A Scandalous Countess: A Novel of the Malloren World (28 page)

“Vance fled the country within hours of killing my husband, so he wouldn’t know that Jellicoe was no longer in London.”

“Convenient for the forger as well. Who else might know Vance’s hand?”

Talking about it so purposefully was helping her, so she applied her mind. “Sir Harry Shaldon was in the same sporting set as Vance and my husband.”

“Then I’ll find Shaldon, and if not him, others in that sort of man’s world.”

“Dracy, you have work to do on your estate, and I’m sure it will reward you better than a wild-goose chase. Why are you so sure I’m worthy of all this?”

“Because I’ve known many wanton ladies, and you don’t have their ways.”

“Perhaps I’m a skillful deceiver.”

“My dear Georgia, you’re an open book.”

“Am I indeed?” she protested.

“
Even your father offered that you are honest.”

“Did he? When?”

He looked a little embarrassed to admit, “When we spoke once of your many charms.”

“I’m surprised he thinks I have any. Oh, enough,” she said, disliking her own tone. “I should return, but it’s too Arctic in there for me. Let’s walk to the edge of the terrace. The lights on the pond showed very prettily from my room.”

He walked with her but said, “I intend to find out all about that duel as well.”

Georgia touched the mourning bracelet, wanting Dickon with her now more than ever before. Idiocy. If he were here, none of this would be happening. But she couldn’t speak of the duel now, perhaps not ever.

She halted at the balustrade at the closest point to the pond. “They’re not so effective from here.”

“But still charming.”

He was standing behind her, big and strong, like a guard against all the malice in the house. Some of the aching tension inside her leaked away, but she still felt hollow.

The letter must be proved false. She must be proved innocent. She couldn’t bear exile from all she loved.

“The candles bob on the water,” he said. “I wonder how they’re supported. We could stroll down and look.”

Leave the terrace and go into the darkness?

“It rained earlier,” she said. “The grass will be damp.

“By the time you rise tomorrow, the servants will have cleared it all away. Will you allow a damp hem to bar you from enlightenment?”

She was being dared. In the past she wouldn’t have hesitated.…So she wouldn’t hesitate now. The pond was no more than twelve feet away.

“I don’t suppose I’ll wear this gown again, anyway,” she said as she turned and walked toward the short flight of steps. “Twice is once too many.”

“
A sorry waste,” he said, by her side.

“It’s done me little good tonight. You see the folly of wearing a grand gown twice.”

“The back is beautifully worked with great skill. It deserves to be appreciated.”

He was criticizing her for extravagance, as she’d predicted he would. Proof positive they would not suit.

“You could hang it as a work of art,” he said.

“That would be very odd.”

“People hang tapestries.”

“Then I’ll do so,” she said, raising her skirt to go down the shallow steps. “When I have houses to decorate, that is. The grass
is
damp,” she pointed out. “My shoes will stain.”

“You mean you wear shoes more than once?”

“What an odd mood you’re in, Dracy. Dark gray silk goes with a number of gowns. One need only change the buckles to suit.”

“What buckles do you wear tonight?”

She raised her skirt and pointed a toe into the light of a lantern.

“Sapphires?” he asked.

“Merely chips.”

“Set in gold.”

“No, pinchbeck!” she snapped, fighting tears as she picked her way over to the pond. This was too much after everything else. She needed him to be her friend, not to sneer at her over her gown and her buckles.

She concentrated on the pond. “Little wooden boats. How clever. Do you think the candles are glued in place?”

“I’d spear them on spikes, and tie them as well.”

“Perhaps I could create a naval battle.”
When I have a lovely house to ready for parties.

“Perhaps you could.”

She turned to him. “How?”

“Merely by being you.” He added, “Helen.”

“I
do recognize a reference to Helen of Troy without it being hammered home, but I don’t appreciate it. She was the death of a thousand men or more. I’m only accused of one.”

“Georgia.” He took her hand, but she snatched it free, and then regretted it.

“Excuse my mood,” she said, swallowing. “It’s been a trying night. Let’s plan a pond battle.”

He looked as if he’d persist, but then he looked back at the pond. “It can’t be done. The ships would have to maneuver, and those ones are fixed. I suspect they’re tethered to the bottom.”

“They could be untethered.”

“Then they’d float around at random and simply collide. Hardly a battle.”

Georgia concentrated on the problem. “Servants with long black poles,” she said. “One per boat. About twenty would do, all dressed in black so as to be almost invisible.”

“Twenty servants,” he echoed. “Their poles would get in each other’s way.”

“Plague take it.…Ah, perhaps the sticks could merely nudge, then retreat.”

“You’re very inventive.”

