Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

"I loved a man once. It would have been nice to have him love me back." –from The Masculine Inconvenience: Memoirs of a Superior Lady

G eorgiana pulled her fur-lined cape closer and scowled up at the sky. The sun had dropped below the canopy line of the forest, and each heavy step forward saw it drop lower. Soon it would kiss the horizon and darkness would spread like spilled wine across the sky.

Then she scowled down at her boots. Perfectly acceptable for traipsing through muddy London streets, but perfectly horrid for wading ankle-deep in snow.

With darkness approaching and being soaked to the bone, Georgiana realized she was lost. Worse than that, she was a mutton-headed fool for insisting she could do this on her own. She navigated London streets, not country roadways. She'd taken a wrong turn. She'd not even known there were turns to take in wide open spaces.

And to think, just yesterday, she'd been reconsidering her position on the country. It did not seem so bad as all that. In fact, she'd begun to suspect that her aunt had poisoned her against it. Or perhaps, her own experiences had. She'd once loved stables and puppies and lakes and, yes, snow, but she'd been forced to leave it, and leave it she had, in heart as well as in body. If she could not have it, she had determined not to want it.

Well, she was a woman now, an heiress in charge of her own destiny, trying to be at least. Though clearly, she needed to know and listen to her limits. She could love the country if she pleased, though. That much she could manage, to form her own opinion on this particular matter. And since she had nothing else to do as she wandered in who knew what direction, she formed it. Skating had been invigorating. Puppies were precious. And snow… well, she still hated that. Perhaps she wouldn't so much if she were dry and sitting before a fire, a good book in hand, a large, warm, muscled body nearby who'd tease her and laugh with her and—

No. Thoughts of Josiah were worse than snow sinking through her shift, turning her into a walking icicle.

Because she hated men.

Particularly one man.

Because they—he—thought they knew best, thought they could shove a woman around, control her fate. She'd never allow that. No matter that the man could skate pleasure across her skin as delicate and lovely as the shapes the skates cut into the thick blue ice.

The trees closed in around her, more suffocating than a narrow city alley, and the day's dim light turned to shadows around her. She whistled while she walked, tried to, at least. Her teeth chattered. Thank goodness she'd brought her muff, and if the wind had not begun to howl so, her hands would be quite warm. But the shadows of the gathered trees grew darker, the wind had started howling, and the snow came faster now, seemingly determined to smother her. A shiver racked her body, and she wrapped her arms tight about her.

She couldn't go on. Impossible to wander aimlessly like a lost soul. She stopped and scanned the trees, looking for low branches, and—there. Yes. She'd climbed just such a tree as a child, and she did so now with difficulty once she found the courage to bare her legs to the wicked wind to gain greater ease of movement. She went no farther up the tree than she needed to in order to peer out over the canopy.

She saw it immediately—the sharp outlines of a roof, the stout brick of a chimney. A house. Not too far away, either.

She scuttled down the tree and set her steps in the correct direction, each step more difficult than the last. She sang as she walked, though she'd never been very good at it, lifting her wavering, shivering voice to the treetops with the lyrics of a bawdy ballad her aunt had taught her.

Josiah likely knew it. Josiah likely had a lovely deep baritone.

She was not supposed to think of him, but she did not have the control to stop it, so she trudged through the snow-deep woods with a singing Josiah by her side, his teasing smile leading her on.

When she almost stubbed her toe on the gray stone fa?ade of the building, she stopped, stumbled backward, her head craning up. "I made it." She laughed and ran around the side of the building. "I made it!"

The house sat at the back of a clearing in the woods with gardens on one side and a small stable on the other. It was larger than a cottage and made of the same stone as Apple Grove. She ran to the door and knocked hard, pain exploding across her knuckles from striking her frozen skin on the hard, cold wood.

"Please," she called out, "do answer the door."

No one did. She knocked again. And again, calling out each time, but the windows were the dark, dead eyes of a skull. And no smoke curled from the chimney.

"Please," she said one more time before falling against the door and sinking down its length. She sat there alone on the hard stone entrance to the empty house, skirts sodden around her bent legs, arms wrapped tight, feeling the warmth drain from her body into the wet earth along with her consciousness.

* * *

In the darkness, she wiggled her toes first, glad that the warmth shooting through them was real and not a figment of her imagination. Nor was the warmth everywhere else on her body. It pressed into her, heavy and delicious like silk against the skin.

Very much like silk against the skin.

She opened her eyes. Brocaded material of deep red hung above her, and a fire flickered somewhere nearby. A mountain of coverings—blankets—had been piled atop her, and Josiah sat, elbows on knees, hands clasped as if in prayer, head hung, in a chair beside the bed she lay in.

And she… she was entirely naked. She yelped. Undignified, yes, but a natural reaction nonetheless.

