“One question, sprite. Let’s have it.” Slipping the cigar between his teeth, he closed his lips around it. “Then go back to your appalling musicale, I beg of you.”
One question. One change of fate.
She stepped in, the blue depths of his eyes filling her vision. “Do you want me?”
His cigar tumbled to the flagstones as shock lit his features. The silence throbbed as he gathered his composure, his cool mask slipping into place. Georgiana was coming to recognize his protective wariness and the shimmers of candor shining through, in such contrast to the empty souls roaming society.
She greedily wanted the rest. His passion, his heartache, his wisdom, hislife.
“Do you want me?” she repeated, trailing her finger down his lapel, then his waistcoat.
He captured her hand beneath his before it slid any lower. His heartbeat played a staccato strain beneath her palm. “Won’t this interfere with your plans for Fitzhugh-Johns and Epley?”
She exhaled softly.What a stubborn fool he was.“Don’t you see, Your Grace? I only have plans foryou.”
7
Undoing
Waking from his stupor, Ren growled and kicked his unlit cigar into the shrubs. He’d not been planning to smoke it. He only kept one in his waistcoat pocket for stressful situations.
Like falling in love with a woman he couldn’t have.
“I—” He gestured to the narrow space between them, frustration and need twisting inside him. If Georgiana wasn’t bathed in moonlight, her expression a teasing mix of innocence and resolve, he might be able to deny her. But the love matter made it very tricky. “You?—”
Halting at the sound of clapping from inside the music room, recognizing they were soon to be interrupted, Ren grabbed her hand and pulled her down the marble stairs, onto the lawn. The grass was slick with dew, the pebbled path he led her to hidden from view, unknown to anyone unfamiliar with the estate. He wasn’t going to argue with this hellion if she wanted to throw herself at him—or himself if he seized the opportunity.
Still, he had a stake in this game. A swiftly-gathering plan.
Conditions he’d lay out in the privacy of the cottage, where a scandalous conversation overheard by one of the vultures in attendance wouldn’t ruin her. Conditions he presumed she’d refuse. He could see that Gia Harrington liked things done her way.
When he liked things donehisway.
So that would be that, but at least it would be out in the open. What he felt. What she felt. No more fucking games.
He was tired of games.
“Slow down,” she whispered, tugging on his arm, stumbling to catch up.
He turned, his hands going to her shoulders in a firm hold. “Do you want me to take you back? Tell me right now if you do. I’ll comply without another word.”
She shook her head, hazel eyes glittering in the moonlight. Her mouth shaped the soundless reply:no.
“Then this is me, Gia, the man you asked for,” he murmured, leaning in to capture her lips beneath his.
The kiss was bruising, a rush of heat and pressure, need breaking through control, two souls searching for an anchor in the lonely twilight. Her fingers caught at his lapels, held fast as if she’d claim him there. If his world tilted, he wasn’t the only one to feel it. Despite their difference in age and experience, his fascination wasn’t one-sided. Unlike what he was used to, Georgiana wasn’t holding anything back. She might not understand the particulars, but she wasn’t afraid to let him see her desire.
Seeher.
He’d not known he could be so captivated, or be given such an opportunity this late in life. He had a chance, he believed, to right his course.
“Not here,” he said, lifting her into his arms and kissing her with reckless urgency before she changed his mind or hers.By God, she was a dream, and he was done pretending otherwise.
There would be no machinations; he’d be alone forever before he set foot on that path again.
Vale’s cottage materialized out of the mist, the yellow door a beacon in the darkness. Ren took the portico steps two at a time, shouldering through the entrance and carrying her inside without pause. When he slid her from his arms and onto the settee, she made a faint murmur of protest.
There she goes,he thought.
