Chapter 5

Chapter Five

December 24

"Christmas is for fools and children… is that redundant?" –from The Masculine Inconvenience: Memoirs of a Superior Lady

G eorgiana had kissed him, and Josiah intended to kiss her back. Maybe? He wouldn't say, devil take him. Surely he would not, but if he did… disaster loomed ahead, and Georgiana planned to evade it. By evading him. She sat between his two younger brothers, Peter and Henry, in the large drawing room where everyone gathered. At the other end of the room, a large fireplace warmed the assembled guests. In the corner where Georgiana sat, only half listening to schoolboy tales, tall windows let white winter light flood through clean glass. The sky outside was pale and clouded and looked ominously like snow. More ominous still, the few flakes that were already falling, slowly and lonely, onto the deserted, tangled garden.

Hopefully, the snow would become bored and wander away, leaving them to sunnier skies and weather that did not wet the boots. Outside was the surest way to avoid Josiah. So much room to hide there. But two strapping boys offered excellent indoor hiding. Even though they'd not yet reached manhood, they towered over her own small frame. Like their older brothers, Peter and Henry were dark-haired, handsome, and big. Like Josiah, they possessed a rough beauty.

Rough beauty? Her words for Josiah ? As if she were… as if she were smitten with the man.

Ha! ‘Twas only a kiss, and a dare-fueled one at that. It was of no consequence.

A lie, and she knew it. She'd kissed him not because of a dare but because of fear. Panicked she'd hurt him, she'd put lips to lips and breathed in the steam of his breath in the cold winter air and liked it. Wanted more from the rough and beautiful man who kissed with the softness of adoration and the patience of… what? Some hard-won transformative emotion she didn't even believe in.

Worse and worse.

She tried to focus on something Peter was saying. "Thistle feet?" Georgiana asked. "What does that mean?"

Peter chuckled. "No, Lady Georgiana. I said mistletoe. See?" He nodded to the doorway where a bunch of greenery with white berries hung. "Sarah and Edith sent us out to gather it up this morning. We were not supposed to put it up until tomorrow, but—" He grinned.

Henry grinned, too. "It's more fun this way. Earlier, Papa bumped through the door at the same time as Xavier, and when we told them to look up, they both turned red as a fire and ran quick as terrified mice in opposite directions."

Peter guffawed. "I say they still owe us all a kiss."

Kisses. Could she not escape them? They swooped in and stole her attention away. She'd thought she'd already known enough about kissing. Had made a study of it some years ago. Out of curiosity, a thirst for knowledge of all kinds.

She'd known nothing. The myriad of points along their bodies where she and Josiah had touched had been pinpricks of heat that had spiraled out into pure pleasure. He'd been hard as the ice but warm, and she'd wanted to eat him up like her favorite cake.

Foolish, that. Best to ignore it, return to how things were before the kiss.

She peeked out from behind Henry's shoulder. Josiah had entered the room at some point, and he stood with Xavier near the fire talking heatedly about something. Josiah's mouth was mobile, flexible, and expressive, and she could not look away. He turned slightly so his back was to her. She scowled at the loss of Josiah's profile. Then she didn't, prompted by an unexpected gain to replace the loss—Josiah's backside. Broad shoulders to make a lady's mouth water and a trim waist. A rear lovingly outlined by buckskins and thick, muscled thighs from hours of riding each day.

Men of the country had their good qualities, it seemed.

"Lady Georgiana, did you hear that?" Henry asked.

"Yes. Quite amusing."

"It is, isn't it," Peter replied, unaware, despite the monotone note of her voice that she'd not been attending the conversation at all. Rather, she'd been enjoying delectable sights she had no right to notice.

Until she wasn't anymore. A woman—Miss Darlington—moved between her and Josiah, blocking the view and tapping Josiah on the shoulder. He turned around, and though no one but Georgiana likely noticed, his eyes widened. An infinitesimal sign of panic. The huntress had him in her sights, and like a terrified doe, he wished for a direction to flee in. She sank heavily in her seat, weighed down by guilt. She'd promised to help him. And he'd helped her today. She'd never thought sailing around a frozen lake with blades on her feet would make her feel so light, so alive, so happy. But she had, and she already planned to do it again tomorrow if she could discover where Josiah had put the skates.