Josiah's head whipped up, his eyes glittering gems of high emotion—concern, panic, fear. He dropped to his knees, slamming into the floor by the side of the bed as his hands reached for her face, cupped it with gentle fingers and rough palms.

"You're awake." His eyes shuttered closed on a heavy exhale.

Georgiana curled her fingers around the edge of the blankets and pulled them up past her chin. "I… I am. And I'm…" She wet her lips. "Ah… I am disrobed. Entirely. It seems."

"You were soaked through and unconscious. I couldn't let you stay in those clothes. Even your shift." He cast a look behind his back, and she followed the line of his gaze to where large swathes of cloth—her clothing—hung over chairs and tables pulled close to the fire. "I did not enjoy it." He swallowed hard, and she found she could not look away from the bob of his Adam's apple in his strong, corded throat.

"Where are we?"

He still held her face, and now he pushed one hand into her hair and rubbed the pad of his thumb along her brow. "The estate manager's cottage. My cottage."

She tried to remember the house she'd seen through the fog of falling snow and couldn't quite. Firelight cast quivering shadows on the walls and ceiling as she took a closer look at her surroundings. Everything neat and clean and nice, just like at Apple Grove House.

"It's lovely," she said. "What I've seen of it so far."

"It pleases me that you like it." His eyes roamed her face like she was a priceless work of art, and she risked removing her arm from the shield of blankets weighing her down in order to caress the line of his jaw.

"Josiah," she said.

His gaze focused on her eyes.

"How did you find me?"

"I heard you singing. Someone singing. Poorly. I prayed it was you."

"So that you could add a flaw to my otherwise perfect disposition?"

He chuckled, sunshine breaking over the storm clouds of his face. "So that I could hold you in my arms once more. So that I could tell you how sorry I was, so I could beg for forgiveness and woo you with cake. All the cake to be had in England. The continent as well. So, I could kiss you and tease you and make you laugh and perhaps one day convince you to marry me."

She stiffened and pulled her arm back under the blankets with a shiver.

"You're cold." He stood and left her side, poked and prodded and blew on the fire until it roared.

Cold? She was on fire. Every part of her in flames. He would always be this way, wouldn't he? Protective and high-handed, seeking to fix something for her when she, herself, was not certain it needed fixing.

But it was not anger and indignation that boiled her blood at the moment. It was lust, raw and needy. As well as something much more potent—the desire to protect him, too. What to do with all that? She knew what Aunt Prudence would suggest. Take the man's body and discard all else. But the all else was what Georgiana liked best about Josiah. His body was a delight, to be sure, but his mind, his heart, his humor… they stirred her even more.

When he returned to her side, he drew his chair nearer and sat in it, half draped across the bed at her side, his fingertips playing with her hair. "How did you find my house?"

"I didn't know it was yours. I didn't know it existed. I climbed a tree and looked out and saw a clearing, a house. I walked toward it." She closed her eyes, shame flaming through her now. "I'm such a fool. I should never have walked off alone like that. I'm lucky I'm alive and not a solid block of frozen ice."

His hand in her hair stilled for several moments before it began stroking through her hair again. "You were wearing silk, Gee. Silk stockings, silk shift…" His voice was hard and rough. "Your vanity clearly outweighs your sense."

Her eyes snapped open. "And your ego outweighs any justification for it."

He grinned. She grinned back.

"I'm angry with you," she admitted. "I don't like being told what to do, what's best for me. I've looked out for my own interests for over a decade now, and I can do so for several more. That's partly what sent me out alone into a snowstorm. I wanted to prove to you, to myself, that I need no one. Not even you." She huffed, rolling her eyes at her own foolishness. "I swear, other than this unfortunate lapse of judgment, I'm quite capable. I'm merely… not in the city. I suppose I'd never be able to survive the dangers of the country. This proves it."

"False. You found your way through the woods to somewhere safe. You are, always have been, quite capable. Even when out of your element. Gee… we don't have to marry. I won't force your hand. I don't want you to feel as if I think you're incapable. I don't. I never could. I merely… I want to keep you safe. Always. I"—he closed his eyes as the muscles in his jaw worked hard—"found you half frozen on my doorstep and couldn't decide what the best course of action was, besides getting you inside and warmed up. Should I thank God for guiding your steps toward me or curse myself to hell for driving you to such madness? Had you not warmed up, woken up, my heart would have frozen with you."

She pressed her hands to her chest to calm it. He wouldn't force her. And it made her soul sing.

He cupped her cheek once more, then leaned forward and dropped a breeze-light kiss on the tip of her nose. "It is Miss Darlington's choice to tell about what she saw or not. And it is my choice to hold out my hand to you. Or not. But I am holding it out, Gee. It's yours. The choice is also yours. Whether or not you take it. Whether or not you marry me."

Marry him.

Or not.

Her choice, taken away by no one.

