Chapter 4

Chapter Four

"Kisses. Bah. Cake is better." –from The Masculine Inconvenience: Memoirs of a Superior Lady

G iving a sharp woman a pair of blades for her feet would likely prove a bad idea, but Josiah was the daring sort. And she did seem better now after an hour's walk through the gardens. He'd left her there to sober up while he gathered supplies, and in the hopes Sarah would release the other guests to skate with them in time. He needed people, barriers, between him and Georgiana after the earlier events of the day. But after the negus, everyone seemed to have sunk into a lazy haze for the rest of the afternoon. So now with two pairs of skates slung over his shoulder, he led Georgiana toward the frozen lake, shoving the word "dare" right out of his brain.

He couldn't think about what he'd been dared to do. Not after sitting so close to her, arms pressed together, her scent—fresh soap and soft velvet—burning him up as much on the inside as on the outside. Not after her muddled question about dead husbands. Not after confessing his weaknesses to her, showing her his raw wounds. Not after watching her pace the garden for an hour, waving her arms as if she was talking out loud to herself, likely trying to work through her muddle.

No dares. No… kisses.

Only blades and ice and wicked whipping winds. Skating, with its precariousness—an open situation on a lake, viewable from the house, and a painfully hard surface—offered the perfect location to avoid those things.

The sky hung low and gray to match Georgiana's thundercloud scowl, though, and a kiss would go a long way to brightening up, well, everything. How long had it been since his lips had touched another's? He liked kissing too, and he'd given it up. For a good reason. Even if his father didn't see it.

The storm clouds above made a home in his chest.

No! He would not turn grump. Christmas was a mere three days away, and his friend had arrived to make things merrier than they would have been. What need had he of a wife when he had Georgiana? There was no room in his life for a wife. But Georgiana fit just nicely.

"Lady Gee," he said, looking over his shoulder at her, "the weather has entered your face. Be careful about that."

Her scowl deepened. "This seems the height of folly. Skating. Bah."

"It's the height of diversion. You'll see. And it saved you from more communal merriment."

"There's that I suppose." A grumble like thunder.

"Don't worry. I won't let you fall."

She glared. "I hope I skate circles around you."

"The negus leaving you feeling nasty, Gee? Have a headache?"

She bared her teeth. Pretty little things. Didn't make him a bit afraid.

When they reached the water's edge, they stopped and surveyed the dark-blue ice.

"Are you sure it's thick enough?" she asked, worrying her bottom lip.

"See how it's dark blue in color? That means it's safe. Thick. If it were white, we'd not venture out. Is it thick enough?" He huffed. "Lady Georgiana, I would not toss you on too thin ice. Surely you know this about me. If you fell through, I'd have to go in after you, and do you know how cold that would be?"

"Very?"

"My bollocks would freeze off."

The storm cloud broke, and a smile lit her face like the summer sun, melting the ice within her. She threw a laugh skyward that called to his own smile as he slung the blades to the ground. See, he didn't need a kiss to give her the sun.

"This is why I value our friendship, Josiah. You do not mince words around me. I thank you for it. Most see a lady and censor every word that passes their lips."

He dropped to the ground. "Are you a lady? Hadn't noticed." He had. Often. Quite often he'd noticed her… lady bits. He simply chose to ignore them. To varying degrees of success.

"Precisely." She dropped to the ground beside him and reached for a pair of blades. "Now, how do you do this?"

"Let me." He came around to face her and took the blades from her gloved hands. Her cheeks were lovely today, berry red and glowing, and he tried his best not to notice, but Xavier's question yesterday— have you thought about sleeping with her —had not stopped nagging him since. He picked up one of her booted feet and fitted it to the skate. "You've got big feet," he grumbled. And nice ankles and pink stockings that he should not know existed, and placing a kiss right in the hollow behind her ankle bone would be—

Damn Xavier. Right to hell for he'd thrown Josiah into one. Would he ever be able to turn off the visions the word kiss had flooded through him?

She swatted his shoulder. "Take it back."

"Can't take back the truth." Can't take back dares, either, and all their wanton suggestions.

"Humph. The better to kick you with, then."

"If you can catch me." He finished tying her skates on her boots and managed his own before standing and holding out a hand to her.

She took it, and he pulled her to her feet, studying her as she studied the lake stretching out before them.

"You look worried, Lady Gee."

"I am a bit. I've never done this before."

"And you really doubt you'll be anything but terribly proficient in no time at all?"

"Perfectly right." She grinned. "Well then, teach me."

Why did those words, from her lips, sound so erotic? Like cake, they were. And cake was decidedly not good for the constitution.

He crept cautiously out onto the ice and pulled her with him. She wobbled, lips pressed thin, hands gripping his tightly, but she found her balance and leaned into him for guidance. He skated backward slowly, her two hands in his, her gaze flying between her feet and his face, flying between panic and delight.