He'd helped her to a moment of joy when she'd felt so little joy in the past months. Months only? No. Years had sunk her down and rubbed her raw, years of being alert and vigilant to protect her heart, years of looking around every corner for a dastardly man waiting to deceive her. Years of living with a woman who spoke with her only to speak ill of everyone and everything. Years of knowing her family—mother, father, brothers, sisters—wandered about the world with no interest in her.

No wonder everything had soured. No wonder she had soured.

But Josiah was the opposite of sour. He had tasted sweet. So sweet. Unexpectedly so, like cream and chocolate.

Miss Darlington hung on Josiah's arm. Tittering. Pulling him toward the doorway, toward the mistletoe.

Georgiana stood up like a spring. "Excuse me, gentlemen."

Josiah saw her as soon as she stood, and his shoulders melted downward, relief writ plain upon his body.

She sailed across the room, dodging guests with ease, and put herself just below the mistletoe instead. She batted her eyelashes at Josiah and met Miss Darlington with a polite smile. "Good afternoon. Are you well today?"

Miss Darlington smiled back. Just as politely. But her gaze flicked for a brief moment to the bundle of leaves and berries above Georgiana's head. "Perfectly well. Thank you very much, Lady Georgiana. And have you slept off the effects of the negus?"

"I have. Thank you."

Often, young debutantes cowered a bit when faced with Georgiana. Her title, her money, her relative independence… they made her formidable to girls whose lives depended upon reputation, pedigree, and deep pockets.

This debutante, however, fresh-faced and lively, did not cower an inch.

"Excellent," Miss Darlington said. "I'd dislike facing an opponent who is not at her best. I do so enjoy a good challenge."

No question what sort of challenge she meant—capturing Josiah.

"Now," Miss Darlington said, "you are quite in the way."

Georgiana stuck her feet to the floor. To move would be to surrender, to abandon Josiah to the enemy. Never. "This is quite the warmest spot in the room, and I feel chill."

"I suggest you move nearer the fire," Miss Darlington ground out.

Josiah stepped between them. "I trust Lady Gee knows the best way to keep herself warm."

Using the nickname—a sure way to tell the chit, without saying much at all, that he and Georgiana shared a closeness.

She could do one better. She looked up at him and raised a brow. "I thank you for your trust. I do have many excellent ideas about how to keep warm." Kissing, for instance, provided a wealth of instant heat. Hands, too, lifting hems and lowering bodices, and knees—his—pressing between her legs where she throbbed for release. All excellent sources of heat.

A sort of hiccupping sound escaped from Josiah as red rushed across his cheeks. Imagine. A man like him, blushing. He rolled his shoulders and recovered. "Ah, yes, I too am something of an expert on the subject of staying warm. I guarantee a tangle of mistletoe can heat a body better than a log or lump of coal."

She almost rolled her eyes and broke into a laugh. Or she would have months ago, but after that kiss their usual banter seemed more potent, more like a prelude to something bigger, something unavoidable.

A snapping sound grabbed their attention. Miss Darlington had pulled a fan from the ether or some hidden pocket, flicked it open, and fluttered it before her, half her face hidden.

"Mr. Evans, perhaps you could demonstrate just how mistletoe works for such a purpose." More fluttering beneath those blue eyes.

His jaw dropped, and Georgiana tapped his shoulder before he could find his voice and speak the shock written on his face.

"It does seem as if Miss Darlington is in need of an education. What a shame, though. You promised yesterday to take me to the barn to see the cows." She would not wrinkle her nose.

Miss Darlington did, though, and took a step back. "Cows?"

"Just so," Josiah said, offering Georgiana his arm. "Let us be off then. Perhaps you'll get a chance to milk one."

She took his proffered arm, and they exited the room together.

