No Gentleman for Georgina (3 page)

She blushed. “He feels the exhibit is inappropriate. Even if it is all the rage to see it.”

“That is patently unfair, to deny you what you desire. If he didn’t want to attend, why not allow you another chaperone?”

She shrugged. “As I said, it is outside the bounds of his plans for me. So it will not happen.” She looked at him for a moment. “You appear very upset on my behalf, which I appreciate. But do not worry yourself. I only wanted to tell someone about my disappointment. I have never thought for a moment that this problem could be fixed by anyone. I won’t be allowed to go and that is the end of it.”

Paul pressed his lips together in displeasure. Georgina was so resigned to whatever her parents desired. So surrendered to a life she would have at their behest. He knew he could not change that life, that future, but suddenly he very much wanted to give her this small boon.

“I…” He shook his head, almost in disbelief at himself that he would say this. “What if I could help you?”

Georgina blinked in confusion as she stared at Paul. He didn’t look like he was making fun of her, but if he wasn’t teasing, she was truly flummoxed by what he could mean.

“Help me?” she repeated. “Help me what?”

He swallowed before he spoke. “I could help you see the exhibit.”

She pushed to her feet and took a long step toward him. Suddenly they were too much in each other’s space. She’d never been so close in all the times they met, for they had never danced. He was very tall indeed, very handsome, and he smelled spicy and sinful. She tried hard to draw breath, to sound calm even when her racing heart betrayed her to herself.

“You would do that?” she asked, the words broken.

He nodded slowly. “Yes. If you desired me to do so.”

“Why?” she asked, then immediately regretted it. There were more answers to the question that would break her heart than ones that would make her soul soar.

He hesitated a moment, as if trying to formulate the proper response. Then he shrugged ever so slightly. “Because I like you, Georgina Hickson. I think you deserve to see the exhibit. You deserve
something
you want.”

She stopped breathing entirely. Those words were not the ones she had expected. And he had called her Georgina. Well, he’d called her by her full name, so that wasn’t quite as intimate, but it was certainly more so than referring to her formally and properly as he had done since the first moment they met.

“I want—” she began, then turned away. Great God, she hadn’t actually been about to admit what she truly wanted, had she? There would be nothing so foolish, since it was not a feeling he likely returned, nor could it ever amount to anything.

“What do you want?” he said from behind her, his voice suddenly rough.

She swallowed hard and faced him, forcing herself to maintain some kind of nonchalance. “How would we do it?”

He pondered that. “Your father allows you to spend the night here from time to time, does he not?”

Georgina paused. “Sometimes. Begrudgingly.”

“Arrange it with Annabelle, and I will be certain the back servants’ entrance is left open. You can sneak out once the household is abed and I’ll meet you behind the house. Afterward I will bring you back. No one will ever be the wiser.”

She shivered as the delicious wrongness of that plan sunk in. It would flout propriety of all kinds. “In the middle of the night,” she repeated.

He nodded. “That would be for the best. It will ensure you’ll not be seen and no one will know who might report back to your father.”

“And how will we manage to get in?” she asked. “I would imagine that the Magnificent Mercatura will be locked tight at two in the morning.”

He smiled, but it was a different expression than any of the ones she’d ever seen him flash before. There was a smug maleness to it, a confidence that made a queer ache begin in the pit of her stomach. Warmth seemed to spread through her, pooling in the most inappropriate places.

“Rivers is a very influential man,” he drawled. “And so am I. The proprietress of the exhibit…well, she has been known to frequent the club. I think she would allow it if she understood how good a cause it is.”

She blinked. She knew very little about Marcus Rivers’ club. It was a scandalous place, the Donville Masquerade, but everyone always stopped talking about it when she entered the room. When she’d asked Annabelle about it directly, her friend had actually blushed to the roots of her hair and muttered something about changing the subject.

Which only left her desperately curious about what it was exactly that Paul did.

She pushed those thoughts aside as he tilted his head, watching her too closely. Seeing too much.

“Will you?” he asked.

Doing this would be dangerous, and she knew it. But she couldn’t resist and not just because she wanted to see the wax figures. Slowly, she nodded. “When?”

His face relaxed, as if he had been nervous about her answer. “I’ll need at least three days to arrange it. What about Thursday night?”

“Very well. If I cannot get my father’s permission to stay here, I’ll send word through Annabelle. If you hear nothing, assume it will happen.”

He nodded, his eyes lingering on her face for far too long. Then he shook his head as if shaking off a spell and said, “Good. Very good. And now I
should
probably return to my work.”

She watched him as he turned away toward the door. But before he took a step, he turned back. “Georgina?”

She jolted. Now he truly was saying her first name. It was utterly inappropriate to do so, and yet it made her entire body flutter with nothing short of desire.

“Y-Yes?”