"Skating is freedom, Lady Gee. It's exhilarating and daring. And I know you like daring."

She nodded, apparently unable to talk while skating.

He lightened his grip on her hands. "Try on your own?"

Another nod, and he let go entirely, and she wobbled, eyes growing into huge moons, arms flailing.

"Stand tall," he said. "Reaching for me will pull you over. Stay calm, too. Move after you find your balance."

She did everything he said until she stood on her own without flailing. "Not so bad. Now what?"

"Move." He skated backward away from her. "To me."

She glared at his skates, then raised her chin high and pushed one foot forward. Then another and another until with jerky, halting strides, she reached him, grasping his hands once more. She did not smile when she looked at him, but her face beamed with happiness, nonetheless.

"If I built a house out here, the suitors could not get to me, and I would no longer need your help."

"What if they learned to skate?"

"They haven't the brains for it, I'm quite sure." She was moving more comfortably now, lengthening her strides, getting closer as he moved farther away.

He held out his arms and slid forward as her gaze caught in his. Until her body jerked. Then her mouth fell open, her eyes flew wide, and she fell forward. Right into his arms. His balance erupted into chaos and the world spun, but he could not straighten his arms out to the side to right his balance because then he'd drop her. So, he clutched her tight. And fell.

The hard ice slammed into his back, and the breath left him in one solid gust of air. Birds cawed, wheeled off branches, and soared into the gray sky, and fingers fluttered like feathers about his face. Georgiana's face appeared in his swimming vision, breath fogging from between parted lips, eyes overflowing with more emotion than he'd ever seen from her.

"Are you hurt?" she demanded, her voice high and sharp. "You must not be hurt. I'm sorry. I truly am." She slapped his chest. "You're not to be hurt, do you understand?"

He found his breath with a laugh. "Not. Hurt." He groaned. "Much."

She collapsed on top of him, her hands making fists in the heavy folds of his greatcoat, her face hidden in his chest, for several heavy seconds in which he regained his breath. Then she lifted her face, pressed her lips to his, and stole his breath all over again.

When they'd fallen, the sky and ground had flipped, the world became uneven and unstable, topsy-turvy inside and out but for one thing. Her. Solid in his arms.

And now she kissed him, upending his world once more. If the mere mention of kissing Georgiana had unleashed a flood of images he could not tame, actually kissing her unleashed a flood of sensations that scalded him, turned him to ash, despite the freezing lake beneath him and the gray sky above. Damn, she knew how to kiss, slanting her mouth across his with fervor and skill, using her hands on his cheeks to draw them closer to one another. And since his arms were still around her, he tightened them, allowed himself to register, then enjoy the press of her breasts against his chest.

Then he kissed her back.

Or tried to.

She jerked away from him as he lifted his head from the ice to meet her lips with harder passion, and she slapped her hands to ice, lifted her chest from his, eyes wide with… what? Shock? Disgust? She rolled off him, yelping when she hit the hard surface.

"How do I get up?" she asked, her voice as sharp as the blades on her feet.

"Wait a moment." He shook the lust from his bones—tried to, at least—and rolled over to his hands and knees. He put one foot then the other to the ice and stood slowly, carefully, then bent at the knees and held a hand out to her. "Take hold."

She rolled up to sitting and took his hand, locking her fingers about his wrist. He did the same to her and tugged. Eyes wide, hands clenching for life, she found her feet and fell into his arms once more, but this time he was ready and kept them both upright.

Then she pushed him away so that he coasted backward in a slow slide away from her. She straightened her skirts, fluttered her eyes, and tamed her breath. When she finally met his gaze again, there she was—thin-lipped and icy-eyed, the Lady Gee who used her sharp tongue to wound, not to kiss.

Oh, but he knew better now. What the hell was he supposed to do with such information?

Forget it.

"I do apologize," she said. "Let us return indoors."

"Giving up so soon? Tell me, will you accomplish the dare if you sit in your bedchamber all day?"

"I was not dared to skate."

"You were dared to take part in a festive house party. Skating is festive."

She growled. A feral beast lurked beneath her polished surface, teasing him with glimpses, exciting him, making him want more.

"Come, Gee," he said, "your mood will improve, once you learn how proficient you are at this."

"Proficient? I knocked you over."

And kissed him and kissed him and kissed him.

She looked away. Was the red stealing across her cheeks from warm memory or cold air?

He skated toward her, took one of her arms in his and wrapped his other arm around her waist. She tightened, flinched, looked up at him with tight lips.

"I'll help you around the lake once like this until you get the rhythm of it. Is that allowed?"