"Cows, Gee," he muttered. "I'm taking you to the stable, not the barn. We'll find horses there, dogs. No cows. We've a few tenant farmers in the nearby village with cows and barns. I can take you to milk those if you like."

"I do not like. And the truth of the matter hardly signifies. Talk of cows worked to free you from Miss Darlington's sights, didn't it?"

"That it did." He squeezed her tighter to his side. "What about puppies? Will meeting a small furry litter make up for the absence of cows?"

"Let's see, shall we?" She should pull away now they were away from prying eyes, but it felt nice to be tucked in right there, safe and warm. She'd saved him, and she should leave him be until she was next needed, but they must visit the stable now. In case someone watched them.

They jaunted into the gray morning light toward the stable, small weightless snowflakes dusting their shoulders. They'd not taken the time to don coats and pelisses, hats and muffs, and she wrapped her arms around her to hug herself warm as they walked.

The stable loomed, big and dark and deserted. Would he attempt to complete the dare and kiss her?

He wasn't saying.

She pulled away from him once they entered the barn. "Where is everyone?" She needed people about to ensure her safety from a kiss she shouldn't want and that should not happen.

"About, I'm sure. Though with a single day left until Christmas, we've sent many home. It's just family here. No need for formalities."

Family. The word put a hitch in her steps. She stumbled as if it had appeared suddenly and physically before her, an unseen ha-ha in an otherwise even field. She was here. Did that mean he considered her family? Family to this large and loud group of people? She'd lost the only family she'd ever had, had never thought to gain one back. Had not thought she wished to gain one back. But… perhaps she did?

The word she'd stumbled over poured liquid gold inside her, ambrosia in linguistic form, bringing with it images of yesterday, everyone laughing as they played cards, teasing by the fire. Warm. And good. So very good.

He cupped her elbow and peered down at her, his fingertips sizzling heat through layers of clothing, heat so visceral she looked down to ensure his hands had not turned to fire. No gloves, but no flames, either. At least none either of them could see.

She yanked her arm away. "I'm well. Thank you. Where are these puppies you promised?"

"Wait a moment." He spoke around a grin then strode off, disappearing into the bowels of the building.

When he did not soon return, Georgiana called out, "Jos. You're not leaving me here like a fool, alone and cold are you?"

"Never!" His voice boomed back to her though she could not see him.

She ventured toward the sound, and then he appeared, bouncing into view.

"This way. I've made it just perfect for Lady Georgiana, mistress of London Town."

"You do know how to make a lady suspicious." She ventured carefully, one small step at a time until she passed through the stall doors and stood beside him, looking down at tumbling balls of fur. "Oh."

"Go ahead," he said, "kneel down and play. I've put a blanket over the hay to protect your skirts, and I've another one here." He patted a dark blanket hung over the stall door. "We can rest it over your legs to protect your lap. Can't help with your bodice unless I wrap you up from head to toe."

She sank to her knees on the blanket, her hands fluttering to her belly, her belly fluttering for reasons related to the man behind her she'd rather not investigate.

Why'd she have to kiss him and ruin everything?

"Take one up," he said, kneeling beside her and reaching for a tiny dog. "They won't bite much. Watch out for sharp little teeth. Like daggers, they are."

She glanced at him to see if he teased. It was entirely unable to tell, so she reached for a dog. They were brown with white blotches and floppy ears, and she touched her fingertips softly to one's back. It whipped around to sniff, and she snatched her hand back. Another pup, another time, had sniffed her hand, licked it.

"Oh." She pressed a hand to her cheek, digging deep into her memory, and stared firmly into the puppy-strewn hay. "It has been so very long since I've held a dog. I had one once. A little one. When I lived with my father and mother." Pocket had been his name. She'd loved him more than a little. "It's been so long since I thought of him. I missed him. When I first went to live with my aunt."

"When was that?"

"When I was ten. Almost. Let's see. It was the day after Christmas, and twenty-two days until my birthday."

His hand wrapped around her neck and nudged her, encouraged her to look his way, and she did but dropped her gaze. Until his knuckles beneath her chin raised it, forced her to see his eyes. "Your parents sent you away during Christmas? When you were so young? Hell, Georgie. Did you know the woman they sent you to?"

