“Terms,” he whispered, the knot she was tying him into tightening.What fucking terms?
“Terms,” she confirmed, slipping out the door before he could argue.
8 hours later
Georgiana had never tried to make someone jealous before, though her sister, Honoria, recommended the practice for stubborn men. The method suited then, because Renwick Bellamont, Duke of Dunmere, was mulish to his core.
He liked her; she knew he did.
His kiss had been beyond divine, a stolen stretch of time that burned at the edges, five minutes of bliss she couldn’t describe. Her nipples tightened at the memory of his fingers curving around her breast, his thumb circling in a practiced rhythm. Standing hip to hip, feeling his excitement as keenly as her own, had been a novel experience. Though she’d heard whispers among married women in darkened parlor corners, Ren’s response was nothing like she’d imagined.
Georgiana sipped her champagne, heat rising to her cheeks, curling low through her. His hardness had been heavy against her. Hard and insistent. Together, they’d created an inferno, breathless and unsteady, lost in the moment. It was no wonder, none at all, why mothers wanted their daughters kept out of reach if this is what occurred. Reactions women could hide, but men, if they were attracted, could not.
Georgiana easily labeled the emotion threading through her as shestudied Ren from across the music room, the hideously performed strains of Beethoven drawing a frown from him as he stared into his glass. Lust. She wanted to see him. Touch him. Love him. The only problem being that she was falling for an honorable, though somewhat cantankerous, man. Despite Ren’s silly declarations about his unsuitable character, he wouldn’t seduce her. He was kind. A wonderful father. A gentleman. (She’d caught him off guard with the modeling session, leading to their reckless kiss—one she’d not been entirely innocent in provoking.)
Every moment since, she’d wavered between staring at his sketches and daydreaming about his hands on her. Imagining their life together, a family: she, Ren, and Henry. And another child, if they were lucky.
And though she didn’t yearn to be a duchess, she did yearn to be an artist’s wife.
So she would seduce Renwick Bellamont, Duke of Dunmere, then apologize profusely after he admitted he loved her too. Being reduced to using her sister’s jealousy ploy wasn’t so bad, really.
In fact, it was working almost as well as the matchmaking one had.
At the beginning of dinner, when the marquess took the place beside her and bent close with a compliment meant only for her, Ren had looked at him over the rim of his glass in a way that suggested burial plans. Then, from her other side, when Lord Fitzhugh-Johns leaned behind her to reach for the salt while staring at her chest, Ren had set his cutlery down with a crack sharp enough to turn heads. For the sake of their host’s entertainment, he’d been seated across from her, where now and then their gazes locked even as they otherwise pretended not to know each other. He’d worn formal blacks, the severity broken only by his crisp white cravat. Broad, tall, and imposing, his beauty called to her.
She wondered if anyone else at the table had felt the heat they generated, the circling current of awareness and attraction.
When they retired to the music room, Ren placed himself as far from her as the parlor allowed—across the sweep of chairs and music stands, in the dimmest corner, half-shadowed behind a towering fern,where Miss Lavinia Pritchard angled herself toward him with the resolute air of a woman determined to be noticed by a duke.
The good news? The Earl of Hopeforth and Lady Amelia Neville had arrived together and now stood, whispering, close enough to suggest an association and an announcement. Her father would be pleased to know that Georgiana had fulfilled her task, and at the same time, against all hope, found the manshewanted to marry.
Though a certain duke wasn’t coming around any time soon.
Georgiana sighed and finished her champagne, tired of scheming. Would it be too much to simply admit how she felt about him? Society would certainly be appalled by her frankness, but when had she done something thetonagreed with?
She only needed him to agree.
Every so often during the opening notes of the musicale, she felt Ren’s attention, a pull she couldn’t mistake, a velvet stroke along her skin. At last, she glanced over to find him still watching her.
This time, neither looked away.
Ren’s hand stilled with the champagne flute halfway to his lips, the moment suspending, and she knew, with a certainty that sent heat skimming through her, that he was remembering it too: the press of their bodies, his fingers cupping her breast, his teeth taking hold of her bottom lip and rolling it between his. Then he broke it, setting the glass aside and murmuring something to Miss Lavinia with the effortless control he was known for. Georgiana recorded his departure, her heart sinking.
He wasn’t going to fight for her, so she would fight for him.
It appeared the marriage she was going to arrange was her own.
The music dragged on, all tortured sentiment and hideously mistreated notes. Georgiana waited it out, clapping when the piece staggered to its end, then rose before another song could begin and drifted toward the doors. Beeswax, brandy, and the faint ghost of hothouse flowers lingered as she stepped onto the veranda. Somewhere behind her, laughter rose, then softened beneath the next assault on Beethoven.
Outside, the night opened around her.Possibilitiesopened around her.
Moonlight washed the terrace in silver and cast the lawns beyond in soft shadow. The air held the damp fragrance of something faintly sweet blooming in the gardens. The music followed only as a muffled strain, thankfully more suggestion than sound.
Ren stood at the far end, lean hip braced against the balustrade, an unlit cigar turning idly in his hand. “You’re determined tonight,” he murmured as she approached.
She hummed a reply, refusing to start this, whatever it was, with a lie. Where he was concerned, shewasdetermined.
He laughed softly, seeming unsurprised by her resolve, and rolled the cigar across his bottom lip, sending her pulse soaring. Did he realize what he was doing to her?
