“You weren’t supposed to leave at all!”
“Now that’s ridiculous. We had no understanding, no spoken agreement that might have led me to believe you wanted to continue our relationship on a permanent basis—or any basis, for that matter. Was I supposed to read your mind?Didyou have something permanent in mind?”
“I was going to ask you to be my…” He hesitated over the word when he saw the narrowing of her eyes. “Well, you don’t have to look insulted,” he ended huffily.
“I’m not,” she said tightly, which told him plainly that she was. “My answer, by the way, would have been no!”
“Then I’m bloody well glad I didn’t ask!” and he headed toward the door.
“Don’t you dare leave yet!” she shouted after him. “You haven’t answered my question.”
“Haven’t I?” He turned with raised brow, which warned her immediately that he was done with showing her his temper, and was now going to be merely difficult, which was far worse as far as she was concerned. “Suffice it to say that you’re my wife, and as such, you aren’t going anywhere.”
And that infuriated her no end. “Oh, are we admitting it now, that I’m your wife? Just because my brothers have come? Is this more revenge on your part, James Malory?”
“Think what you like, but your damned brothers can rot in the harbor for all I care. They won’t know where to find you, and you bloody well aren’t going to them. End of discussion, love,” and he slammed out of the bedroom.
And by the time Georgina had slammed the door three more times for good measure, none of which brought her exasperating husband back to finish the argument properly, she’d decided he was still a blasted brick wall. But brick walls could be climbed if they couldn’t be toppled.
“Have you told her you love her yet?”
James slowly put his cards down on the table and picked up his drink instead. The question, unrelated to anything said previously, had his brow raising. He looked first at George Amherst to his left, who was studying his cards as if he’d never seen them before, then at Connie across from him, who was trying to keep a straight face, and finally at Anthony, who’d tossed out that loaded question.
“You weren’t by any chance speaking to me, were you, old boy?”
“None other.” Anthony grinned.
“You’ve been sitting there all evening wondering about it, have you? No wonder you’ve been losing steadily.”
Anthony picked up his own drink and lazily swirled the amber liquid around in the glass, watching it rather than his brother. “Actually, I wondered about it this morning when I heard all that noise going on upstairs. Then again this afternoon when you caught the dear girl surreptitiously sneaking out the front door and ordered her to her room. That was a bit much, don’t you think?”
“She stayed put, didn’t she?”
“Indeed, so much so she wouldn’t come down for dinner, which gotmywife annoyed enough to go off visiting.”
“So the little darling sulks,” James said, shrugging with little concern. “It’s a rather amusing habit of hers that can be got around quite easily. I’m just not ready to get around it yet.”
“Oh, ho.” Anthony chuckled. “That’s confidence a bit misplaced I’d say, particularly if you haven’t told her you love her.”
James’s brow shot up a bit higher. “You’re not proposing to give me advice, are you, Tony?”
“As your wife puts it, if the shoe fits.”
“But yours don’t fit a’tall. Aren’t you the lad who was so mired in the muck of misery that he—”
“We aren’t discussing me,” Anthony said laconically, a frown settling between his brows.
“Very well,” James allowed, only to add, “But you’d still be floundering if I hadn’t left Roslynn that note that exonerated you.”
“I hate to break it to you, old man,” Anthony gritted out. “But I’d already mended that fence before she ever clapped eyes on your note.”
“Gentlemen, the game is whist,” George Amherst said pointedly, “and I’m two hundred pounds down, if you don’t mind.”
And Connie finally burst out laughing. “Give it up, puppy,” he said to Anthony. “He’s going to remain mired in his own muck until it suits him to crawl out of the hole, and not a moment sooner. Besides, I do believe he’s enjoying his muck…the challenge, you know. If she don’t know how he feels, then it stands to reason she ain’t going to tell him how she feels. Keeps him on his toes, don’t it?”
Anthony turned to James for confirmation of this interesting idea, but all he got was a scoffing snort and a scowl.
As the Malory brothers were picking up their cards to continue the game, Georgina was slipping out the backdoor to stumble her way across backyards and alleys to Park Lane, where after an anxious fifteen-minute wait, she was able to hail a passing hack to take her to the London docks. Unfortunately, she’d already been let off and the hack gone before she belatedly recalled something she’d learned on her first trip to England. London, reputedly the largest commercial and shipping center in the world, didn’t have just one dock. There was the London Dock at Wapping, the East India at Blackwall, Hermitage Dock, Shadwell Dock—and those were just a few of them that spread for miles along the Thames, and on both the south bank of the river and the north.
