George toyed with the girl’s curls as he looked her over again. She was wearing the barest slip of a dress, though it had fallen down her shoulders and he had pulled it down to reveal her breasts. Her dark curls tumbled down her back.
Already, he was bored of her company, but she would shock his mother, which provided him with an excellent reason to keep her around.
“Show them in,” he instructed, rolling his shirt sleeves up. He’d dispensed with his waistcoat and jacket, too, which would further shock his mother. Good. Let her despair at his licentiousness and the depravity she condemned so fiercely.
His uncle entered first, stopping short on the threshold with a start. “Don’t come in, Anne,” he said, flinging out his hand, but he was too late, and his mother bustled in. Her eyes went wide with condemnation and anger.
“George!”
George turned away from them to look at the girl on his lap, who looked a little wide-eyed and pale in the face of his mother’s fury. “Relax,” he whispered. “I’ll pay you after.”
She didn’t relax much, but he hadn’t expected her to. There was nothing about her that suggested bravery, and boldness was not the same.
“As you can see, I’m a little busy,” he said, pouring himself another glass. “Would you care to join me, Uncle?”
“No,” his uncle said, face reddening. He glanced at the Dowager, but she was too busy glaring at George to notice.
No change there, then.
It made little difference to him if she glared from over there or glared from her townhouse. Either way, her disapproval could be felt for miles around. He’d grown accustomed to it now, after eight-and-twenty years of it.
“How dare you,” she hissed. “How dare you entertain your mother in this way?”
He gave her a long, lazy glance even as he flattened his hand against the girl’s back. She stiffened. “You’re the one who barged in on me.”
“I had urgent matters to discuss with you.”
Urgent matters, or a desire to handle every aspect of his life. Ever since he had inherited his brother’s title, she’d been doing her best to control him, certain he could not manage without her. Certain, as well, that he didn’t deserve the Dukedom that had fallen to him.
For a moment, he allowed himself to think about Frederick. He didn’t allow himself too often, as the thought made him melancholy, but at times like these, it was almost impossible tonotthink about Frederick. His older brother. Not as strong-willed, perhaps, and definitely more coddled, but without the expectations that had been on his oldest brother, Arthur’s, head. They’d played together as children and Frederick had been one of the few to write to him when he’d been in Italy, although those letters were few and far between.
His mother would have ruled Frederick, too, and he would have fallen under her iron fist because he had feared incurring her displeasure. George was born under her displeasure, and thus her wrath meant nothing to him.
“Go,” he murmured to the girl—he really should have learned her name—and she needed no more encouragement. Gathering up her skirts, which were more of a frothy concoction than anything substantial, she fled the room.
His servants would no doubt get an eyeful. Peters, the butler, would no doubt adjure her to make herself decent, in that way he had, and she would never enter his Manor again. George couldn’t bring himself to mind.
“Urgent business?” he said, looking from his mother’s face to his uncle’s. His uncle looked suddenly abashed, but his mother stood her ground, her lips and nostrils white. “Could this be something to do with my uncle’s desperate attempts to force me into matrimony?”
His uncle laughed uncomfortably. “My dear boy, no one is trying to force you into anything, but you must confess—”
“I don’t need to confess anything,” he said. “Least of all to you.”
“Do not speak to your uncle in that way,” his mother snapped. “As for you—you should be glad I don’t broadcast your exploits to the world.”
“Broadcast my exploits?” George smirked. “What an ill-bred thing to do, Mama. You should know nothing of my exploits.”
“How can I know nothing when you are establishing yourself as one of the most notorious rakes in London?” she demanded, snatching a cushion from the luxurious sofa and sitting.
George frowned at her. “I didn’t invite you to sit.”
“The fact is, dear boy, you need to marry so you can produce an heir.”
The room fell silent. George could have counted the number of breaths his mother took, increasing in speed and shallowness, as she turned her full attention to his uncle. “An heir?” she demanded.
“Well, is that not the purpose of marriage?” he said, wiping his forehead nervously. “And—”
“Youare the one attempting to cajole him into marriage,” she said, her chest swelling with what George could only presume was indignation. It might have been funny, and perhaps it was anyone else it would have been, but her anger ignited something in him—something dark and dangerous and angry, that fed off years of being hurt by a mother who had never cared for him.