She held it in her hand like a precious gem as ash fell from the sky and into her palm to mar it. Where would they live? Would she be able to trust him fully, man that he was? Would he tire of her one day? Would they find in a year's time they did not suit? Would he stop being her friend as soon as he became her betrothed? Her lover? She shook the ash of doubt away and beheld the gem.

Then she made a choice, and she surged up out of the blankets to kiss Josiah soundly. And he kissed her back, his fingers spiking into her hair and pulling her toward him. No. She pulled him down, her arms escaping the warm cocoon of blankets he'd rested atop her to circle around his neck and pull him entirely from the chair until he sprawled across her. Even though he balanced on his elbows poised on either side of her body, the weight of his body rippled a delicious feeling through her. Safety. That was it. He made her feel warm and safe and… not sated. Not yet. But soon.

She arched against him, and the blankets fell below her breasts, pressed into his chest. He hissed a curse and rolled to the side, pulling her with him so the back of her body fit into the curved front of his own, the blankets between them muffling sensations, baring the knowledge she needed of the way he might feel against her backside.

His hands though, no barrier prevented them from cupping her breasts and rubbing his thumbs over her tight, pebbled nipples as he showered kisses along the curve of her neck. How had she been so cold earlier, frozen to the very soul? She'd never suffer a chill again, not with the inferno his firm lips pressed into her skin.

"Please," she said, "please more."

And he obeyed, biting her shoulder, a light nip that sent sparks skittering through her body like marbles scattered across ice, and then he nipped the lobe of her ear, kissed the tender corner of her neck behind it.

More. She needed more, and the damn blankets were in the way, heating her, constraining her, keeping her from getting exactly what she wanted.

"Off. I need the blankets off," she said.

A deep chuckle near her ear, and then he shifted and slipped to the floor.

She reached for him. "Come back."

He walked away instead, ambling to the end of the bed where he lifted one corner of the top blanket. He pulled it slowly toward him, gathering the material in his arms, and when it was a red wool bundle, he tossed it to the floor, reached for the next one and did the same.

"There are five blankets here, two greatcoats, four shirts, and three sheets." Swoosh . Another blanket disappeared down the bottom of the bed.

Gaze riveted on him, on his wild hair and glittering eyes, she clutched the very bottom sheet, the one nestled against her body, up to her chin.

"I'm afraid I panicked." He flicked another blanket from the bed, and she felt the weight lighten a bit. "Once I had you stripped, I put you in my bed. And pulled up the sheets and coverlet, but you seemed so small there, small and shivering. I'd rather die than see you suffer, so I ransacked my wardrobe, found the greatcoats, a few large shirts and tossed them on top of you. But it didn't seem enough." Another blanket, this one of a deep green, slid slowly down the length of her body, pulled by the tanned fist of the man standing tall before her. "So, I found the cupboard where the linens are kept and carried an armful in here to toss atop you." He'd found the greatcoats and the shirts, and he reached, muscles stretching against his shirtsleeves, firelight caressing the corded length of his throat, and tossed them from the bed before grabbing another fistful of blanket—the last one—and pulling it slowly, like a seduction, off her body.

Only one sheet remained between her body and the air, and she should feel cold, after losing all that weight and heat. She didn't. She ached for the air to caress her sweating skin. For him to caress her.

His arms fell limp to his sides, and his head drooped forward. "I was terrified, Gee. Terrified I would lose you even though I'd alrea"—his voice broke, and he swallowed hard—"I'd already lost you."

"Why?"

His gaze shot to hers.

"Why do you wish to marry me?"

He looked up and seemed somewhere else for several breaths. Then he reached toward the end of the bed and fisted the silk sheet, the final layer, pulling it with enough force to yank it from her grasp, away from her chin, so it flirted with revealing her cleavage like the bodice of a modest gown.

"Because I love you, Lady Georgiana Hunt. To hell with rumors and ruination. To hell with what I should do. There is only you. And how I know in here"—he beat a fist against his chest—"that I need you. Even if you will never need me."

She waited only a heartbeat, letting the words sink in and find a home, but then she curled upward, letting the sheet fall off her chest and pool around her waist. She curled her legs beneath her and crawled across the bed, a slow and measured stalking. She kept his gaze—stealing, she saw with pleasure—his breath, and when she reached the edge of the bed, when she reached him , she stood up on her knees and cupped his face. Every inch of her open to his gaze, but he only looked in her eyes. Good. She wanted him to see as well as hear every word she would give to him. She kissed him first, a good way to start.

"We were fools," she said when she pulled away.

His eyes fluttered open, glowing with humor. "Quite right. Which time?"

"The time we thought we could be just friends."

"Ah, yes." His voice husky as he lifted his hands to her shoulders, then caressed his rough palms down her upper arms, then back up, then back down, a pattern that made her shudder with delight, with the promise it stroked into her skin. "That time. Fools indeed." His eyes clouded, and his gaze drifted lower, and for the first time she felt truly naked.

