“What are you doing?”
The triumphant smile of a woman well loved, who knows she is desired, was the only response.She leaned forward to kiss him again, but he restrained her.He pressed her into a chair with elaborate gentleness, but he held her there firmly.
“Stay.”
“Shall I bark for you?”Her lips quirked, and he almost relented; but he refused to be drawn in by her nonsense.
“You’re making this difficult, Georgiana.”He ignored her jibe about barking, turned his back, and moved as far away from her as their small workroom permitted.
“Actually, it seemed easy to me,” she replied smugly.
He set his clothing to rights, and bile rose in his throat.“Is this it then?Sex and desire on the workroom floor followed by—what?Scholarly pretense?A return to our proper places for dinner until you can sneak out again into the night?”
That wiped the smugness from her face.
“You are angry.”
“Yes.No–confused.”That was a lie.Anger built steadily.“We are collaborators.Partners.It is my understanding that you wish for nothing more.One does not undress one’s collaborator.”
“No, I...”
“You what?”he spat.“You planned a different role for me?”
“No!Us.Different for us.”
“How different?We’re not equals.Marriage, you tell me, is out of the question.How am I to address you then—my lady?”He could hear his voice rise.
He was entertaining the household, but he didn’t care.He couldn’t stop goading her.He shouldn’t have come.He was still too angry for reasonable conversation.
“I never said that.I never said ‘not equals.’I didn’t, I can’t.That is I—the work is still important.”
“Yes, the work, of course.Lady Georgiana’s true love,” he said bitterly.
“Not fair, Andrew!Not fair by half.I thought you valued it too!”
He ran his hand up the back of his head in exasperation.
“You are correct, of course.Work itself is important.”It was true.Work was important to him, but he was no longer sure he needed Georgiana’s work.He found it challenging and, until today, delightful, but it would never win him the place his father intended for him.
A message from Geoffrey Dunning lay in Andrew’s coat pocket.Geoff had finally been able to arrange the long-sought face-to-face meeting with Wallace Selby.Andrew’s father had respected Selby.Selby could offer work—more prestigious work than the crumbs he had sent so far.He could bring Andrew into the highest circles of scholarship.
She appeared to be mollified.She equated “work” with her work.He let her think it.He wasn’t going to lay his needs bare to her, not now.He could see her throat working as she gathered thoughts.
“I hoped...I wanted...”she stammered, “to suggest that we finish the work before we try to change, that is, try to discuss or decide—to make something out of—” He let her stumble.I’ll be damned if I’m going to make it easy for her.“Out of, out of what is between us.When we finish the work.”
“The work,” he repeated.
“Yes.The work.It brings us together.”
“That it does, Love.”Mistake that.She lit up like a candle.He couldn’t go back to “my lady,” but he vowed he wouldn’t call her “Love” again.“That it does, Georgiana.It brings us together.”
He thought she might be right that they could resolve the rest of it if they finished the work.He wondered if work would give her peace, time to come to terms with his proposal.Perhaps it will.
He stared at her.She worried her lower lip with her teeth and stared back with anxiety in her eyes.His own eyes, he thought, must be infinitely sad because sorrow made him mute.
Andrew looked away at last.He limped to the table and picked up the manuscript without enthusiasm.He would think about his other options tomorrow.“We were finishing Nossis, I believe.”
“We are finished.‘She whom Aphrodite has not loved...’I understand her better now.”
