Chapter 6

Chapter Six

"The marital act is a waste of time. Learn how to please yourself."—The Masculine Inconvenience: Memoirs of a Superior Lady

J osiah had been a heated breath away from letting his hand wander lower on Georgie's delectable body, find the hem of her gown, and rake it up the length of her legs. Without thinking about it, he'd meant to find the very core of her and explore its wonders. Before that, the shapely length of her legs in her impractical silk stockings and the curve of her hip. And after that, he would have brought her to the peak of pleasure with his fingers. He would have felt her writhe, and heard her scream, hopefully his name. And then… and then what?

Thank God they'd been interrupted.

He strode out of the stall. Please stay put, Georgie. Stay the hell hidden .

He strode right past the wide-eyed Miss Darlington and toward the stable doors. "Looking for me?"

"Ah, Mr. Evans. Where is Lady Georgiana?"

"I've not a clue. She left immediately. She despises dirt and fur and such."

"Ah. Of course." Her smile brightened. "I am delighted to have met you here, though. It was truly you I was looking for, after all."

He leaned against a post and crossed his arms over his chest, his legs at the ankles. "I feel I must be direct with you once again, Miss Darlington. I am not in the market for a wife." There. Let her take that how she would.

She kept her grin, gave a little shake of her curls. "And what of Lady Georgiana?"

"What of her?"

"If you'll allow me to be direct, Mr. Evans. There are rumors about the two of you, but no one in your family, including your eldest brother, will confirm the truth of them. And don't all bachelors say they hate the idea of a wife? Until they have one." Her grin widened. So many teeth! "And so, Mr. Evans, until the banns are read proclaiming some other woman to be that wife, I say there is hope."

He straightened and took a step toward her.

And the bang of a stall door hitting the wall made him jump.

Georgiana stood elegant and icy calm, her gaze riveted on Miss Darlington. Then it swung to him. She marched down the aisle and stopped directly beside him, while a smile like a pleased cat curved her lips. She walked two fingers up his arm and over the slope of his shoulder before sliding her warm palm behind his neck, pulling him down and kissing him soundly on the lips.

He stumbled backward, landing against a locked stall, his hands floating at his sides, unsure what to do—as they wished to grab her tight against him or, as he knew best, set her aside and lock his arms behind his back like bars of steel, chains of iron.

His arms didn't matter because she clutched him, popping up onto tiptoes to meld their lips, their bodies, together in an embrace that should have no audience. An embrace with one clear message.

And one inevitable outcome.

Then just as quickly as she'd claimed him, Georgiana stepped away and turned to Miss Darlington. "As you see. Mr. Evans is not on the market." She sent one sizzling gaze over her shoulder at him, then strode out of the stable with a defiant sway in her hips that made his already hard body throb. He trapped a groan inside his chest.

What had she done?

Miss Darlington cleared her throat. "Ah. I see. That does clarify things."

For her perhaps. For him, everything had turned mud.

"Excuse me, Miss Darlington. I must…" He had no excuse close to hand, so he bowed and left.

Georgiana all but ran toward the house, her skirts pulled high, and he chased after her. He didn't run. No need to. He'd catch her, eventually.

Through the door, up the stairs, right to her bedchamber door. He heard it slam shut before he even reached the top of the stairs, and still he pressed on until he stood right before it. Knocked. Perhaps banged would be a better descriptor.

"Open up, Georgiana. Now."

"No." So calm. So damn calm, he wanted to spit.

"I'll break the door down."

"You won't!"

"Ha. You do not know me if you truly think that."

"The noise will bring the entire house to the hallway." Her hissing voice was closer now, right behind the door.

"And Miss Darlington's prattling will do the same." He slammed a shoulder against the door so hard the frame shook. "Open it." A growl, a demand.

He reared back and lifted a leg. He'd kick the damn thing down.

It swung open, and the glare that met him dropped his booted foot with a thud to the floor. She stood golden and cold, chin high, spine straight, arms crossed beneath her plump breasts. He stormed into the room and slammed the door behind him.

"You're a beast." She spat the words. "Break your own door, and for what reason?"