She nodded, the set of her jaw one of utmost determination, and they glided off at a snail's pace, him trying to ignore the feel of her in his arms, and her focused on her feet, the space of ice before them, and her body's movements. They skated in silence. The sun, trying to break through the thick clouds above, dispersed a faint glow above them, and the ice radiated cold from below.

"Let go," she finally said. "I'm ready."

"You sure, Lady Gee?"

A firm nod. "I can do it on my own."

Ah. Her much-coveted independence.

He let go of the arm around her waist but kept it near, giving her freedom but hovering close enough to swoop in and save her if needs must. He loosened his hold on her hand, and she shook him off, pulling away from him.

He tensed. He couldn't keep her safe if she was far away, and she was pulling away. He sped up his stride, chasing after her, and side by side, aware of her every wobble, they made a lap of the lake. When they neared the end, or rather the beginning, the place where they'd fallen and she'd kissed him, he sped up, circling her to skate backward in front of her.

He'd never seen her grin like that before. Her entire being blazed with happiness, and so his entire being blazed with pride.

He spread his arms wide when she caught his gaze. "Well done, Lady Gee. How do you feel?"

"I should be asking you that, after that tumble. I feel… incandescent."

He whistled. "Ready to move to the country then?" Why'd he ask? And why did a tease feel so important?

She laughed. "At least make a visit during the winter."

Because she reigned in a different world than he did.

In silence, he helped her to the edge of the ice and helped her sit down to remove her skates. He plopped down beside her to remove his own. The near-frozen grass crunched beneath them with every move.

She shivered. "Do you think it will snow?"

He nodded. "Are we really never going to acknowledge what happened?"

She pulled her knees up to her belly, and her skirts pooled around them, the deepest green spilling across the winter-brown ground. She stared forward. "That I'm a better skater than you, and with only one try?"

"No."

"That I nearly killed you?" She leaned back and peered at the back of his head. "Do you have a bump?"

"No and no."

She set her shoulders and spoke just above a whisper but with firm words. "It was a dare."

Her meaning came over him slowly like the first drifting flakes of a snowstorm. It—the kiss, she meant—had been a dare. It made him feel… grumbly. But also… he didn't quite believe her. Panicked hands fluttering about him. Her demands that he not be hurt. Then the kiss. Didn't seem like a dare.

"Someone dared you to fell me, then kiss me?" he asked.

"Just kiss."

"So, you took advantage of me when I was down."

She picked at the dead blades of grass between them. "Seemed an opportune time."

Hadn't seemed like opportunity. Hadn't tasted or felt like that. Had felt like desperation. Had tasted like relief. Had seemed like desire.

They stood at the same time, and he gathered the skates, slung them over his shoulder. They wandered up toward the house.

"Do you think anyone saw?" He shouldn't poke the bear. But he wanted to. No clear reason why, just the impulse to poke, poke, poke.

"If they did, they would have seen us fall, catch our breath for several seconds, then stand once more. Nothing more. And if they did happen to see more from such a distance and such an angle, it would merely secure the rumors about us, a happenstance that has benefited us both."

He scratched his jaw. "True. Lady Gee?" Time for another poke.

"Yes?"

"I was dared, too."

She stopped walking, darting a closed look at him. "To do what?"

"Same as you."

She started toward the house once more. "We've both accomplished the dare then and can leave our tormentors to rot."

He chuckled. "Sarah?"

She nodded. "Xavier?"

"Yes. But Lady Gee?"

"Yes?" Was that irritation he heard in her voice? Perfect.

"I've not completed my dare yet. You kissed me, but you stopped kissing me before I could kiss you back."

"That is an unnecessary differentiation. We were both involved in the kiss."

"It's quite a valid differentiation."

"What do you mean by it, though? That you intend to kiss me again? In order to complete your dare?"

He wiggled his eyebrows and lengthened his strides. Of course, he didn't. He couldn't. But it would be fun to let her think so.

Not as fun as kissing, though…

She chased after him. "Josiah. Tell me. Do you insist on completing the dare?"

He kept walking, longer strides, faster, until she was running after him, skirts raised for greater ease of movement.

"Josiah, get back here and answer me!"

No. He didn't think he would. He'd let her stew, guess, and fret because… because he liked to tease her, yes, and because such a tease would distract her from whatever woes had brought her to Apple Grove House to begin with. He didn't believe she'd come only on a dare. Something in the way she'd spoken to him today, after the card game, had revealed her hidden soul. She'd seemed a bit sad, a lot lonely, and too much used to both.

He could not kiss her because he could not have her. She was London, and he was at Apple Grove. She was a lady of independent means, and he was an estate manager with a heart tied to the land, to his family. And he was too busy, anyway.

A mantra that had begun to feel hollow, false.

He hunched his shoulders as he entered the house, letting the warmth wipe all that away. He would tease her to keep things light and playful when one kiss had made him wish that he were the type of man a proper lady would wish to wed.