He ushered her out and the soft ocean breeze swirled over her exposed skin, sending her skirts aflutter and dragging at loose tendrils of her hair, one of which he reached to tuck behind her ear, as if he had every right to. As if he had done so a hundred times. A giddying sense of delight welled up inside her like a cresting wave.
“Georgina, I’d like to ask you something, if I may.”
“Of course,” she replied. “What is it?”
He issued a small, unmistakably self-conscious laugh and lowered his eyes. In the waning light, she could almost count the thick fringes of his curling lashes. “It’s about…me.”
Her favorite subject. Folding her arms over her chest to ward off the chill, she propped her chin on her fisted hand. “Go on.”
“Was I happy?”
His question took her aback. “What do you mean? When?”
He glanced around as if he struggled to find words. “Did I have a happy life, growing up? Before Drake and I departed for the continent.”
“Yes.” He’d always seemed imperturbable. Completely comfortable in his own skin—unlike her.
He regarded her, an unreadable expression in his caramel eyes. “I told you that?”
Of course he had not. “Not precisely,” she hedged. “Why do you ask?”
He shifted to gaze out over the vast ocean and he leaned his forearms on the railing. “Earlier, I thought—I might have had a memory involving the man they tell me is my father.”
His voice had gone low, so she had to struggle to hear over the wind and waves.
She scooted in close. “Oh? Tell me about it?”
He glanced down at her, his eyes somber. “He said…Ithinkhe said…It does not signify.”
The instinct to touch him, to provide any sort of assurance, compelled her to lay her fingers over his hard forearm.
He noticed immediately, glancing down at where her fingers rested.
Though warmth flooded her cheeks, she did not remove her hand. “It always seemed to me you had the perfect family, Teddy. Your father enters a room and commands attention and respect, like a general before his troops—unlike mine, the proverbial life of the party. And you carry yourself the same way, emanating an unconscious aura of power. But where Lord Ainsworth is rather austere—”
“Austere,” he muttered under his breath. “That’s one word for the impression I’ve gained of him.”
She cupped his cheek and guided his face to look at her. “You are more…”
He studied her, as if he hung on every word.
“Magnetic,” she stated, “with an innate and seeming unshakable confidence that somehow never edges into arrogance. In short, my lord, you are quite remarkable.”
“I see,” he said with a soft chuckle as a slight ruddiness tinged his cheeks.
Her hand dropped and he caught it in his, angling his body toward her. Smoothing his thumb over the back of her knuckles, he said, “Tell me about your family, Georgina. What of your parents?”
She blinked, flummoxed by his interest.
His teeth flashed white in a brilliant smile that stole her breath. “Why so surprised?” he asked, reading her in a moment. “You’re my wife, aren’t you? It’s only natural I should want to know who I’ve married. Besides, maybe something will ring a bell.”
She squelched the guilt trying to emerge, as she was not truly his wife, by telling herself Drake would surely have divulged information about their family over the years.
“My father is Lord Bartholomew Belfry, Baron of Gladstone. His wife, my mother, is Lady Olivia Belfry. They are nice enough parents, if distractible.”
“Distractible? What on earth does that mean?”
He had begun toying with her fingers, almost as if he did not realize he did it. But Georgina felt every brush, tug, and pull.
