“Exactly,” Thomas replied. “Which means she didn’t really care if she saw Cameron again or not. She just wanted the matter settled.”
“Well, hell,” Drew said after he’d gone. “Was that supposed to be significant?”
Warren couldn’t let that one pass. “It’s a wonder you aren’t still a virgin, Drew, with as little as you know about women.”
“Me?” Drew choked out. “Well, at least I leave them smiling. It’s a wonder thatyourwomen don’t freeze to death in your bed!”
They were too near to each other for that kind of exchange. All Clinton could do was yell, “Watch the blasted furniture!”
Chapter Thirty
“Thomas!” Georgina exclaimed when she lifted the corner of the damp cloth covering her eyes to find her brother walking toward her bed, rather than her maid. “Since when do you just walk into my room without knocking?”
“Since my welcome became doubtful. What’s wrong with your eyes?”
She tossed the cloth on the table next to her bed and threw her legs over the side to sit up. “Nothing,” she mumbled indistinctly.
“What’s wrong withyouthen, that you’re still in bed? Do you know what hour it is?”
That managed to get a glare out of her. “I’ve been up. Does this look like my nightclothes?” she asked, indicating the bright yellow morning gown she was wearing.
“So you’ve just become lazy, is that it, with so much inactivity on your recent voyages?”
Her mouth dropped open before it pulled into a tight line of irritation. “Whatdoyou want?”
“To find out when you’re going to start talking to me again.”
He smiled as he said it, and sat down at the foot of the bed where he could lean back against the bedpost to face her. She wasn’t fooled. He wanted something else. And whenever Thomas didn’t come right to the point, the point was almost invariably delicate or distasteful, neither of which she cared to face just now.
As for talking to him again, she’d already decided that she had to assure him he was forgiven and blamelessbeforeher condition became known, so he wouldn’t feel guilty or feel he was partly responsible. He wasn’t. She could have kept James Malory from making love to her if she’d really wanted to, but she hadn’t wanted to. Her conscience could attest to that.
She might as well get it over with while he was here. “I’m sorry, Thomas, if I led you to believe that I’m angry with you. I’m not, you know.”
“I wasn’t the only one who had that impression. Drew assures me—”
“Drew is just being overprotective,” she insisted with a good deal of exasperation. “Honestly, it’s not like him to get so involved in our affairs. I can’t imagine why he—”
“Can’t you?” he interrupted gently. “It’s not like you to behave impetuously, but you have. He’s reacting to your reactions. So is Warren, for that matter. He’s being deliberately provoking—”
“He’salwaysprovoking.”
Thomas chuckled. “So he is, but usually he’s a bit more subtle about it. Let me put it another way. He’s actively looking for a brawl just now, and I don’t think he cares who obliges him.”
“But why?”
“It’s one way of getting rid of emotions that he has trouble containing.”
She made a moue of distaste. “Well, I wish he’d find another outlet. I wish he’d fall in love again.Thatwould give him a different direction for his passions. Then maybe he’d stop—”
“Did I hear you correctly, Georgina Anderson?”
She flushed hotly at his censuring tone, having forgotten for a moment that she was talking to a brother. “For God’s sake, Thomas,” she said defensively. “Do you think I know absolutely nothing about life?”
“No more than you should know, which is very little aboutthatside of life.”
She groaned inwardly, but staunchly maintained, “You have got to be joking. After all the conversations I’ve overheard in this house? Granted, I shouldn’t have listened, but when the subject is soooo fascinating…” She grinned when he leaned his head back against the post, closing his eyes. “Have I made my point, Thomas?”
One eye popped open. “You’ve changed, Georgie. Clinton calls it bossiness, but I’d call it—”
