“An interesting observation.” He unfolded from the chair and started across the room toward the door.
Shine surged to his feet. “Are we…is our interview at an end?”
Teddy arched a brow at the man over his shoulder. “No,” he said, very definitely. “You’re not going anywhere until I and my father have had a chance to consult about what’s to be done with you.”
Chapter Thirty
The following afternoon,Teddy dropped onto the armchair near the hearth in his father’s den and stared into the glowing grate.
While ahouseguestin Georgina’s villa, he’d lamented his lack of purpose.
Almost immediately upon his arrival yesterday, his purposelessness was a thing of the past. He’d been running full tilt, dealing with dispatching the doctor’s punishment as per his and his father’s agreed upon course of action, not to mention fielding the earl’s myriad questions after he’d awoken, confused, hungry, and weak as a kitten.
Teddy shared what little he knew, not bothering to hide his bitterness at the part the earl had played in creating this mess.
Now, however, awaiting his cousin’s return, he was unable to ignore the pervasive ache in his chest that had nothing to do with either his cousin’s likely betrayal or his father’s banishment, and everything to do with a silver-eyed female he could not banish from his thoughts no matter how hard he tried.
What little time he’d slept last night, between tossing and turning, had been consumed with dreams of reaching for her and finding hergone. Searching for her and coming up short. In one such nightmare, he’d ventured into the Lyon’s Den after her. He’d awoken, tormented by a palpable yearning for her that had only increased with the passing hours.
Damn, but he missed her. Missed her scent, her sweet, dimpled smile, her luscious lips and watchful, silvery eyes.
He huffed out a self-derisive laugh, dropping his forehead in his hand. A single glimpse of her yesterday stepping into her parents’ foyer, still garbed in her rumpled travel gown and clearly not overjoyed at the sight of him, and he had become instantly aroused.
Whyhadshe been traipsing about on the street at dusk, without so much as a pelisse to guard her against the chill?
His lip curled reflexively. Perhaps she’d been meeting someone. Her so-called intended?
The mere thought, thenotionof her with another, turned his blood to liquid fire in his veins. She was his.His.
The need to move, to rail, had him up and out of his seat, pacing like a madman.
Georgina had made it eminently clear she not only did not consider them married, but she intended to wed another.
How could she? Howcouldshe? She might, even now, be carrying his baby. Had she so much as considered the possibility? Did she think he’d allow another man to raise his child—or touch his wife?
He fisted his hands at his sides, resisting the urge to pick up something—anything—and hurl it.
The sound of the front door opening and closing drew him back from the brink, reminding him he didn’t have the luxury of indulging in self-pity over the confounding woman.
Not now, at any rate.
But hewouldreturn to the topic, as foolish as that made him, as weak, as disgustingly needy. Because he couldn’t not. Georgina was his.
She was his. It was as simple as that.
He stood. Feeling oddly more peaceful than he had since the moment his memories returned to him in a flood to overturn everything he thought he knew, he linked his hands behind his back, strolled to the corridor and glanced toward the foyer.
“Hello, Cousin, Lady Catherine.”
Jonathan and Lady Catherine, engaged in removing their outer garments and handing them off to Jenson, turned stunned gazes toward him. Both stared at him as if seeing a ghost.
Teddy broke the lengthening silence. “What? No welcome for me?”
In the next instant, Catherine’s entire face lit up. “Darling, Teddy. You’re back. It’s a miracle.” She shoved her pelisse and gloves at the butler and flew the length of the corridor toward him to wrap him in an embrace.
“Actually, I’ve been back several months now. But then, you knew that, did you not?”
She leaned back and blinked, seemingly taken aback by his lackluster response to her welcome. “You were not yourself, and would have had no memory of me if I had visited. I could not bear to see you in such a state. Surely you understand that?”