He prowled closer. "What reason? You kissed me. How's that for a reason?"

"I saved you from the matrimonial machinations of Miss Darlington. Isn't that what you wished me to do?"

"She'll tell everyone." The words ripped out of him in a rush of panic, accompanied by a host of words that didn't make it past his lips—caught, trapped, failed.

Her eyes widened, and she rocked back on her heels. "You're screaming will tell everyone."

He turned, thrusting his fingers through his hair. "I can't marry you."

"Of course not."

He turned back to face her, quick as a star shooting across the night sky. "Then why the hell kiss me in front of her?"

She shrugged. "I have never intended to marry either. I fail to see how it matters."

"I'm a gentleman," he ground out. "And I've more or less compromised you now."

" I've compromised you . You're overreacting, Josiah. Neither of us intend to marry, and—"

"And no amount of money can save your reputation. Before, our names were connected through rumors, a vague insinuation based on a few meetings in Town. Now it's a truth , Georgiana. A kiss makes all those rumors true. If I do not marry you now, you are ruined." And he couldn't allow that because that would be the biggest failure of all, the one his mother would most abhor, the one that would dim the pride in Xavier's eyes. Did he have time for a wife? Plans for one? Need for one? No. But would he let her ruin herself so soundly?

Hell no.

"You know this, Georgiana," he growled. "Why the hell am I explaining it?"

She seemed to… shrink. Her shoulders slumped, and the pink drained from her cheeks. The angry gleam in her eyes died, too, and her gaze fluttered away from him. Then she recovered, and she strode up to him as she had in the stable. "I'll not marry you."

"You will if Miss Darlington speaks."

Her jaw ticked, the muscles there, everywhere in her body really, hardening in determination.

"Gee." He softened his voice, stepped closer, hands raised palms up between them. "It will not be so bad. I will be a rather distracted husband, but I will do my best. And quite obviously we have a… spark between us. Things will be good, particularly in the—"

"We will live in the city?" she asked, her tone of voice more demanding than questioning.

"Of course not. You'd live here. My work is here, and—"

"No." She stepped closer. He could feel the rise and fall of her breaths, the heat of her breath on his chin. She poked him in the chest. "I do as I please, Josiah Evans, and you'll not control me. No man will."

He snapped around, flinging his arms into the air and letting them fall dead as logs at his sides. "I don't want to control you! I want to… I want to…" He spun back around, the toe of his boot scuffing on the wood floor. He felt wild, desperate, energy coursing through him like a river at flood. She wouldn't marry him. But she had to. She must. She'd be ruined if she didn't. And something else. Something simmering he didn't dare look at. Another reason—his rising panic. After today, she'd never speak to him again, she'd cut him out of her life with a dagger glance. Something she could not do if she wed him.

The loss of her.

The loss of her—her wit, her touch, her soft, hidden heart. The loss of her friendship.

Hell no. He'd just have to convince her. He closed his eyes and rolled his shoulders, willing his muscles to relax, and said once more, "I do not wish to control you. But there are reasons you should not reject me out of hand." He stepped forward, walking her backward toward her bed until her thighs hit it, and she sat. "Let me show you." Still, he prowled after her, nestling one knee at a time on the mattress, laying her back on the bed. "Do you know what I wanted to do to you in the stable?"

Her breath caught as he laid his body next to hers, only a sliver of sizzling space between them, and her eyes fogged, the anger draining slowly from her. "You were kissing me, so I assume you wished to be kissing me."

He nodded. "And more." He cradled her head with one hand, and with the other, he crushed her skirts in a fist, drawing them up and up until those stockings, those legs, lay open to his gaze. He left her skirts puddled at her waist, and stroked his palm, his fingertips up the length of her leg until she shivered.

"I assure you," she said, her eyes closing, "you are making me far from miserable."

What use were words? He grunted, splayed his hand on her upper thigh, and let his finger explore the heated space between her legs. No teasing, no slow seduction. He found what he wanted and took it. She gasped and bit her bottom lip, and he replaced her teeth with his, bit into the sensitive, sweet-tasting flesh.

