“And your cousin?” Keaton asked.
He was moving around the dressing room slowly, but with the unmistakable air of confidence in his movements that was so attractive to Georgia. He touched the clothing she had laid across the back of a chair, his fingers stroking the fabric. Georgia felt the touch as though his fingers danced over her bare skin. Once, that had been left to her imagination. Now she knew what it felt like.
She could remember the roughness of a scar on his left hand as it caressed one of her breasts. The roughness was at odds with the gentleness of the touch. She remembered those dexterous fingers that could map the contours of her face and translate it into sculpture. How he had touched her in places she had considered out of bounds to any male and even to herself. Sinful touches that had produced such delicious delights...
“She seems happier,” Georgia quickly said, fighting to keep her voice even.
She fought to keep her true emotions from revealing themselves, fearful of what being lured into Keaton’s embrace would reveal.
If he knows what I am wearing… then what? Will a knock at the door interrupt the consequences a second time?
“Do you still believe that she was a prisoner in that house?”
“Yes,” Georgia breathed.
“No one has come to me and demanded her return. If she were a prisoner, where are her jailors?” he asked.
“I do not know. Why do you need to question?”
Keaton laughed, turning to face her, close in the confines of the small dressing room. Georgia’s breasts heaved with each breath. She found herself focusing on his lips, following their movements, remembering their softness and warmth.
“Because it is strange to me and I do not like mysteries,” Keaton replied.
“Unless you are the one keeping the secrets,” Georgia pointed out.
“I keep no secrets,” he retorted.
She laughed. “You are a walking secret. You keep me at arm’s length, telling me nothing of yourself or your past.”
“Because of how we were brought together. You took advantage of my blindness,” he reminded with heat rising in his voice.
“I have explained my reasoning…”
“And I have only your word for those reasons. And your motives are already suspect, so why should I believe your word?”
Georgia felt frustrated. The heat of her desire was cooling as Keaton’s paranoia and suspicion came to the fore. He was still attractive, still magnetic. That was the most frustrating aspect of all. If he were as repellent as Lord Emsworth, then she could simply leave, and the consequences could go hang. But she felt tied to Keaton and not just by the mutual need to prevent scandal from engulfing them.
“Damnation, but is it so difficult to understand?” he pressed, “we are bound together, you and I. That would be much easier if I did not have to question your every action.”
“That is hardly my fault. What have I done to arouse your suspicion?” she asked.
“You entice me by turning my own desire for you against me. You attempt to bring members of your family into my household—I do not know if that is part of a plan by Silverton to entrench his family into mine or just yours. You tell me that you are acquainted with an investigator who works for me. A coincidence that you launched yourself into my life and just happened to need the services of said investigator as well. Itcould have been any man that you kissed at Almack's, but you chose me!”
“Because you had just saved me from that beast, Emsworth, and I was desperate to escape!”
“And to have me pay for a private investigator.”
“I did not even know you knew Mr. Thorne at that point!”
They were shouting at each other now. Georgia had forgotten the dress now, so intent was she on the injustice of what she was being accused of.
“It wasyouwho chose to demand marriage,” Georgia reminded him.
“To spare you a beating from your Uncle. I could not have done otherwise.”
“It would not have been the first!” Georgia cried and turned away. “If my presence is so onerous, then let us end this farce and take our chances with the scandal mongers.”
Keaton was breathing hard. He slammed his hand onto the dressing table.
