She tilted her head. “Why did you call, George?”
“Uh, I had to talk to your brother. Music society business.”
“Oh. So you weren’t here to see me?”
I’m not here to see you, Phee. I’m here to kiss you, tear your clothes from your body, and take you here on the sofa in the drawing room of your father’s town house.
The air had become very close and hot in the room. He was having a hard time breathing. He backed away from her. “No, of course not. I’ll see you Monday for chess.”
“Yes. Monday.”
“Goodbye, Phee.”
“Oh, George?”
“Yes?” He paused before opening the door.Tell me you want me.
“You look very handsome without your wig.”
He ran his hand over his pate, smiled weakly, and went out of the drawing room. The butler Chapman fetched his hat, and he left the house.
He walked home. Empty. Lost. Still miserable.
He drank a great deal of rum that night, thinking over the events of today and yesterday. He never drank spirits. Didn’t like the loss of control that came with alcohol. But he was already out of control, wasn’t he?
He paid the price the next day with a hangover and stayed in bed.
Alice looked in on him at one point during the day, knocking loudly and then putting her head around the door.
“Go away, Alice. My head hurts.”
“You’re a fool, George Danforth. A fool. A scowling, useless fool. Do I have to do everything myself around here?”
As far as George knew, Alice did nothing but cause scandal. But he did not have the strength to argue with her. “Yes!” He threw a pillow at her, but she ducked out the door and he knocked over a vase instead.
It shattered on the floor.
He groaned and laid back and closed his eyes. Yes, he was a fool. A fool for Phoebe. What was he going to do when she married Thornwick? He couldn’t tear his hair out, it was already gone. He turned on his side and inhaled through his nose. He could only smell himself and last night’s rum on the sheets. Her scent had completely disappeared. She was gone.
He had lost her.
But not completely. At least he would still have their chess games on Monday to look forward to. His little bit of her.
Monday. Tomorrow. He opened his eyes.
His little bit of her. His little wedge in her life. Could he take that wedge and widen it, exploit it? Spread it as she had spread her legs to his touch two days ago? Get her to see that she belonged to him? In his bed?
He would seduce her tomorrow night. Now that she had experienced a release, now that she had had a taste of carnality, of kissing, of coitus, he would use it. Like small beer leads to rum. Like laudanum leads to unadulterated opium. He would intoxicate and addict her to her own pleasure, making her incapable of anything besides lusting for him.
His cock grew hard. He took himself in hand, imagining her lips, her breasts, her spectacular bottom.
He thought of what he would do to her tomorrow.
He imagined how he would seduce her in his very particular way as he had his five previous mistresses.
After all, it had worked every single time.
It disturbed him a little that, in his imagination, she giggled the entire time he touched her. A little. But not enough to blunt the rising tide of his release. And it disturbed him even less that as he came to his own ecstatic ending, the words on his lips were not her name, but a grunting out of “Check . . . and mate.”
