“I don’t suppose you’ve come to apply for a position as governess.”
Her smile was breathtaking. Madonnas bore smiles like that. He’d seen them in churches all over Spain.
“I fear not. I have quite enough challenges at home.” She gave him a quick look from those pale green eyes that he felt straight down to his groin. “I must beg your attention on another matter.”
“So I hear. It must be urgent if you came so early in the day.”
“I do apologize for the time,” she said. “But I needed to see you before you did something foolish.”
And that was when Grey’s day got even worse.
3
“Ibelieve introductions are in order,” Greyville said as Georgie followed him into the grimmest room she had seen since boarding school. Good heavens, she thought, looking around at pea-green wallpaper and heavy gold furniture left over from the previous century. Or possibly the one before that. The room could give one indigestion.
The marquess gave his own look. “Appalling, isn’t it?”
She shook her head in wonder. “Nauseating.”
For a moment she was plagued by guilt. She suspected this was their best parlor. And she was taking the funds away to improve it. But then she thought of Prissy trying to live up to the power and strength that emanated from this man like the heat of the sun, and even with only a moment’s acquaintance knew that poor Prissy would never survive him. For the first time in her life, Georgie questioned whether she’d make it out of this room unscathed. And oddly, all that did was inspire the most delicious shivers.
“You seem to know who I am,” the marquess said, closing the door enough for privacy without sacrificing propriety. “I hope you aren’t here to raise money.”
Georgie blinked away the distraction. “I beg your pardon?”
He stopped. “For the orphanage?”
She was probably staring. “What orphanage?”
He offered a slight, wry smile. “You mean there can be another reason for a young woman to be in charge of ten children in one house?”
It took a second for her to connect the question to previous statements, leaving her with her own rueful smile. “You have obviously never met my family. We are known for being...prolific.”
For a minute he just stared. She could watch him do that all day. He was even more than the dispatches had intimated. Lean, hard, tall, with the unmistakable posture of an officer in an elite corps and the lithe grace of a natural horseman. His face was all angles, weathered by a Spanish sun so that his water-blue eyes looked ghostly against the tan and the unusual salt-and-pepper of his thick umber hair. Even the scar that marred his left temple intercepted his eyebrow at a perfect angle. He was compelling, enticing. He was, unfortunately, unforgettable.
And he smelled...delicious. Cinnamon and sandalwood and cedar. She might be in trouble here. And she hadn’t even checked to see if he had two legs.
“Oh, my God,” he suddenly said, eyes widening a bit. “I knew I recognized those eyes. You’re one of the Mad Packhams!”
Well, that brought Georgie caroming back to reality. “You must know one of the boys.”
“I know all three of them. Mad as snakes, the lot. The most misnamed miscreants I’ve ever met.”
She could afford a smile. “The Archangels, you mean? Yes. I am inclined to agree, but then I grew up with the monsters. And really, if your parents conspired to name you after angels but your sisters after British kings, how would you react?”
His scowl lightened. “I’d run off to war to prove I was more than feathers and haloes.”
She nodded. “Exactly. Evidently it is an age-old Packham proclivity.”
“And do you kings attempt to prove yourselves as more than scepters and bad habits?”
Georgie still smiled, but only out of habit. “Females do not get that chance, my lord. Even Packhams.”
“And yet, here you are, breaching my castle for some reason. I’d have to assume that means you are Michael’s sister.”
She frowned. “I am.”
“I might have known. His etiquette is just as dismal.”
