The workings of her mind were complex tonight; she had lost him.“What do you mean ‘fear?’What are you talking about?”
“Isn’t that what your ‘honor’ is about?An honorable man, and Andrew Mallet is a very honorable man, does not ‘ruin’ a woman because no respectable man will want her for a wife.You needn’t fear it because it’s too late.No man wants me.”Her eyes defied him to deny it.“Not even you.”
He thought he must not have heard her correctly.He wanted her with an intensity that bordered on lunacy.
“Not true.”His voice thickened.“I want you as I want air to breathe, Georgie.I have wanted you since I was seventeen years old, a foolish lovesick boy unable to sleep with the pain of it.I want you so badly that just being with you, working with you, has been a physical ache.You have no idea how badly I want you right at this moment.”He watched hope flare in her eyes, and he had to step sideways when she moved toward him.He raised his hands to fend her off.
“It won’t do, Georgiana.It’s impossible.Your family will never tolerate it.”
“My family?!What do they have to say about it?My family doesn’t care about me.”
“They would care if you attempted to marry someone unsuitable.”
“Did I mention marriage?I don’t remember discussing marriage.”
It appalled him that she valued herself so cheaply.“It’s the least you deserve—not some shabby affair.”
“Ah, nobility again.The noble man decides what I deserve, what I need.Take a look, please, at how little I actually have.I have wealth, or use of my father’s wealth.Since I have none of my own, I have none of the power that makes wealth worth having.I have status...”
The items she ticked off seemed to make a very familiar list.How long has she brooded like this?
“But that status serves to isolate me from most of the human race and frighten away any ordinary man who might be interested in me.Shall I go on?I have an elegant home to enjoy in utter solitude.”
He couldn’t move, and didn’t speak, but she drew him like a moth to a flame.
“Touch me, Andrew.Hold me.”
He stood, head bowed, groping for strength to send her away.Show me how to love her as she deserves,he prayed.
“I can’t bear being alone any longer.Not after time with you.Please, Andrew.Hold me.”The pleading in her eyes clawed at him.
“I could cause you to be with child, Georgie.Have you considered that?”
He recognized the flicker of surprise before a brief flash of joy took its place.Just as quickly her face folded with a terrible grief.She pressed her lips tightly together and swallowed with difficulty.Her voice filled with tears.
“I have you there, Andrew.I’m afraid I have you there.I can’t, you see.There will never be children for me.Mr.Peabody was quite, quite certain about that.”
The accumulated losses in her life buried him in shared grief.The yearning to comfort her shredded the remains of his control.He took one step.
“So you see, there is nothing to ruin, nothing to protect, and no danger of fatherhood.Only me.Here.Now.I need you.Hold me.Please.”
He reached out a hand and pulled her into his arms.
In the end, it was simple.She was his beloved Georgie, and she needed him.He couldn’t disappoint her.
* * *
One moment,she stood alone in a vast universe of darkness.The next, she sank into the warmth of his embrace.Strong arms enfolded her while he buried his face in her hair.She breathed in the musky male scent of linen and brandy and felt his mouth move over her ear and down her neck.
“Andrew,” she sighed.
He pulled back for a moment as if to search her eyes.She reached a tentative hand to touch his cheek.
“I won’t deny you now, you foolish man,” she said.
When he smiled, she did what she had longed to do for weeks—she ran her finger over his brow, down the long puckered scar, to rest at the corner of his mouth.
Andrew stood, still as stone, breathing heavily, but he didn’t object.Georgiana closed the distance between them and kissed the place her finger touched, the place his scars joined at the edge of his mouth.She felt the rough edges of it with her tongue.
