A Scandalous Countess: A Novel of the Malloren World (56 page)

And then she smiled. She shouldn’t smile at a death, not even the death of evil, but she did. Lord Sellerby was dead and she needn’t fear he would hurt anyone else she loved.

She reached out to touch, but then hesitated, inches away. It seemed wrong to intrude on a sleeping person, but then she placed her hand on his warm shoulder, covered only by his linen nightshirt.

His lids fluttered and then he woke up, smiling, but also searching her face.

“I’m all right. I’m not,” she added, “distressed.”

Smile turned to grin, and he captured her hand to kiss it, playing his lips there and then sliding them up her sleeve, across her shoulder until he found the exposed skin of her neck.

She stretched slightly with pleasure, and he explored behind her ear and all around it, sending shivers through her.

“We are not,” he whispered softly, “going to do more here, my sweet lady.”

She slid her eyes to him. “We’re not?”

“I hope we’ll have thousands of mornings and thousands of nights.…”

“The time for wickedness.”

“All times are ripe for wickedness, and pleasure. But this is not ideal, not for our first full discovery. Let’s arise and explore the morning of our new days.”

She smiled and kissed him, yearning, but knowing he
was right. There should be a special time for that, and this was not it, with stories still to spin and questions to be answered, and with Dracy Manor still to be visited.

“Come with me back to my room so I can find some clothes.”

“Of course. I can show my skills with stay laces.”

She swatted him on the arm and led the way, and he did know how to tie stay laces as well as Jane. But Jane couldn’t spice the process as he did, with scattered kisses, some soft, some firm, and some very sweet nips.

She pushed him away when he was done, hot and tingling all over, and aching deep inside. “Get dressed. I can manage from here.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, but I warn you, Lord Dracy, I will not let Jane go when I move to your pigsty!”

Chapter 36

T
hey returned to London first, to explanations to her parents, who heard the truth, and eventually to an inquest, which heard most of it.

Georgia hated having to give her evidence in the crowded room, with people from all stations packed in to hear more about the Maybury Scandal, as it was now known.

That evening, she wrote to Lizzie about it in her room.

Georgia would much have preferred not to have her mother as chaperone on the journey to Devon, but
apparently everything must be done with perfect propriety now.

Her mother’s presence meant they had to travel in full state, in the traveling berlin, with two coaches of servants, bedding, and other comforts, and six outriders. There was pleasure to be in the same carriage as Dracy, but no scope for true conversation. At night, after they’d supped, she was taken off to the bedchamber she shared with her mother and their two maids.

“I might as well be in a convent,” she muttered to Dracy one day as he handed her into the coach.

He kept her hand long enough to kiss it. “Many men find nuns arousing, you know.”

“Do you?”

“If the nun is you.”

Such little things fed her love and desire, and she grew eager to arrive at Dracy only to have this test over. But when they arrived, she had to hide her feelings.

He’d told the truth when he’d said this was no Brookhaven, and nothing was helped by them having traveled the last half day in pouring rain. There was no porte cochere, so they all had to slog through mud to get inside.

Her mother immediately insisted on a room, a fire, and dry clothes, but Georgia looked around, wondering if such things were available. The walls were grimy and soot stained, and some patches looked suspiciously like mold. She shivered in the damp air and wrinkled her nose at the smell.

Two servants hovered, but one was a terrified young girl, and the other a hunched old man.

She turned to Dracy and saw endearing apprehension.

She smiled, and it was genuine. “I’ve always enjoyed improving houses, and delighted in a challenge.”

He laughed. “I take pride in providing one, then.”

“Where is my room?” her mother asked, ominously. “I
would remove to an inn except that I saw no such thing this past hour and I will not venture out again into that weather.”

“Begging yer pardon, your ladyships,” the serving girl said in a squeak, “but there be fires in the best bedchambers. Mistress Knowlton arranged them.”

Georgia looked at Dracy. “Housekeeper?”

“Friend,” he said. “I wrote ahead.”

She didn’t like the idea of a woman friend, but her mother was being led upstairs and so she followed. Pale spaces on the wall marked where paintings had hung, and out of the corner of her eye she saw a mouse scurry.

