Dangerous 01 - Dangerous Works (26 page)

“Of course we are!” she responded without hesitation. “Anyone who wishes to read these works should be able to do so. We owe it to the writers.”

“That’s my girl. More copies won’t necessarily fan the flames of gossip. My only question is whether we wish to print it exactly the same or put the name of the Lady of Scholarship on the title page.”

“Why would we do that?” She looked genuinely confused.

“To put the credit where it rightly belongs, of course. It’s your work. In addition, gossip feeds on speculation. Take away the speculation and—”

“Marry me,” she said.

It was the last thing he expected. The look in her eyes knocked the wind from his chest. He groped for words. She misunderstood the look on his face and turned toward the wall.

Andrew reached over and pulled her back to him. He kissed her so fiercely it was as if he could pour his pride, his admiration, and his love into her that way. When at last he gasped for air and began to feather kisses over her brows and cheek, a moan deep in her throat filled him with yearning.

“Repeat it.” He whispered. “Say it again.” His mouth moved down the column of her throat.

“Marry me.” Her voice was husky but sure.

He paused in his progress back up her throat and smiled against the edge of her chin. “My dear Lady Georgiana, you do me great honor, but I must say that isn’t the proposal of a young man’s dreams.” He went back to kissing and would have taken her mouth again if she hadn’t covered his lips with her fingers.

“Wretch.” She smiled at him.

He grinned into her hand and tried to kiss her again.

This time she pulled away.

“I’m teas—” he began.

“Mr. Mallet,” Georgiana shook him off, pulled a few feet away, and struck a pose of mock seriousness. “You must be aware of the high esteem I hold for you and know, as I know, that we suit one another very well.” He moved toward her, but she eluded him.

“I am all too aware that I have little to offer,” she went on as she avoided his hands. “My fortune is small, but I am compelled to put my suit to the test.”

She slipped the book cart between them and whirled it sideways when he tried to pass. “Therefore, with trepidation, aware of my vast unworthiness, I ask if you–”

He reached across for her. A growl rose deep in his throat. “Georgiana!”

She slipped gracefully to her knees, one hand on her heart and the other extended as though pleading. “—would extend to me the great privilege of your hand in marriage.”

He stopped in his tracks, sobering. Amusement fled. Georgiana remained. Beneath her teasing, he saw fear and expectation.

“Of course I will, foolish woman,” he said while he helped her to rise. He held her at arm’s length and went on, “But I think I need to know what you expect from this marriage.”

She didn’t shirk the question; she stepped away from him and took a steadying breath.
That’s my Georgie.
Her courage warmed his heart.

“That night, when I told you I wished to stay with you, you said you wanted it too. I remember you said, ‘it’s called marriage.’ I have thought of it many times. What I wanted was to be here with you, sharing this house, sharing your bed, and spending our days in work. I wanted to have a voice in that work.”

She sighed, and he watched her chew her lower lip, that endearing habit she had when she searched for words. He held his peace and waited for her to go on.

“You said ‘it’s called marriage.’ That closeness, that sharing isn’t what my parents called marriage, but if that is what you mean, I want it.”

“I want it too.” He said in a rush. “It doesn’t have to be here. We could live at Helsington or anywhere you choose as long as we’re together.”

“I like it here. Helsington is no longer mine.” Her breathless admission startled him. He let her explain. “I sold it. I am, or I was, using the proceeds to support myself without my father’s interference. We’ll need to manage without it … Father’s money, that is. I have no staff. My new house is smaller than this one.”

“I can afford a decent staff. We could buy a different house.”

“There’s more.” He waited expectantly, and she went on. “Yesterday, I think I gave you pleasure. I know it.”

Pleasure? Mind-exploding pleasure.
“Foolish woman. You underestimate yourself.”

She held up a graceful hand to silence him. “I didn’t realize how it would feel to give pleasure—in bed, when we work, when we’re together. It is a powerful thing to
give
pleasure like that.”

He frowned and tried
to follow her logic.

“It occurred to me that it is powerful to care for one you love in other ways, the giving part.” She sighed again, deeply, as if groping to be understood. “I never thought of it, Andrew. You have to allow someone to love you. You have to let them so that they can feel powerful, too.”

He took two steps toward her. “You want to let me give you pleasure.” He wanted to say it lightly, but he found he couldn’t. Something profound shifted around them.

