in a low tone, “so keep your voice down unless you want an audience.”
Georgiana took a deep breath. He was right; if she succumbed to her sudden panic at being in a room alone with him, she would both ensure her own ruin and destroy any chance of teaching him the lesson he so desperately needed to learn. “Fine. I’ll say it more quietly, then: Get out.”
“First tell me what the devil you’re up to, Georgiana.”
She’d never been a very good liar, and Dare was far from being a fool. “I don’t know why you think I’m ‘up to’ anything,” she retorted. “My circumstances have changed over the past year, and—”
“So you’re here out of the goodness of your heart, to care for the aunties,” he said, resting one arm along the mantel.
“Yes.” She wished he didn’t look so much at ease in her bedchamber, and so full of sin at every blasted minute. “What else would you suggest I do, under the circumstances?”
He shrugged. “Get married. Go torture your husband, and leave me out of it.”
Georgiana set her book aside and rose. She didn’t want to press that particular topic; she would, in fact, have preferred that he’d never mentioned it. If she didn’t address it, however, he would never believe any kind word she said to him now or in the future, let alone fall in love with her. “Marriage, Lord Dare, is not an option for me, now is it?”
For a long moment he looked at her, his expression dark and unreadable. “To be blunt, Georgiana, the state of your virginity would be less important to most men than the size of your income. I could name a hundred men who would marry you in a second, given the chance.”
“I hardly need—or want—a man who desires only my money,” she said hotly. “Besides, I have made an agreement with your aunts. I do not break my word.”
Dare pushed upright from his lazy slouch. He seemed taller than she remembered, and before she could stop herself, she took a step backward. A muscle in his lean cheek twitched, and he turned for the door.
“Get me the invoice for that rolling chair,” he said over his shoulder, “and I’ll reimburse you for it.”
“No need,” she returned, trying to regain her composure. “It’s a gift.”
“I don’t take charity. Give me the invoice tomorrow.”
She stifled an irritated sigh. “Very well.”
After the door closed, she stayed where she was for a long while. The night he had taken her virginity, as he put it, she had thought herself in love. To discover the next day that he’d done it to win a wager—one of her stockings, yet—had hurt more than she thought possible.
Whatever his reasons for not boasting of his victory to the ton, she had never forgiven him. So now she would teach him exactly how much it hurt to be betrayed. Then, perhaps, he would understand what it meant to be honorable, and he could make a decent husband to a poor, naive girl like Amelia.
With that in mind, she climbed into bed and tried to fall asleep. Amelia Johns needed to be let in on the game, or she herself would be as guilty of heartlessness as Tristan Carroway was. Perhaps she should do so at once; waiting until the Ibbottson ball would only give Dare an additional three days to ruin Miss John’s life.
Miss Amelia Johns seemed surprised to see Georgiana when she called at Johns House the next morning. Her brunette hair in a fetching bun with strategic curls escaping to caress her neck and cheeks, and garbed in a muslin day dress the color of sunshine, she looked the portrait of fairy-tale innocence. “Lady Georgiana,” she said, curtsying, her arms full of flowers.
“Miss Johns, thank you for seeing me this morning. I can see that you’re busy; please don’t let me keep you from your task.”