And truly adored. For that's what glowed in his eyes—uncomplicated, unadulterated adoration.

She found his lips once more and poured her heart into her kiss. He kissed her back, hard and demanding, and giving too, and the mattress shifted, and he was straddling her, leaning her back.

"No!" She jerked away and pressed a palm to his chest. "Not yet." She pressed him back and heard the thud of each of his feet hitting the floor.

"What do you want, Georgie? I'll give you everything I am."

She grinned, and it felt wicked and wonderful. "I want your clothes, Josiah. And I want to undress you as you undressed me."

A shiver racked his frame, and he took a step back, held his arms out wide, an invitation. She slipped to the floor, the bare planks cold against her feet, and she wasted no time, tugging the shirt from his buckskins and tossing it to the floor with the ocean of blankets and greatcoats that had once covered her. His torso rippled with muscle. She'd known it would, known he'd be like marble warmed on a summer day, but seeing and touching proved better than assumption, better than imagination, and she traced every ridge and slab from his pectorals and nipples to the ridges of his abdomen and lower.

The buckskins were dealt with as quickly as the shirt had been, and as they dropped to the floor, she knelt and divested him of his stockings, rolling the sensible wool down his calves and finding those calves hard with muscle, too. She tilted her head, studying them. Did she find calves delightful? She must. She squeezed one—like squeezing a rock, it was—and a shiver pooled need at her very core.

Then she looked up at him. No, not at him because the proud jutting length of him was in the way. In the way? No. Exactly where it should—just beside her yearning mouth. She took it in hand, studying it, remembering how he'd brought her to pleasure, to climax, with his mouth just yesterday. So she kissed the tip, saw the bead of dew appear just there, and licked it away.

He groaned, his hands tightening in her hair before he knelt, slid his arms beneath hers and hauled her to her feet, threw her onto the bed, and joined her almost in a single smooth movement.

"Tell me what else you want?" he demanded, scattering kisses along her jaw.

"I was rather enjoying touching you."

He groaned. "You can't. I can't. Last. I can't last. Tell me something else you want."

"This, too." All of it. Not just his hands on her, his kisses, but his dominance. He'd thrown her on the bed, and a thrill had raced through her, a primal notion she'd chosen a man who could protect her. If she needed it. Right now, she didn't need his protection. She needed his devotion. "Touch me. Kiss me. Everywhere." Such power as she'd never felt before rushed through her. Not even when all the wealth she'd been promised by her aunt had become hers, had she felt such delirious power. Money was nothing. A man like this above her, beneath her, surrounding her, wanting her, needing her— everything .

His hand stroked down her belly, and his mouth found her nipples, sucked them, licked them. She cried out and grasped his hair. Not a demand he stopped. A plea he continued.

"I love your breasts," he said as he kissed them. "Like perfect little cakes, sweet and round."

She laughed and stroked her fingernails down his back, making him hiss.

And then his hand found that aching spot between her legs, the pleading nub, and circled it, sliding a finger inside her. She gasped and arched off the bed, and then everything happened so quickly. If the world had slowed down in her sad march through the forest, even her blood marched to a more sedate rhythm as the snow froze it, now every bit of her sang time into a frenzy.

Until she broke apart. Entirely. The growing pleasure at her center reached its pinnacle beneath his tender, fervent ministrations and made her cry out his name to the heavens, made her soul leap up and follow there, becoming a constellation in the winter night sky.

Limp and shattered, she knew it was not over, and he moved, groaning her name and placing the throbbing, hot length of himself at her entrance. With one hard stroke he entered her, and she cried out once more, a cry he gathered into his mouth with a kiss, his body stilling, his hands caressing, his lips promising everything through the kiss.

Words caressed her ear a moment later, and his promises became solid things.

"I'm sorry," he said. A mantra. "I hurt you. I'm sorry. I could not stop myself, and—"

"I'm not hurt." She stroked her fingers down his hair and flattened her palms as she rubbed them down the length of his back. "I'm not hurt. Please, Josiah. Please ."

"Yes." And he moved, in and out, slowly. Oh-so-slowly.

So slowly she arched up and pressed her mound against him to ask for more, demand it. And he gave her what she asked for. Of course, he did. He pumped faster and faster as she clutched at his shoulders, his neck, his wonderfully muscled backside. Something else wonderful rolled within her as well. Another of those soul-singing moments. Impossible. But obviously possible, because when he thrust one last time and threw his head back to call her name, her entire body shook and shivered, a tree in the wind, and melted once more into peaceful perfection.

He collapsed atop her but didn't stay long, wrapping steel-banded arms around her and rolling so she lay atop him. Warmer than before, with a mountain of blankets on top of her. Better than before. So much better than ever before.