“I think you want to do more than that. And, yes, I want to let you care for me.”

He closed the gap between them and pulled her to him, her head nestled on his shoulder. “You trust me with your care?”

“I think.” She paused so long he thought she had lost her train of thought, but she finally spoke. “I think caring for someone isn’t the same as having power over them. At least it isn’t in the abusive sense. If you can take the burden of my love, I can take yours.”

He kissed her then, a gentle touch, once, twice, and then more deeply. Her hands went around his neck to pull him into her embrace. He felt her smile against his mouth. “We’ll need more work.”

He smiled back. “There is plenty to be found. Women poets in Latin perhaps?”

She laughed out loud. It would be well. They could make a life together. Even the sound of Jamie Heyworth at the door didn’t interfere.

“So am I to wish you happy, or to call Andrew out?”

“Go away, Jamie.” Two voices spoke with one mind. The passion of their embrace didn’t decrease in the slightest.

“Well then, I’ll just take myself down and tell Harley to open that fine bottle of wine he has chilling. Bailey will want his answer. Ten minutes?”

Chapter 26

They took a full twenty minutes, but the thought of Jamie hovering, aware and protective, dampened passion eventually.

“It’s deuced uncomfortable to be interrupted. We best not
continue to the conclusion we’re both considering.”

She blushed brightly. “I can wait, I think. There’ll be time to love each other, all the time we want now.”

He started to kiss her again but thought better of it. He took her hand and led her to the stairs.

“Possible, yes. Easy, no,” he said.

She felt her blush deepen when they rounded the corner to the room. Four pairs of eyes met them: Jamie’s dancing, Bailey’s warmed by profound emotion, Dunning’s kind, and Harley’s cheeky as ever.

Harley looked as if he wanted to say, “About time.” Instead, he said, “The wine is getting warm. Thought the major was going to have to fetch you.”

Jamie reached over to pour. “Am I to toast your happiness then?”

“Certainly. Our book is a success.” Andrew gripped her hand as if he feared she would flee.

Jamie lowered his eyebrows. “That isn’t what I meant.”

Andrew continued smoothly. “And my partner agrees to a reprint. A larger one this time, Mr. Bailey.” He grinned down at her. She grinned back like a fool.

“I say! That is splendid. It’s a fine work.” Bailey beamed.

“As to happiness,” Andrew said, pausing to make sure he had everyone’s attention, “yes, you may wish us happy. I have accepted Lady Georgiana’s gracious offer of marriage.”

Jamie exploded with a loud whoop of laughter and clapped Andrew on the back. Dunning looked a bit puzzled by the wording but offered polite congratulations.

Bailey downed the wine Harley offered and quickly made his excuses. “Can just about make London tonight if I travel light. Best get on it quickly while the demand is there.” The little printer rubbed his hands together. “Congratulations again, Mallet. Every happiness, my lady. Every happiness.”

Dunning might have left also, but Andrew asked him to stay. “We have a wedding to plan, Geoff, and not much time to do it. You are welcome to help.”

A wedding!
Things were moving too quickly for Georgiana. She felt her stomach flip and the color drain from her face. Andrew squeezed her hand sympathetically. “Weddings are public things, I know, but they must be endured to get to marriage.” He winked again. “I think the sooner we do it the better. Anticipation won’t help. Your family–”

“Will object no matter what we do. The sooner it is done the better.”

“Good girl. Banns will take too long.”

“I can be ready to travel to Scotland in an hour.”

Dunning looked distressed, and Harley shook his head. Jamie’s face looked insufferably smug. She turned to Andrew, puzzled.

“Actually,” Andrew said, “Jamie had an idea.”

Georgiana gaped at them.
The rotten men discussed it before I even had a chance to ask
.

“Special license, Lady Georgie,” Jamie explained.

“That could prove difficult,” she said. “The archbishops are all my father’s relatives or cronies. They’ll put a spoke in our wheel without his permission.”

“Not Ely,” Jamie told her. “Plain bishop, not
an archbishop, but he has connections to Canterbury’s staff. He can issue a license. Doesn’t give a fig about what Canterbury thinks—too old to care.”

“Why Ely?”

“He’s my mother’s uncle,” Jamie said. “If we leave now, we should be back tomorrow.”

A bolt of excitement shot through her. That would work. She could go with them, and the bishop could marry them.

