Chapter Fifteen
“You don’t know.What, in bloody hell, am I supposed to do with that, Georgina? I’m half out of my mind wanting you and you’re…I don’t understand any of this.”
Half lying atop Teddy in the middle of the day on her sofa in her bright and sunny room, Georgina had never been so conflicted. She loved knowing Teddy wanted her, and hated knowing their relationship was a lie. She loved being held by Teddy, and hated herself for allowing the embrace at his inevitable expense.
And as convenient as it might be to allow it, she could not abide him thinking he’d done something to earn her rejection, when the truth was he was the most marvelous man in the world and any woman would be lucky to have him for a husband.
So she dug a deeper hole to keep him safe—from her. It cut to the bone.
“Teddy, I do want you. But I can’t be with you because you don’t remember me as your wife.”
He jammed a hand through his hair and sent the thick chestnut waves into wild disarray. “But we are married, and I do know,” he said through his teeth. “I’ve seen the documentwith my own eyes.”
She shook her head. “No. Don’t you see?”
He scowled at her. “No. I don’t. Bloody hell, Georgina. All this time, this is what’s kept you at arm’s length?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“No.” He jolted upright, dislodging her and holding up one hand, palm out. “No, please, not that.”
Having tumbled onto the cushions thanks to his hasty retreat, she scampered to sit up, feeling foolish and awkward. She scrubbed her fingers over her eyelids and ordered herself not to cry. “You don’t remember and I don’t know if you still feel the same.”
The sound of a masculine throat clearing from the vicinity of the open doorway hit her like a bucket of cold water. Good Lord, they’d been minutes from being caught frolicking on the sofa by Mr. Danvers. What had she been thinking?
She’d been thinking she wanted Teddy’s attention. She’d been thinking she wanted his kiss. She’d been thinking she wanted him, period.
She glanced over to see the large man standing in the threshold, a tea tray in his hands, pointedly not looking toward the two of them.
“Good afternoon. Lord Arlington’s tea, as requested.”
Georgina opened to mouth to thank him, but Teddy forestalled her. “Ah, Mr. Danvers,” he said dryly. “You are ever so mindful of seeing to your duties.”
Mr. Danvers turned his dark stare on Teddy. “I aim to please. Where shall I leave it?”
Teddy regarded Georgina, before replying. “My chamber, if you don’t mind. My audience with my wife is at an end.”
Frustrated, annoyed, perplexed,and still bloody aroused, Teddy waited for Danvers to depart before he swiped up his sketch book, which had landed on the floor sometime during his and Georgina’s interlude, sent his wife-who-didn’t-feel-like-a-wife a vexed glare, and stalked from the chamber without another word.
The woman was impossible. Stubborn as a mule.
She was also intoxicatingly sweet, incredibly feminine, and utterly irresistible. Except he had to resist her thanks to her edict stating that because he had amnesia he must forgo the pleasure of her embrace.
It was almost enough to make him take his bloody medicine to forget for a few hours.
She was punishing him for an ailment he could not control. She was taking the best thing life had to offer him and withholding it, and damn it, it wasn’t right. So he refused to go downstairs the remainder of the day, even opting to take his dinner in his chamber.
It was only in the dead of night, lying awake, staring at the ceiling that his temper gave way enough for him to see her point. They had not lived as man and wife, and contrary to her statement that he had not performed some heinous act, the fact remained, according to her, that they had become estranged during the war. For some reason, that struck a chord of truth in him.
She’d also said she expected him to complete his tour a year ago, yet he had opted to remain in the fight.
And lest he forget, her brother had not condoned their relationship. There would be a good reason for that. There had to be.
Lastly, they’d eloped, mere hours before he departed England.
So, yes, it did stand to reason she did not feel married. Because he had not done a very good job at being a good husband.
He flung off the bedcovers and walked, naked, to the open balcony doors to gaze out at the sea. Its cresting white caps glowed silver in the light of the moon, reminding him of Georgina’s molten silver eyes, so often fixed on him.
