“A stupid venture altogether, that war.”
She just nodded.
For a long few minutes the only sounds that could be heard in the room were the crackle of the fire and the soft chime of porcelain being moved about as Georgie Grace prepared tea. Adam soaked in the ritual of normalcy like sun on a cold body. This was what he had dreamed of back on the Peninsula, small homey moments spent in safe places. The gentle scents of women—hers seemed to be something flowery—and the comforting motions of daily ritual. Tea and cakes. A woman’s laughter. A warm fire on a cold day. He wanted to close his eyes and just drink it in.
“Your Grace?”
Good Lord, he’d closed his eyes. “Adam,” he corrected, his eyes wide open as he accepted his teacup and cakes. “Please.”
She smiled, looking a bit bemused, not that he blamed her. “Then I am Georgie. And if I am any judge of things, you will soon meet Lully.”
“Lully? Do you mean your daughter? I thought her name was Charlotte.”
She grinned. “Lilly Charlotte, actually. Only her cousin couldn’t pronounce Lilly. It rather stuck.”
Adam watched her take a delicate bite of her cake. She left a bit of icing caught just on the upper corner of her mouth. Adam couldn’t take his eyes from it. He couldn’t quash the urge to reach up and brush it away. Or kiss it away…
Napoleon’s knees, he’d been away too long. Ducking his head, he slurped at his tea, scalding the roof of his mouth as he did so until he could rein his less civilized urges back in again. It had been so long since he’d even thought about lust. The multiple surgeries on his leg had mostly seen to that.
Well, evidently, he was past all that.
“Adam, are you all right? Is it your leg, or another injury? Would you like to lie down?”
He opened his eyes again, afraid that now he was the one blushing. “No, no. I was just enjoying the tea. These are the small moments a soldier thinks of when he’s lying on the cold ground in Spain.”
Oh, sweet Christ, he was really going to be lost if she didn’t turn that sympathetic gaze somewhere else. It made him want to just lay himself at her feet.
If his leg were more dependable, he’d jump up and pace. He was afraid, though, that he’d end up with his face in her lap, and that wouldn’t promote his intentions here a bit.
“Lully,” he blurted out. “I’m really here for her.”
His words were met with a rather stark silence. “Pardon?”
He nodded, setting down his saucer. “I am actually here to bring her some news.”
Again Georgie tilted her head. “Lully is four, Your Grace. What news could you have to give her?”
This wasn’t going the way he’d planned. He should have believed Jamie from the start. Maybe if his reaction to Georgie wouldn’t have knocked him so off-center.
“I need to take her to Scotland.”
Georgie froze. “I beg your pardon?”
He tried briefly closing his eyes again. “She is needed there.”
She was staring at him as if he’d begun to bark like a dog. “In Scotland.”
He nodded and surrendered to the inevitable. It wouldn’t get any easier with the waiting. “Life has just changed forever for her, Georgie. She is no longer simply a little girl.” A deep breath didn’t help, so he just dove in and opened his eyes again. “She’s a duchess.”
Georgie laughed. “She is no such thing.”
It was pointless to argue.
“Are you feeling perfectly well, Your Grace?” she asked, getting to her feet. “I can call for the local physician. He is old, but…”
He should have known this would be her reaction. “No,” he said. There was no avoiding it. He had to get to his feet as well. “No,” he said, grabbing his cane and hoisting himself up, his knee protesting like an unoiled hinge. “I am not ill. Please sit again so I might.”
She flushed, but she sat. Adam did the same, trying not to wince.