Dunning spoke up. “Those things take a day. Paperwork, you know.” He looked at Georgiana with sympathy. She must have looked like she had been knocked on the head; she certainly felt like it. “Lady Georgiana will want time to prepare, I think, in any case.”

Andrew gave her a long look. “Dress, Georgie? Flowers?”

It came to her then. They were discussing her wedding, the wedding she never expected to have. It would be simple; it would be soon, but it should be meaningful.

“Yes, all right. I think so,” she said. “And a wedding supper, too. Geoff, your grandmother will help, won’t she?”

“She’ll dance a jig. She’s been hoping to see you two make a match of it for weeks now—anything but you alone in that dreadful little house.”

Even Dunning’s insensitive remark about her house didn’t dampen her spirits.
Mrs. Potter will dance a jig.
The idea made her laugh out loud. “We will all dance a jig at the wedding.”

Three days later nothing sounded simple.
Where are they? Andrew estimated two days. They should have been back late last night or at least early afternoon today. He agreed we would marry today. Where are they?

She wished she had never agreed to special license. She wished they had dashed off to Scotland or at least that she had insisted on accompanying them to Ely.

Georgiana rearranged the flowers in the center of Andrew’s worn old worktable (as she had a half-dozen times before) and checked the nosegays on his mantel. Afternoon shadows sank lower with each passing moment and still no sound at the door.

She knew she ought to go downstairs and help Edwina Potter and Geoff Dunning entertain Reverend Parke. He wouldn’t stay much longer.

She took one more look around. The room made a perfect background for their wedding; she had been right about that. It was fragrant with memories. They would wed surrounded by his books and the work they shared. It had everything except a groom.

“Two days,” Andrew had said, with time for the bishop to complete the paperwork. “We will marry in the early afternoon,” he had said. It was long past early.

A knock on the door sent her running. She flew halfway down the stairs before she realized that Andrew wouldn’t have knocked. He would have opened the door and flown to her. Another man stood at the door, a slender figure so tall he had to duck slightly to enter. The last apricot-orange rays of sun illuminated impeccably groomed golden hair. Richard.

“The Major isn’t in.” Harley, not impressed with anyone’s consequence, stood with one hand on the door as if to shut him out. Richard looked quizzically at the tableau in the parlor: Dunning and Reverend Parke sipped tea companionably and slowly; Edwina chatted with Molly Harding; Mr. Peabody sat engrossed in
Poetry by the Female Authors of Ancient Greece.
Harley waited but gave no ground.

Richard swept his glance inexorably up the stairs to his sister. “Georgiana, I thought I might see you here. There were no servants at Helsington. It is closed.”

“Richard, this is a surprise.” She forced the words out through clenched teeth. His clear blue eyes, inscrutable as always, scanned her appearance. She descended the final steps and believed he could see her very soul. “Helsington has been sold. The last of the servants left yesterday.”

“Is there somewhere we might speak privately?”

For a moment she wanted to insist on the parlor and an audience. Her heart beat erratically, but she wouldn’t become a coward now. She wouldn’t shrink back.

She gestured up the stairs, gave Harley a reassuring smile, and preceded Richard up. The old batman looked ready for a fight if necessary. She knew he would stay within earshot.

The honey glow of afternoon filled Andrew’s study and enhanced the soft crème lace of Georgiana’s gown.

“You look well. Your health continues to improve, and that dress, I must say, is stunning.” Richard’s voice seemed sincere, but one could never tell. “Is there an occasion? I understand your host isn’t at home.”

“As you see. You wished a word with me?”
Don’t be defensive. Stand your ground.

Richard looked at her more sharply.

“Actually, I have brought you something.” He removed a parcel wrapped in paper and unwrapped it on the worktable. She knew what it was, of course.

“I think perhaps you have already seen this. There was a copy downstairs, wasn’t there?”

“Certainly.”

“Did you know he had it published?”

“Not initially, no. I understand that someone released it accidentally before I could approve. Richard, I would have approved it. The intent was always to publish it. Now that the first run has sold out, we’ve ordered an additional printing.”

“When Andrew came to Mountview, this was his business?”

“Yes.” She faced him defiantly.

Richard ran his long graceful fingers over the rich brown leather. “It is quite good, a very fine piece of work. Georgiana, I had no idea. I read it in London, at Bailey’s, before it was printed.”

The air left her lungs in a rush, as if forced. “I didn’t know that. Andrew didn’t tell me.”