Using pleasure to convince her how good it would be in their marriage bed. A bit of himself he had shoved deep down, mostly because it sounded rather like Xavier, screamed out that this was not how to woo her. Woo her? Was he doing that? Wooing his friend?

Yes indeed he was. No going back.

He dropped to his knees at the end of the bed, and when she gasped, reached to grab him back to her, he wrapped his hands around her hips and dragged her to the edge of the mattress.

"From our first conversation, sweetheart, I've shocked you with my mouth, using it to say things no gentleman says to a lady. You shocked me with your mouth, too. Heaven, what you can do with a cake between your lips, Gee. I could watch you all damn day." He cupped her knees, pressed them out to make room for his shoulders, loving her hissing intake of breath, her fingers tangling with his hair. "No good man would do what I'm about to do to an innocent. But I've a feeling… you'll like it. Are you ready to be shocked by my mouth once more?" His seeking fingers found her nub and rubbed.

Her hands fisted in the coverlet, balling it, wrinkling it, her knuckles white, her back arching as she pushed her cunny against his hand. "Shock me," she whispered.

"You've pleasured yourself, sweet. I know you have. You're just the type."

"Yes."

"Next time, think of me."

A breathy chuckle. "Nothing new."

Damn. Her admission rocked him back on his heels, and he almost fell flat on his arse. "Have you?" His own voice hoarse with a likely unquenchable lust.

"Yes."

"Yes. Such a biddable word from such a termagant."

She reached down her body for him, tugged his hair, proving she'd never be biddable.

"I'm going to kiss you now."

"Please." A plea.

"Here." He caressed his knuckles over her, then put his mouth where he had promised.

She yelped, a shiver shaking through the length of her. "I… I…" But she had no words.

And he wouldn't give her the opportunity to think of any. She tasted sweeter than any woman he'd ever tasted. Perhaps because he knew her better than any other woman he'd touched like this, and when he licked and sucked, circled and kissed and stroked inside of her with eager, probing tongue and fingers, she claimed him . More than she had in the stable. Claimed his heart.

How the hell had it happened? When? When he'd watched her moan over cake and seen a crack of joy in her usually dour demeanor? When she'd entrusted him to take care of her unwanted suitors? When she'd told him about her last Christmas with her family?

Then she moaned his name, and when didn't matter. Now only had meaning.

"Josiah," she said again.

He put every cursed realization into his ministrations, and when next she moaned, it became a scream, her muscles tightening, her back arching. He climbed back onto the bed to watch her climax break over her, and she grasped for him, hands cupping his face, lips seeking out his so he could share the moment with her. A hard, fast kiss before her muscles unknitted, and she hid her face in his shoulder.

He lay with her as her body unwound and her breathing settled into an easier rhythm. Then he rolled onto his back, and she followed, half her body covering his, her ear resting against his chest, right over his beating heart. His? More accurate to say hers.

* * *

What did it mean to belong to someone? The question floated lazily through her as Georgiana rested in Josiah's arms. She'd always known belonging to someone, particularly a man, would prove the worst of nightmares. The last man she'd belonged to—her father—had practically sold her. Now she belonged to no one but herself and would never have to worry about such betrayals.

But did she belong only to herself? The last few minutes suggested she'd stepped over a line, threatened her self-possession, her independence. And enjoyed it. Reveled in it. Even now, melting into Josiah's body with a languid heat that would melt the falling snow outside the window, she wanted more.

He claimed they would be good together, but his proof offered evidence on the physical plane alone. A steward and a Town girl? A woman who valued her independence above all else and the man who'd stormed into her bedroom and demanded she marry him.

Unease crept through her like a slow trickle of honey—sticky and too sweet and offering granular truths in the amber ooze.

She should not have kissed him. Not like that—possessive and eager and in front of Miss Darlington. The girl would talk, surely. Josiah was right. This changed things.

She should move away from him, but his scent of horse and hay and winter air stayed her, and she flattened her palm on his chest. "Perhaps…" She spoke softly and slowly, testing her voice. "We should wait before taking any action. See if Miss Darlington speaks of what happened." There. A compromise, and a sensible one, too.

