“I have been a soldier for fifteen years, my dear. Not restful is my specialty.”
“I will demand a voice in our affairs.”
“I will be happy to listen.”
“And the chance to try new things.”
“Except gunrunning.”
“Except gunrunning.” She drew a shaky breath. “And I insist on honesty, Greyville. I cannot imagine surviving this without it.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Your word.”
“My word. May I get up now?”
“I told you to get up ten minutes ago.”
He did, finally, managing to make it seem like a dance move, smooth and elegant, even as he flinched with that leg. Left leg, she realized. She wished she could curtsy half so well. He was so smooth he had his arms around her before she knew it.
“Would a kiss be acceptable?” he asked, his face so close she could see the creases fanning out from the corners of his eyes.
“Tell me anything I should know first.”
He frowned. “About what?”
“Anything. I shall tell you, for instance, all holidays for the foreseeable future will be spent at Clevedon. That I shall spend an inordinate amount of time with the other kings. That I have a schedule of meetings coming up I cannot cancel, and that you will likely go into debt over my library subscription.”
He smiled. “I’m afraid I have nothing nearly as interesting. I have a batman named Braxton who believes he is really the marquess, two little girls who confound and delight me, and a new fiancée I cannot wait to get to know. Now what about that kiss?”
She could feel the hard wall of his chest against her breasts and his arms encapsulating her. Those troubling reactions were firing again all along her limbs, into her chest, her belly. Deeper where she didn’t have a name, heating her. Making her impatient, urging her to move even closer. Pushing her up on tiptoe so she could meet his mouth.
The kiss was different this time. Softer, deeper, sweeter. A greeting and a promise rather than a connection. A symphony ofsight and sound and scent, pulling her in, sending her spinning. Imbuing her with the oddest sense of homecoming.
She felt his hand against the back of her head and rested against him, for the first time in her life giving herself up to another. For the very first time wanting to follow the path he was blazing. Wanting to lay her trust in his elegant hands.
Which meant it was inevitable that the door to the conservatory would swing open and her mother and father sweep in.
“I tried,” Georgie heard from Preston and thought she should have locked the door against them. Nothing else would have kept them out.
She made it a point not to jump back but to separate herself with as much dignity as a woman could whose hair was mussed and whose lips felt tender and pleasured.
“I do hope this means we can plan the wedding,” her mother said, smiling.
“Indeed, it does, ma’am,” Greyville said, his arm now around Georgie’s shoulder.
She instinctively wanted to buck at such a gesture of possession. She held still.
Her father was rubbing his hands again. “Excellent, excellent. I can have Charles whip up a special license by the end of the day. Cousin, you know. Owes me a favor from when were at Cambridge together. We can have the thing done by week’s end.”
He turned to consult with his wife, who gave him a calm nod.
Georgie wasn’t feeling quite so sanguine. “This weekend? Won’t that make the scandal worse?”
Her father gave one of his hand waves. “Might. But this way we can have Coleford here off on his trip by next weekend.”
That quickly, the exhilaration Georgie had been flirting with died a terrible death.