“As I said, it’s quite good but not the work of one A. Mallet, I believe.”

“Not entirely, no. But without him there would be no book. Is mother in collapse or preparing warfare?”

“Warfare, but not the sort that involves frontal attacks.”

“How so?”

“All violence of feeling has been in private. She is more concerned about deflecting any rumors about the ‘Lady of Scholarship.’ She chooses not to know who it could possibly be.”

“Ignore the unpleasant, and it will wither?”

“Exactly. It’s quite effective. No one dares to contradict her.”

“His Grace?”

“Isn’t interested in scholarship.”

“I see. If he chooses not
to know about it, it doesn’t exist. And you?”

“If the Lady of Scholarship wishes to remain private, I have no quarrel with it. I’m proud of you.”

She looked away, overwhelmed. He was giving her his approval.

“Are you still set on living alone in a hovel?”

“It wasn’t a hovel!”

Damn Richard’s arrogance.

A commotion on the stairs spared her from answering any further. Georgiana heard Jamie’s heavy steps bypass Andrew’s lumbering climb. He burst into the study first.

“Richard! Come to join the wedding party, have you? Too late. Andrew has already assigned the honor of standing up with him to me.” He defied the Marquess to stand in their way.

Silence followed that amazing speech while Reverend Parke, Harley, and their guests filed in. Richard looked over at Georgiana. Whatever questions he had must have been answered because he gave her one of his rare smiles.

“Don’t be foolish, Heyworth. I’m here to give the bride away.” He raised her hand and kissed her fingers, whispering as he did so, “Thank God. I feared for you alone.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. His concern touched her heart in spite of his managing ways.

Andrew removed her hand from her brother’s, a protective glare dark in his eyes. The ferocious expression delighted Georgiana.

“Consider the bride presented, Richard. You are welcome to share in our joy, but I warn you—”

Richard raised a hand to pause, but Andrew overrode it and went on, “—that if you hurt her in any way, if she suffers the slightest humiliation or difficulty, there will be hell to pay.”

“My dear Andrew, that should be my speech to you,” the Marquess replied with perfect hauteur.

“Richard, what about His Grace?” Georgiana asked, suddenly anxious.

“As I said before, he prefers to ignore what he doesn’t wish to exist.” Glenaire watched her with steady eyes. She would cease to exist to them; she already had. They both knew it.

She reached up and brushed the coarse black hair from Andrew’s eyes. “So be it,” she said out loud.

Andrew looked puzzled and glanced at Richard suspiciously, but her swift kiss more than satisfied him.

Richard watched them for a moment; his slight smile reached his eyes slowly. He looked around the room as if satisfied with what he saw. “One presumes there is a license. Perhaps the Reverend would like to see it, Heyworth. There’s a good man.”

“Georgiana,” he said, “you might want a moment to freshen. Or perhaps not. You are disgustingly radiant already.”

Harley directed their guests to seats. “Corporal Harley? Ah, good man! I see the champagne wine is chilled. Cakes and ices as well. Excellent. We may need to light these candles also. Andrew, would you see to it? I think that exquisite mantelpiece would make a good setting, don’t you?”

Georgiana laughed as everyone did his bidding. They always did. This time no one seemed to mind, and she minded least of all.

In the flicker of twilight candles, surrounded by the things they valued most and the people they loved, Georgiana gave both her hands to Andrew, and repeated the words that joined their lives. When Andrew leaned to kiss her, their loved ones clapped in delight.

We should celebrate more often. This house was in need of joy
, Andrew thought as he stepped around Mr. Peabody and John Bailey deep in conversation on the bottom of the stairs.

He looked at the guests standing in his kitchen door and spilled around his sitting room. They chatted in groups of two and three and happily sipped champagne. He and Georgiana would fill the house with guests often in the future.
Not tonight, though. Tonight is for us.

That night he wanted nothing except to be left alone with his wife. Glenaire had already begun to hint Jamie away, promising dinner at Cambridge’s best inn. Harley announced he would spend a few days in Georgiana’s little cottage, ostensibly packing it up, but in reality giving them privacy.

All I want is my bride, who seems to have gone missing
.

“Geoff, have you seen Georgiana?” Andrew asked. “She and your mother were deep in some female conversation ten minutes ago.”

“Went out back for air,” Dunning replied, putting on his cloak. “Mrs. Mallet looked a bit peaked.”