Before she could decide how to respond to his flirtation, Henry caught her hand with both of his. “Come along, Lady Georgiana. You mustn’t become a drowned rat.”
“No,” she whispered, her heartbeat suddenly everywhere at once. “That would be a poor end to the day.”
Henry tugged her toward the doorway, and she let him, though not before glancing back. Dunmere remained where he was, broad shoulders thrown into relief against the stormy sky, one hand braced at his hip, the other hanging at his side, watching her as raindrops fell around him.
Or perhaps he was only watching his son.
But when she crossed the threshold, with an excited child tugging her into the warmth and candlelight, Georgiana had the unsettling impression of leaving behind a formidable man, and a dangerous thread of whatever had just begun.
2
Awakening
Ren had to admit to a mild fascination with the crook in Georgiana Harrington’s front tooth, a slight imperfection in an otherwise stunning face. He’d spent the better part of twenty-four hours, blood still firing in his veins, imagining parting her bee-stung lips and sliding his fingertip across it.
Followed by his tongue. Then, well, therest.
The unexpectedness of her was tantalizing—when he’d been numb for years.
Watching her fall to her knees before him, damp silk clinging to curves no one in England, or the bloodyworld, could challenge, her eyes a liquid mix of hazel and gold in the mist as she gazed up at him through the thick sweep of her lashes, left him dizzy for a few seconds.
The truly captivating part was this: she’d been easy, even kind, with Henry. His son liked her, and had talked of nothing butLady Georgianaall evening as Ren put him to bed. He was long used togetting society side-eye for bringing him along, as most people ran in the other direction when they encountered a child at a house party. But his father had been uninvolved, unloving, truth be told, and Ren had no intention of following that model.
Where he went, Henry followed.
The looming question in his mind? How had he missed this exquisite young woman in the cavalcade trotted before him? A brash chit he believed he’d heard calledGeorge.
She looked nothing like a George.
Ren set his cue, frowned at the angle, and struck badly enough to confirm his thoughts were nowhere near the table. The billiards room glowed amber beneath a row of lamps, their light pooling over green baize and catching on cigar smoke and the rims of abandoned glasses. Half a dozen gentlemen lingered at the edges in loose knots, their conversation a low murmur beneath the occasional clack of ivory. Across the way, the party’s host chuckled at the horrid shot with the comfort of a man who knew he was about to win twenty pounds on his game.
Anthony Vale had no title, but he had shipping contracts, foundries in Birmingham, and enough ready capital to make half the peerage swallow its disdain. His house party was the most popular of the summer season. Ren, who’d long ago ceased pretending that dignity alone could support a dukedom, had been in business with him for going on two years. In the process, they’d formed an uncommon yet solid friendship.
And though it was unusual with a wager in place, Ren was elsewhere entirely.
He was out there on Vale’s sodden lawn, on his knees before his unexpected find. Or she before him. Georgiana Harrington’s bodice clinging with merciless fidelity to breasts a weaker man might have written sonnets to. That crooked front tooth tucked against her lip. The shape of her mouth as she laughed.Hell. He could picture sliding his hand around her ankle, drawing her a step nearer, fitting his palm to the generous sweep of her hip, discovering whether her soft little gasp would turn sharp when he took her mouth with his.
“Are you planning to take the shot tonight, Your Grace, or merely stand there staring holes into the baize until it ignites?”
The remark cut clean through his fantasy. Ren blinked, cue in hand, to find his friend watching him with lazy amusement from the opposite side of the table. A rookery lad through and through, Anthony never referred to him by his title unless he was trying to get a rise out of him.
“Another shot like that and I shall eagerly relieve you of twenty pounds,” Anthony drawled, his pale gray eyes glowing in the lamplight. “Who is she?”
Ren hooked his cue beneath his arm and reached for his tumbler. Anthony stocked the finest brandy in England, he decided as it rolled down his throat. He couldn’t believe he was considering mentioning Georgiana when he never discussed such things in crowded salons. Only chaps with female difficulties did that. Cheerless chaps, when everyone knew, dukes had theirpick.
“Damn, I was joking, but I think you’re really gone off your senses over some chit for the first time in our association.”
Ren stilled, staring into his glass. He could feel the frown tugging on his lips. “Is that a Limehouse way of saying besotted?”
Anthony leaned over the table and pocketed a ball with the ease of an orphan who’d once played to put food in his belly. “I was thinking more along the lines of provoked—of the lusty variety. Besotted makes the situation sound fatal.”
Hewasprovoked; his cock had been at half-mast since the veranda incident.
But this thing with Georgiana Harrington was…something else entirely. A nagging sense of inevitability lodged low in his spine. He hadn’t been off-kilter over a woman since Jane. Which had only lasted until just after the wedding, when he realized she desired the title, not the man. Becoming a duchess had been her life’s ambition, he’d come to find. After giving birth to Henry, her affairs had been notorious.
Ren glanced over his shoulder, assessing the room. It was nearing midnight, and the remaining lot were unsteady on their feet. Ardsley was insensible on the settee, his long legs sprawled over the arm;Weatherford looked to be minutes away from the same in the armchair before the hearth.
Ren was a private man, his business his and his alone.