"I'd met Aunt Prudence once before."

"Once? And your parents sent you to live with her?"

"My father, the Earl of Hatchetford, was much in debt with too many children. I have nine brothers and sisters. Living ones. And when my aunt, my father's sister offered to take me, my father and mother gladly shoved me off in her direction. She'd married rich. But she was widowed by the time I met her. They'd had no children, and everything was entailed except her dower share that went to some distant cousin, but she also had her own wealth, secreted away and invested with the help of a lover. She wanted an heiress to leave it to. Mostly as a final insult to her dead husband, a way of saying, look, a woman will inherit it all!"

Shadows fell heavy across his grim face. "She adopted you as an insult to her dead husband?"

Georgiana shrugged, the only way she could face the disgust in his voice. She'd never considered it as anything other than a fitting revenge for a man she'd been told was nothing but cruel.

"When you left to live with her, on Christmas day, did they travel with you? Your parents?" No disgust in his voice now. Only softness, the gentle reach out toward a wild thing that might bolt.

What need had Georgiana to bolt, though? They were just the facts of her own life. "No. My aunt sent a coach for me, and I was deposited on her doorstep, valise in hand."

"Hell."

"I never went to them for Christmas after that, or for any other reason, and my aunt did not find it expedient to celebrate that holiday. Or any other."

"I suppose that explains your distaste for the holiday."

She swallowed the rising lump in her throat. "I've not had a Christmas for over a decade now. And the last I remember was not particularly joyful."

Something heavy buzzed between them. She never talked about her family, not even to Sarah. She'd not received a letter from her mother since her aunt's funeral, nor from any of her five sisters and four brothers, nor from her father. Once they realized the portion paid to them yearly—the benefit of handing a daughter over to a lonely old woman to be her heiress—would continue after Aunt Prudence's death, they had disappeared once more. Before Aunt Prudence's death, they'd visited now and then, presumably to ensure the old woman didn't forget them. And now that they knew she had not, it appeared they intended to forget Georgiana.

"I invited them for the holiday," she said quietly. "They declined and did not extend an invitation to me." Were they all together now? Forgetting her in the same air and around the same fire? Loneliness rose on a swelling wave. She held her breath until it retreated once more.

She tried to look at Josiah but could only manage to focus on his hand resting on his thigh. His buckskins were tan and stretched tight over thick muscles. His hand was large and roped with veins and tendons, the knuckles scuffed. The hands of a man who used them to work. The details threatened to fill her up with sensation, memories of his body beneath her when they'd fallen to the ice, when she'd pressed her lips to his. The air grew thick, and her breath came hard.

She scowled. "Where have your gloves got to?" Scowling, picking, poking—familiar things flooded her lungs with air once more.

"Hell if I know, Lady Gee." Then he huffed. "I can't believe it has been over a decade since you've held a puppy. Criminal. They do have them in Town, you know. Here. Take this one." He stuffed the one he'd been holding toward her belly, and her hands wrapped around it instinctually, and—oh—its fur was so soft, its nose so cold and pink. Every blade and edge of her completely melted away, and she felt raw, exposed, helpless. She clutched the puppy to her, dipping to nuzzle her cheek on its soft head and almost— almost —shed a tear.

For what? And why?

For herself. And for so many reasons.

"Georgie." Josiah's voice was hoarse and low. "I—"

A stampede of puppies tumbled into her lap, yapping for their brother, and she never got to hear what he would have said because they broke into laughter, and she fell backward. Into the hay, throwing the blanket beneath her askew, the puppies tackling her, licking her.

"Hell." Josiah picked a puppy off her and put it aside. He picked another puppy up, and the first one he'd divested her of charged back into the fray, and Georgiana's laughs came from so deep within that her belly ached. Every puppy he picked off her just returned again and again until he gave up and lay in the hay beside her, his laughter mingling rich and deep with her own.

