He took her face in his hands, making sure she understood. “I want you, Gia. A life-altering longing. I love you. But more than that,weneed you, Henry and I. A family, an existence outside the solitary one we’ve built. I pray this isn’t more than I should ask or hope for.”
Tears glistened in her eyes for the first time in his presence. “You and Henry are my dream, Your Grace.”
Then she showed him without words.
Ren had gone to great lengths to warn her.
It won’t be easy. Duchess. Mother. Wife. I’m gossiped about, hearsay will follow.
He had a reputation. A recent mistress of sorts, a friend with “mutual incentives,” as he decorously put it. He wasn’t hiding anything. The tale about him having a vase tossed at his head by a widowed baroness was true; the story of his climbing from her window after being chased out by another lover was false.
Georgiana believed him.
But when the friend with mutualincentives showed up in Vale’s lavender parlor that afternoon, looking as fresh and beautiful as the wild rose Ren had drawn on her wrist, Georgiana recognized she was being presented with a choice.
A test for the soon-to-be-minted Duchess of Dunmere, with all Ren’s warnings attached.
She could act the cross heroine and storm off, make the duke in question beg for forgiveness to prove his devotion. Instead, Georgianalet her unease sit, her jealousy simmer, the widowed countess, Lady Julia Littlepage, sipping tea across the parlor with the grace of her station.
Then she let it fade, the image of Ren above her—his lashes sweeping low over his searing blue eyes as his release took him—drifting through her like rain. She touched her lips, the ghost of his kiss still lingering there.
He washers. She’d promised to love him, love Henry.
Although he didn’t know it, she’d also promised to grow up. To become his Gia. It was time to leave behind selfishness, childishness, rebellion, and embracelife.
She loved Renwick Bellamont enough to do that and more. Loved his soft smiles, his gifted hands, his vulnerability. The lock of hair that stuck out slightly above his left ear. How his boot tapped beneath the dining table when he’d run out of patience with the conversation. His subdued honor. The way he adored Henry.
She loved that most of all.
Georgiana wasn’t going to let anyone ruin this, including herself.
So she left the parlor feeling only the faintest prick of irritation and made her way into the gardens. She and Ren had plans to take a walk along the riverbank with Henry, maybe go into the village of Twickenham for ice cream. They had decided to delay making an announcement until the winter, enough time for Georgiana to get to know Henry and for a duke to be seen properly courting his future duchess. That she would be in his bed as often as possible, or he in hers, was left unsaid.
Smiling at the plan, she found a bench and settled upon it, the sunlight a brilliant splash across her. Beyond the clipped hedges, the gravel path curved toward the lower gardens, where the faint murmur of the river carried on the breeze. She heard them before she saw them—Henry’s breathless giggle, the quick patter of running feet, Ren’s deep voice behind him. By the time they came through the garden gate, both of them were a little out of breath.
But only one wore the worried look of a man who knew trouble had just taken tea inside.
As Henry buzzed around her, gathering flowers, darting from bloom to bloom with restless purpose, Ren took the seat next to her, his hat in his hands. He tapped it carefully against his knee—once, twice—until she reached out to still him. That scoundrel Anthony Vale had alerted him. Men certainly stuck together.
“I need to tell you?—”
“I already saw her. In that ghastly violet parlor.” Ren’s cheeks were chalky, his lips bloodless. He looked about ready to come apart. Georgiana loved the daft man with all her heart, and it was clear he was trying. She was just going to have to make peace with the occasional ghost of his past appearing if they were going to make this work. “She’s lovely, everything one would hope for in a friend with incentives.”
Ren dropped his head to his hand and massaged his temple, something he did when he was worried. “I knew that confession was going to haunt me. When you slipped my shirt on with nothing beneath and started posing inquiries, I quite lost my ability to govern myself.”
Georgiana held back a smile. Sheshouldbe angry. But for some odd reason, she wasn’t.
“I won’t be handled by you or society,” she said, and after a quick glance to see that Henry was occupied digging a hole near a copse of azaleas, let her fingers drift over Ren’s knee through superfine wool, to mid-thigh before pulling her hand away.
His fingers flexed into a fist as he shivered at her touch.
She sighed softly, her body warming in response as well.
“Later,” Ren murmured. “I wish to have my cravat back.”
Georgiana had the treasured length of silk hidden in her portmanteau. Ren had promised to show her how to use it properly next time.
His sea-blue gaze cut her way. “No one would ever think to handle you, sprite, certainly not me. This wasn’t a planned assignation. Julia and I have never met outside London. You are my focus, for the rest of my days, you and Henry my only concern.”