He made a low noise she likely only heard because her ear pressed against his chest, heard every rumble of his being.

"I should not have done it," she admitted.

"Why did you?" But his arm stole around her back, pressing her closer.

She did not groan. Not that anyone could hear, but oh, how she wanted to. When her head hit the pillow later that night, she'd groan good, flail her legs a bit too because she knew precisely why she'd kissed him in front of Miss Darlington.

Jealousy. A primal urge to tell the other woman a single powerful message—he's mine.

She waited for him to respond to her suggestion that they play a waiting game and forget his own question. She would not answer it. And, it seemed, he would not respond to her. Instead, he ran his knuckles up and down her temples.

"What if," Georgiana ventured, offering another compromise, another solution, "I tell her it was all a dare? A game."

He sat up, taking her with him and pulling them both to their feet. "It wasn't a dare. Nor a game." He smoothed her hair and righted her skirts, tending to her with gentle, possessive motions. But he never looked her in the eyes.

It hadn't been a dare. The first kiss either, honestly. She straightened his waistcoat, smoothed his lapels, brushed a bit of lint off his shoulder, and tried to tame that wild curl of his. She wanted, needed, to know how he felt about her. His friend. Yes, that much was clear. But the way he'd kissed. The way he'd…

"Why did you do that?" She cast her gaze toward the bed. "To me?" There was a right answer to her question, and it fizzed in her like champagne bubbles. Her feelings for him just as fizzy, popping along her skin with a giddiness she'd never felt before. More than friendship, more than flirtation, more than helping one another escape. He'd become the arms she wanted to escape to.

If he'd kissed her, touched her, rocked her to that perfect peak of feeling because he felt the same… The tips of her fingers felt cold as her blood ran hot.

He scratched the back of his neck, then let his arm fall heavy to the side. "Because I wanted to. To prove to you marriage will not be so bad."

"Marriage… will not be so bad?" She stepped away from him. "What can you mean by that? Using will as if marriage is a certainty?"

He strode around her. "Because it is."

"Pardon me?" The slap of her slippers against the floor was as quick as the blood pounding in her heart just before she caught his arm, turned him toward her, held him fast, a manacle of a hand around his biceps so he could not leave. Not without explanation. "It most certainly is not."

"Don't be na?ve, Georgie. We must wed. Miss Darlington will not stay quiet. Why would she? We let the ton think for months I was courting you. And surely everyone heard me crashing down your door."

"And is there no other reason? For kissing me as you did?"

"What other reason could there be?" A wave of red flushed across his cheeks before he paled. "I did not plan for this."

It was as if he'd said he did not want this, despite his bellowing, despite his insistence, despite the way he'd caressed her. Loved her, she'd thought.

With trembling fingers, she released him, shrank from him. "No. You did not. And neither did I. Where are you going?"

He strode for the door, opened it. "I'll return when you're more sensible, or you can seek me out. We can discuss where we will live and the like, but we must wed." The last gaze he gifted her bore no sign of compromise, no softness, humor, or friendship. "You can't escape it." He strode into the hall.

She flew after him. "I'll not marry you, Josiah Evans! I'd rather die."

He flinched. "We'll see." Spoken without even looking over his shoulder at her. With long, calm strides he disappeared down the staircase.

A red rage grew like an ocean wave within her as she reentered her chamber and slammed the door closed. She grabbed the nearest object at hand and threw it at the door where it smashed into countless pieces. Her breath came in heavy, angry pants, but the shattering of the vase had stilled something inside her, chilled her like a deep winter wind. "You are a scoundrel like all the rest, Josiah Evans." But his betrayal hurt worse than all the rest because she'd thought him better. The best, really.

She turned from the door and marched to the window. She wished she hated him. But she didn't. Not even a little. Perhaps this was what her aunt had meant when she'd warned her of men. Not of their cruel carelessness or roaming nether regions, not of their dull minds or greedy guts. Perhaps she'd been warning of their inability to know their own hearts, and their willingness to break others.