Exhaustion, utter satiation, and desperate joy helped to quiet the guilt his words heralded. And really, she thought, snuggling into his warmth, what else could she have done? She could not have left him at Bell Haven. Nor could she have told him the truth about their relationship without risking him setting off on his own and refusing to take his medicine.
As for what to do now? Heaven only knew.
Perhaps…the time had come to consult with her friends in the Ladies’ Literary Society. Perhaps.
Georgina was floatingon a cloud the following morning when she settled behind her desk to work. Floating and ever so slightly sore in places she hadn’t given much consideration to prior to making love with Teddy.
She propped her elbows on her desk and rested her chin on her folded hands, gazing off into space, reliving the delight of waking to find him buried under the covers and kissing her in myriad places.
Perhaps tomorrow she might return the favor, and kiss him in any number of places.
With a sigh, she set her lascivious thoughts aside and unlocked her cabinet. She withdrew her notebook containing the outline and draft, to date, for her latest novel titledAn Immodest Arrangement. Then she slipped on her spectacles, and flipped to where she’d left off in her outline.
After reacquainting herself with the section, she began writing.
An hour later, her steady progress stymied when she found herself stumped on a word choice. The scene involved her heroine, Lady Celine, a curly-haired and vivacious Londonite and her recently wed husband and hero of the story, the suave and delicious Lord Terrence. Lady Celine had to tell Lord Terrence something not quite a lie, but rather less than the truth.
Tapping the end of her quill on her chin, Georgina leaned back in her chair. Mislead? No. Deceive? Definitely not.
She allowed her gaze to roam the chamber. It landed on the slatted shelf within her open cabinet—and the letter she’d received from her mother several days ago. The letter in which her mother made mention of Teddy’s father’s possible illness.
She still didn’t know if she’d made the right decision, not tellingTeddy of the rumor concerning the earl.
She reminded herself it was just that—a rumor. Even if it proved true, what then? Teddy could hardly hare off to offer his services. He was, in actuality, in hiding from his family.
Still. He’d want to know. Georgina knewthatlike she knew her own name. After all, if it was her father who had taken ill, she would want to know.
With any luck, her mother would write back swiftly, attesting to said rumors being false, and Georgina could put the entire matter to rest, with Teddy being none the wiser and no harm done.
Come to think of it, she wouldn’t mind getting confirmation about Lady Catherine and Jonathan having formed a romantic connection, as unlikely as that was.
Bother. The idea wasn’t unlikely. It was ridiculous. The elegant Lady Catherine would never settle for a mere mister, let alone one who was as bland as Jonathan Arlington.
But that did not mean she might not set her cap for someone other than Teddy. After all, he had been gone now two plus years, and Catherine, though a year Georgina’s junior, was well into her marriageable years.
What was that saying? If wishes were horses, beggars would ride? She dropped her face in her hands and tried to imagine what advice Gwen might give her—about Teddy, his father, Lady Catherine, their fake marriage.
Likely, the woman would say something crazy, like “Try telling him the truth, dearest.”
“Oh dear, as bad as all that, is it?”
Teddy.
She glanced up to see him leaning against the door jamb, arms folded over his chest, studying her through heavy-lidded caramel eyes.
Her stomach did a neat flip.
Very deliberately, he straightened, shut the doors, and shot the lock.
Her pulse went into a gallop.
Gazing at her, a small smile playing at his heavenly lips, he strolled to the small seating area comprised of a sofa and low table facing her desk, then proceeded to drop onto the sofa in a recumbent sprawl.
Only then did she note the paper he had tucked under his arm.
“You don’t mind, do you? If I inhabit the space with you to readThe Times?Normally, I peruse the paper while breakfasting, but as we took ours together in our bedchamber this morning, and afterward, since I departed quite late for my morning swim, I haven’t had the opportunity to do so.”
She shook her head, cheeks warming as she, once again, recalled how they’d spent their morning. “No, no, not at all. You’ve every right to use the chamber, whenever you like. I’ll…er…just get back to my writing.”