He rolled to his side, facing her, and she would not have noticed. She'd flung one arm over her eyes ages ago, and the other over her aching belly. But his warmth. And his laughter had stopped, creating a cavern of silence around them both but for the scurrying puppies. So, she let her arm fall to her side and opened her eyes. He hovered over her, one arm braced by her head, the length of his body pressing near, his eyes intense and so blue she could not see past them. Except for that rogue lock of hair falling over one eye. She pushed it back and tucked it behind his ear.

She was still looking into his eyes when he spoke, and she did not see his lips move.

"I was dared, Georgie. I have to." He lifted his free arm to cup her jaw, her cheek, his rough, ungloved hand so very big on her face. She felt like a doll, tiny and fragile. On an inhale he closed the distance between them, nudging his nose against hers. And on an exhale, he kissed her.

A dare. Only a dare. He'd even said so.

Why, then, did it feel like so much more? Why did her arms wrap gently around him and find a groove that felt so right? Made for her. Why did her back arch up to press her belly against his hard, flat chest, a heaven of geometry, angles and curves? Why did he moan and tighten his hold? Why did his hand roam lower, down her neck and shoulder, and lower to smooth over her ribs, then upward to cup her breast?

She gasped, and he didn't seem to care. Neither did she. Not a gasp of shame or anger. A gasp of shock, yes, but one that welcomed, too, especially when his thumb began to sweep left and right and left and right over and over again, a teasing of her nerve endings.

He slanted his kiss, parted her lips, and touched the tip of his tongue to hers. She followed his lead, exploring him as he did her, opening to him. As he did her. Where their lips met, all softness. Where their bodies met, hands and arms and the leg he swung over her skirts, all breathless expectation.

Only a dare?

When the kiss washed away the memories she had not wanted to drown in that day? When it had replaced the hollow sadness inside her with something like… hope? How long had it been since she'd felt that? And when had it gone missing?

And why was it Josiah who brimmed it full within her?

A creak from somewhere nearby shattered the eager silence between them. He lifted away with the sound, looking up, alert.

She couldn't lose it, lose him, lose this new finding of herself, this moment of discovery. She wrapped her hands around his head, darting her fingers into the thick, silken strands of his hair, and pulled him back down for another kiss.

A third kiss.

A kiss not born of daring but of need.

"Mr. Evans? Lady Georgiana?" Miss Darlington's voice, high and inquisitive, innocent yet knowing.

"Hell," Josiah hissed, rolling off her. " Hell ."

The puppies scattered. Oh. Yes. The puppies. She'd quite forgotten them. But now she wanted to gather them all to her, hug them all at once.

"Shh," she hissed. "You're scaring the poor dears."

"Shh," he hissed. "You'll give us away."

She darted to her feet. "Hell."

"Precisely." He swept hay from his buckskins. "Now you see."

Now she saw. Whatever it was they were doing in the hay, he could not do it, did not have time for it.

She brushed the hay from her skirts in frantic motions, but when he stepped near, she stopped moving all together, stopped breathing, too. So near. Their chests nearly touching, his gem-like gaze roaming over her face as he lifted a hand and pulled a bit of hay from her hair. He stepped away and rubbed his fingers together, sending the hay fluttering to the floor.

Yes. Now she saw. She saw she did not want him to step away. She saw she'd come here not for the country or for Christmas but for family. For him . Her friend who made her smile and feel less hollow, her friend who felt like the closest of family, like the person who kept her safe and warm and happy. Every day. Every night.

Where was her coveted independence now? The thing she held closest in the world?

She wanted to hold him closer. Because he held her tight when she needed it, unsteady on blades sliding across ice, and let her go when the time was right so she could glide alone on her own two legs. Because he kept his distance yet held her steady, punched men not to claim her but to help her claim the life she wanted, a life alone.

Did she want that?

Maybe not so much. Maybe not anymore.

Curse it.

Of course, she'd fallen for the only bachelor in England who didn't want her in return. And how exactly had it happened? Somewhere between cake and fake insults and pretending they belonged to each other, she'd realized she actually did belong to him.

Hell indeed.