“And then what?”
Was he standing closer? She was feeling crowded, and she swore he wasn’t intentionally looming. But he was...close. Too close. And she had nowhere to move.
“Did you manage to talk with the young ladies on the list?” she blurted out.
He turned away for a moment, his left hand clenching and unclenching down by his leg. Georgie found herself mesmerized by it.
“They were...” He paused, drew in a breath that sounded a bit shaky. Shook his head. “Pleasant.”
Georgie flinched.Pleasantwas not exactly a ringing endorsement.
“Well, it was only your first meeting,” she demurred.
He turned back to her, and the last word she would have been able to use about his expression waspleasant. Hot. Hard. Seething. Mesmerizing. And she simply couldn’t look away.
She was struggling to pull herself back together when he reached out a hand and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She found herself closing her eyes.
“I don’t understand….”
“I’m afraid I do,” he growled, and she felt his hand on her shoulder.
She couldn’t help it. She leaned in, as if starving for his touch. She opened her eyes finally, to see that the moonlight had reached his eyes and set them gleaming. She heard his breathing quicken. She swore she could sense his heartbeat just through his fingertips.
“What?” she whispered.
He shook his head again. Clenched his hand. “I don’t wantpleasant,” he said.
And before she could draw breath to answer, he was kissing her.
Kissing? More like devouring, his arms tight around her, his mouth coaxing hers open, his heart thundering against her breast. He stunned her, swamped her senses with the unbearable silk of his lips, the insistent invasion of his tongue,the tender strength of his hands, that were the only thing holding her up when her legs went weak.
She couldn’t believe it. She, who prided herself on her control, had her fingers threaded through his delicious soft hair, her body pressed to his, her back arched so she could feel the sleek wall of his chest against her suddenly sensitive breasts. She lost her purpose and jettisoned any good sense that remained, wanting nothing more than...more.
She was so lost she never heard the steps approaching from the other side of the curtain. She barely heard her cousin rasp out, “Georgie, ‘ware!”
Instinctively she tried to pull away. Grey held on tighter, his hand cupping the back of her head, his arm a steel band across her back. She almost lost herself completely.
It took the stentorian condemnation in her aunt’s voice to haul her back.
“That will bequiteenough of that!” A clarion call sure to be heard all the way to the foyer. “Georgianna Alice Elliott Packham, stop that at once!”
Grey startled upright, and the rest of the world came crashing back in. Literally. Georgie didn’t look, but she could hear the shocked murmuring of more than one attendee, the tone as salacious as the gossip would undoubtedly be by morning. She was certain she should be stunned, ashamed. Something. All she could think was that she felt suddenly cold without Grey’s arms around her, and it made her angry. She didn’t want that. Shedidn’t.
“Explain yourself!” Aunt Berenice demanded.
She couldn’t. She even managed to open her mouth, but words simply wouldn’t form.
It was Grey who responded, settling his arm around her shoulder and smiling at her aunt. “You may wish us happy,” he said.
Georgie startled so badly that only Grey’s arms kept her from falling backwards. “What?!”
And then she heard Eddie’s soft voice behind her and knew that her disaster was complete. “I don’t think we’re going to need that rake after all.”
6
Georgie wished she could have been oblivious to the next few minutes. She wished she could simply have walked off that balcony and into the night, or for once in her life managed a graceful swoon. She fervently wished she’d never done Priscilla Mayhew a good deed.
But never let it be said that her Aunt Berenice would allow any person to escape the consequences of their actions. Not one to settle for a whisper when parade ground volume would do, Georgie’s aunt made sure everyone along Bruton Street would know that there was a disaster brewing.
