4
Competition
Ren was surprised by two things when he arrived at their meeting point.
Well. Three.
First, the gardens were overflowing with the house party’s inhabitants. He’d forgotten Anthony’s bloody archery tournament.
Second, Georgiana Harrington, a reputed hellion-turned-matchmaker, was not above flirting with the scores of gentlemen circling her like famished hawks.
It was the gown, Ren decided with a brooding stare.
The silk was a luscious shade of green hovering somewhere between emerald and peridot, depending upon the play of light washing over it. When the sun was behind the clouds, the silk showed deep as moss; when it blazed from a clear sky, she seemed lit from within. In any case, he couldn’t keep his eyes offher, lest he miss the next shift.
And her figure—ah, there was no comparison, simply none in England.
And her smile, doing dangerous things to his composure.
And her laugh, low and delighted, catching him across the distance as surely as if her fingers skimmed along the tense muscles of his abdomen.
Preoccupied, Ren grunted at a question from one of the mothers in pursuit. They either desired a duke for their daughters, or they simply desired a duke. He’d been slipped two notes that morning with directions to bedchambers and discreet times to arrive to avoid scandal.
When he’d brought his son, currently occupied in the playroom with the only other child in attendance, and when he had a female friend, though not so far as to be a mistress, and all society knew it. He preferred it known, and so did the lady in question, as it saved them both a great deal of unwelcome attention.
He and Julia had a relaxed association without rules or limitations, and except for the enchanting young creature across the lawn, Ren almost wished she’d chosen to attend. She was enjoyable, entertaining, and lighthearted. She wasn’t interested in having more children, as hers were grown; in fact, she’d never met Henry and didn’t care to. She needed a companion, and occasionally, more. Often, they dined as acquaintances of a similar age, and he returned home with nothing more than clever conversation to show for it.
Nevertheless—and this was a new, exceedingly unfamiliar problem—he didn’t want Julia and Georgiana in the same parlor, leaving him to juggle a growing attachment to one against a contented connection with the other.
It was a quandary he’d never had to navigate.
And, making for surprise number three: instead of retreating from the threat of being besotted for the first time since his Oxford days, he was starting to like the feeling. Maybe it was the charming village of Twickenham and Anthony’s riverside villa, the brisk breeze off the water, the sense of summer idling through the willows, but Ren feltyounger here, less burdened by the duchy, and he suspected Georgiana had something to do with it.
Beyond a polite nod when she’d arrived to find the tournament starting, she hadn’t tried to approach him, nor had he approached her. Still, he’d briefly chatted with the Earl of Hopeforth, the man who needed the matrimonial nudge, while making sure to catch her eye. In immediate understanding, Georgiana smiled and glanced around the assemblage until her gaze settled on the woman continually in Hopeforth’s field of vision: Lady Amelia Neville.
For one brief, charged instant across the lawn, he and Georgiana shared more than a matchmaking plan. Warmer than the sunlight striking his face, more potent than any temptation flung his way by the hordes pursuing him, the invisible current between them stirred something deep and restless, a yearning he scarcely recognized yet wanted all the same.
Truthfully, this playful but harmless arrangement had a good deal to recommend it. He and Lady Georgiana were adults. Newfound friends. Set to depart on their next adventure in life in,oh, five days or so. What was the harm in a little flirtation to accompany their plotting? Not much different from what she’d been doing over there with that milquetoast Lord Butler-Josephson and Baron Collingswood’s mooning son. Though Ren suspected this was nothing more than a bored woman passing the time—the same as every conversation he’d endured this past week had been a bored man doing likewise.
As the tournament began, Ren turned his attention to it.
Anthony’s lawns filled quickly, targets set at measured distances, ribbons denoting the lanes while gentlemen who fancied themselves marksmen tested bowstrings and stances with varying degrees of success. One poor fool loosed too soon and took a graze to the arm—enough blood to draw attention and halt the sport for a moment.
Anthony glanced at Ren with a challenging smile.
Ren could’ve demurred,shouldhave. Claimed his shoulder was giving him trouble, as usual.
Except—
Georgiana stood just beyond the archers’ line, sunlight setting herfair hair aglow as she turned toward her companions. Butler-Josephson had placed himself at her side, leaning in with all the confidence of a man who’d never been denied anything of consequence. Too close.
Then closer still.
The knave’s hand found her waist in a gesture meant to appear guiding, instructive—something to do with stance, no doubt—but it lingered a fraction too long to be anything but familiar.
That was when Ren decided to join the game.
Anthony grinned as Ren crossed to the archers’ line, while those who knew his ability groaned, the Earl of Nesbit going so far as to slap his bow against his leg in disgust.