“I enjoy such things. The boats would be ships, accurate in their details, with rigging and sails. I’d need cannon fire.…Fireworks!”

He grabbed her hand and dragged her away. “You’d end up igniting the neighborhood, you madwoman.”

“But it would be magnificent! Will you be my naval adviser?”

Too late to take the words back.

“We must return,” she said quickly, returning to the steps. “People are probably already talking of my disappearance into the dark and putting the worst interpretation on it. I think I see the attraction of a fit of the vapors. It might stir sympathy.”

“
Have you ever had one?”

“No.”

She raised her skirts and went up two steps, but hesitated.

Ahead, Thretford House glowed with candlelight, and music floated out. Inside, some were still dancing and others would be talking.

About her.

“Ah, the tobacco,” he said behind her.

She turned, finding him on the step below. By chance, the nearest lamp lit the left side of his face, putting the scar in shadow.

She touched the rough skin. “So tragic.”

He covered her hand with his. “It could have been much worse.” But then he met her gaze. “What are you doing, Georgia?”

“Being driven mad by tobacco, I think. Kiss me?”

“Why?”

“That’s looking a gift horse in the mouth!” When he only waited, she said, “Because I want it.”

“And that is reason enough?”

“Yes.”

“How many men have you kissed?”

She thought about it. “Perhaps ten.”

“How many of those kisses did you enjoy?”

“Why all these questions? If you don’t want—”

He put an arm around her and drew her close, so that she was pressed to his warm, strong body. He held her eyes as he slid a hand up her neck and into her dressed curls, as his fingers played in her hair, and then as he lowered his lips to hers.

Perhaps it was the touch on her scalp that alarmed her. She pushed back, but he kissed her anyway, and her push lost all its strength. Pressed to him, her mouth hotly joined to his demanding one, she could do nothing but submit.

And be devastated.

She had never, ever, been kissed like this, by the whole man and a hot clever mouth.

She surrendered, and then she explored—with her own mouth, with her own tongue, with her hands beneath his jacket, sliding over the silk of his waistcoat to delight in his hard, vibrant body. Shivers ran through her, but of pure pleasure.

She could do this forever, and ever, more deeply, more hotly, forever and ever.…

He was the one to break the kiss, but he didn’t let her go. He held her, breathing deeply, resting his head on hers.

Georgia pushed back again, but this time to look at him.

“None,” she said.

“What?”

“I have kissed no one, until now.”

“Your husband…”

“Not like that.”

He stroked her face with his knuckles. “Poor Circe. Poor husband.”

“Do you think…? No.”

“What?”

She eased out of his arms, even though it made her feel chilled. “A foolish thought,” she said, smoothing the front of her gown and looking away. “That kisses like that might have something to do with conception.”

“Very little is required for conception. It’s an animal business after all.” He turned her back to him. “Georgia, I would never reproach you with barrenness.”

“Dracy, don’t! It can never be.”

“I don’t accept that.”

She turned to hurry up the steps now, hating that she’d forgotten all her resolutions and hurt him so.

When they reached the terrace, she made herself face him. “That kiss was wonderful, and I thank you, because now I know another thing I must have in a husband. But he can never be you.”

“Why
not?” Now the light shone on his scar.

“We have nothing in common.”

“We have a great deal in common, and kisses like that aren’t commonplace, you know.”

“They can’t be unique to you,” she protested. “To you and me.”

“No? Think carefully about what you’re throwing away, Georgia.”

In this unreal magical moment she did—and saw another obstacle.

“It would be seen as an admittance of guilt.”

“Of course it wouldn’t.”

“No? Why else would Lady May wed an impoverished baron?” It was harsh, but the truth, and she saw it hit him.

“All the more reason to clear your name completely,” he said at last.

She shook her head, torn between laughter and tears. “Oh, Dracy…What on earth is your name anyway?”

He stared at her and then smiled back. “Humphrey.”

For a minute, she was nonplussed. “Unfortunate, I grant you.”

“As a cabin boy I was tagged with Fry. I was small, but I grew. Since then, I’ve insisted on Dracy.”

Laughter won, though there were tears in it, and she collapsed against him as she surrendered to it.

Chapter 17

D
racy kept an arm around Georgia Maybury, knowing the giggles were a large part tears, wondering why the devil he couldn’t wipe away all her burdens with one mighty stroke.

That rarely happened in life, however, and burdens must be borne. Not such unjust ones, however. Somehow he would clear her name, even if that freed her to become a duchess.

She recovered and blew her nose, apologizing.

“I was honored to be your giggling post.”

“Don’t! You’ll start me off again. We really must go back, but I refuse to do so looking as if I’ve wept. Do I?”