A cat.

Maybe a few cats.

The room allocated to her mother was more promising than Georgia had hoped for. A musty smell was almost masked by potpourri, and the fire burned cheerfully without spilling smoke into the room. Though as grimy as elsewhere, it didn’t seem damp, perhaps because of that lively fire. A fire in summer—that told the tale.

She quickly checked the sheets for damp and found them dry. “I think you’ll be comfortable here.”

Her mother snorted. “I am having doubts about this, daughter. Dracy, go away and see that I have hot punch to warm my bones, and sustaining food. Georgia, stay with me.”

Georgia wanted to defy her mother, but old lessons were hard to ignore. Once they were alone, she said, “You planned to marry me to Dracy, Mother.”

“I did not realize the extent of the sacrifice.”

“I can endure it. I love him.”

“You were always difficult, Georgia. Your reputation is mostly restored. There’s no need for this.” She indicated the room and the whole house.

Perhaps old lessons could be overcome.

“Mother, you plotted and connived to marry me to Dracy for the sake of a horse! Oh, I know you thought it
best for me, but I was a pawn to you. I’m not a pawn anymore. My money is my own, I am mistress of my own fate, and I intend to marry Lord Dracy and, yes, live here at Dracy Manor.”

Her mother stared and Georgia braced for an explosion, but Agatha, her mother’s maid, came in, and the fire turned against her. “There you are at last. Get me out of these wet clothes before I catch an ague. Go away, Georgia. You exasperate me; I declare you do.”

Georgia escaped and found Dracy awaiting her in the corridor. She wondered how much he’d heard. He only smiled. “Let me show you to your room. I would have done better by it with more time.”

He took her down the corridor to a room also warmed by a fire, and where some flowers stood in a pottery vase. Lady Knowlton again?

“Tolerable,” she said, ignoring the moth holes in the hangings and the stained plaster in the ceiling. When she reached the window she ran a finger along the windowsill and held it up wet.

“Not quite fixed everything yet,” he said.

“Is the roof sound?”

“Mostly.”

“I can see we’ll need my twelve thousand.” This was his home, however, and thus hers. “You spent much time here as a boy. What was it like then?”

“I liked it. Never elegant, but cozy.”

“Then we’ll make it cozy again. Truly,” she said when he appeared to doubt. “I see no fallen plaster, so when the roof is repaired, paint will restore most, and the paneling in the entrance hall will be lovely when restored. Which is your room?”

“Have wicked intention, do you?” he asked, and she went hot at the look in his eyes. She supposed she had passed the last test, given that she was already planning restorations.

“How could anything be wicked between us?” she said.

He grinned. “I like a challenge.”

He took her to the end of the corridor to another room, flinging open the door. “The chamber of the Barons Dracy!”

It was large and had once perhaps had grandeur—a century or two ago. The walls were paneled here too, and the fireplace a cavern of stone. The carved oak bed, however, was the most baronial aspect. It was enormous, more than six feet wide.

“All the better to roll around in,” he said.

They looked at each other, but then her mother called, “Georgia? Where are you? Come here.”

Georgia pulled a face but went.

“Sit,” her mother said. “Eat. The rain has stopped and we have hours of daylight. We can do a first inspection of the garden. There must be something promising about this place.”

Georgia sent Dracy a silent apology. He smiled and went away.

Soon her mother was demanding pattens, and they were equipped to keep their shoes and skirts out of the mud. Dracy appeared to escort them, and Georgia muttered, “Boots. If I’m to attempt this sort of country living, I shall wear boots.”

“You’ll probably set the fashion.”

“Not here, I won’t. I can only hope no one ever sees me in this milieu.” But she sent him a smile. Truth was, she saw a challenge and she couldn’t wait.

Looked at clearly, the stone house was solidly pleasant. Much of the ivy could come off the walls, especially that hanging over windows, and perhaps some flowering plants could be trained there instead. The drive needed gravel, and there would have to be some sort of shelter for arriving coaches, but all in good time.

“I see sheep cropping the grass,” she said. “Why not more of them?”