“You forget that we are in the middle of an unmapped copse with many treacherous roots and stones underfoot. If we are both blind, we will succeed only in breaking an ankle or knocking ourselves out on a tree limb. Open your eyes. You are already rich.”
Georgia let her eyes flutter open.
“I am?” she asked.
Keaton took a deep breath and nodded. She could see how hard it was for him to make that leap of faith. To trust implicitly in another person.
“You and my Uncle Edric are the two richest people in the world by that measure,” he said.
“I am honored to be in such company.”
She shivered, the warm breeze taking on a chill as it dried the water from her body. Keaton's body was alive with goosepimples. She picked up his linen and pressed it to his wet body, letting it absorb the moisture. He smiled and held up his arms. Georgia began to move the linen over him, along each arm to his fingertips, down his flanks and hips. She knelt and rubbed gently at each thigh, over his calves and feet. Then back up and with feather touches, encased his manhood in the linen.
He groaned, his head falling back.
“This is not intended as a prelude,” she warned him, shivering, “I am far too cold.”
“Then let me warm you,” he offered with heat in his voice.
Georgia rose, still drying his arousal with firm but gentle touches. Keaton’s arms went around her, rubbing water from her back, pressing it from her skin. Cupping her buttocks, squeezing and lifting them. He took the linen from her and began rubbing it over her breasts. The nipples caught on the fabric, standing proud.
“They feel cold indeed,” he muttered lowly, enveloping each one in his mouth to warm them.
“You said that you had no memory of the accident except...something. What was the something?” she breathed and writhed in pleasure.
Keaton pursed his lips, drying her stomach and hips.
“Joe,” he uttered.
Georgia frowned. “As in Joseph?” she asked.
“I assume so. A voice. The voice of a dying man, I would say. Gasping his last. And that is what he said. It was quite possibly a dream.”
“Elias used to call me Jo…” Georgia enunciated quietly.
The gentle, circular movements of the linen over her navel stopped.
“Why?” Keaton asked in a voice husky with emotion.
His hands were trembling now. Georgia pulled the linen from between them and tossed it aside. She still held the ring, and she pressed his hand to hers, the ring encased by their two palms.
“When he was young, he had a speech impediment,” she began carefully, “he could not say my name in full. He struggled after the first syllable, so I told him to call me Go. G-O,” she spelled it phonetically, “and over time, it just came out as Jo, like Josephine or Joanne.Jo.”
She felt proud that she could relate the story with only a small tremor in her voice. Those memories were precious, but theirrecall was a knife to her heart now. Keaton nodded slowly, tracing his hands up her bare arms. He couldn't see her face, but he was so perceptive that he knew what it cost to relate the story.
“It means...” she began, and her tears broke through the dam that had held them back.
“Can it be?” he asked, wonderingly, “that Elias was the man who gave me the ring? But how does he fit into this? It was a carriage accident…”
Georgia rested her head on his chest, shoulders shaking as she tried to stifle silent weeps at the only inference that could be deduced from his story. The emotion seared her. Finally discovering something about her brother.
And something that means he might be dead!
CHAPTER 29
“Ineed to see Thorne immediately,” Keaton exploded as soon as they returned to Westvale, “give him the ring and see what this club member can tell us about your brother.”
“I will come with you—” Georgia tried.