He seemed to struggle for a moment, but then he said, “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Pa—Mr. Abbot,” she whispered, not bold enough to call him by his first name. “I will see you soon, I hope.”

He slipped from the room and she all but collapsed on the settee closest to her. When she was with him, he always seemed to hold sway on all the air in the room, but never more than today when he proposed such a wild plan to her. And she had accepted!

Normally she wasn’t so brave, but to have him hold her gaze as he had, to have him whisper that she deserved something for her own pleasure…how could she refuse? She would get time alone with him. And she would get to the see the wax exhibit.

There could be nothing more perfect.

Her reverie was interrupted when Annabelle returned to the room. Her face was flushed and her hair slightly askew. She smoothed it as she walked toward Georgina.

“Is everything all right? You are very pale.”

Georgina jumped. She was not going to tell Annabelle about her odd plan with Paul. If she said it out loud, it might make it not real. Or her friend might discourage her.

“I am fine,” she insisted with a bright smile she did not have to fake.

Annabelle arched a brow. “Yes, you do seem in higher spirits than you did when you arrived. But where is Abbot?”

Georgina pushed to her feet and poured herself another cup of tea. “He had to return to his work.”

“I hope you weren’t alone long,” Annabelle said.

She faced her friend. “Not at all. I had time to think.”

“Do you want to tell me what was upsetting you so much upon your arrival?” Annabelle asked, watching Georgina far too closely. “You were waving around the paper and so incoherent that I didn’t understand.”

Georgina shook off her friend’s concern. “You know, I find I am less upset now than I was. It is truly not worth discussing.”

Annabelle drew back. “You came all the way here and were ranting in my foyer, but now it is not worth discussing?”

“Oh, it was just my father, trying to control my future again,” Georgina explained. “But it matters very little now, I assure you.”

“Georgina…” Annabelle began, her tone concerned.

“Do you think I might be able to spend the night here on Thursday?” Georgina interrupted.

Annabelle tilted her head slightly and then nodded. “Er, of course. You are always welcome here, you know that is true.”

Georgina smiled at her friend, but she was utterly distracted. All she could think about was Paul’s offer to take her to the exhibit. Paul’s handsome face. Paul in general.

“What is going on with you?” Annabelle asked, her sharp tone breaking into Georgina’s thoughts.

She gathered up her reticule with a smile. “Nothing at all. I’ll send word about what time I’ll join you as soon as I get permission from my father, if that is amenable to you.”

Annabelle took a step forward and her hand closed around Georgina’s gently. “Georgina.”

She nodded. “Yes?”

“I know it is difficult for you right now,” her friend said gently. “What your father wants…it is a great deal of pressure on you. I also realize he disapproves of our friendship, but I want you to know how much I value it.”

Thoughts of Paul fled as Georgina met her friend’s bright eyes. Annabelle seemed truly concerned about her, and it was the reason she loved the other woman so much. In a world where everyone had their ulterior motives about her, Annabelle seemed to truly love her just for who she was.

“As do I,” she whispered, blinking at the tears that had suddenly flooded her eyes. “More than you likely know.”

Annabelle’s eyes also sparkled with unshed tears. “Then are you certain there is nothing you wish to tell me? You know I would be happy to help or support you in any way.”

Georgina hesitated. She had never spoken to her friend about her feelings for Paul. She doubted Annabelle even suspected the truth. And there was part of her that longed to whisper what she had held inside for almost two years. But another part didn’t want to open that door.

Annabelle would want to protect her, of that Georgina was certain. And if her friend told her not to meet with Paul…or worse yet told her that Paul could never care for her…

Well, she wanted to live in her fantasy, at least for a while longer. It had been so long since she had something to look forward to. She didn’t want to lose it.

“No, nothing at all,” she reassured Annabelle. Then she squeezed her friend’s hand. “And I should go. My father is already in a bit of a dudgeon, so I probably shouldn’t have left this afternoon.”

Annabelle caught her breath, as if to speak, but then shook her head. “Well, perhaps you will want to speak more on Thursday. We look forward to having you.”

Georgina smiled, then led her from the room to call for her carriage. But as it pulled up and she said her goodbyes, she couldn’t help all but dancing from the house. She was going to have an evening with Paul.

And even though it could mean nothing, at that moment it meant everything in the world.

Paul sat in the narrow alleyway behind Rivers’ home on Thursday night in one of his employer’s fine rigs. Marcus always allowed Paul to borrow them and had asked no question when he asked for the privilege that night. In fact, Marcus had teased him, prodding him about if he had perhaps found something to do with a woman.

If only his friend knew the truth. Paul could already hear Marcus’s voice ringing in his ears, lecturing him about how out of reach Georgina was and telling him to walk away. He pushed it aside, along with his own misgivings and stared, unblinking, at the servants’ entrance. Within a moment or two, the door slowly opened.

He straightened and caught his breath as Georgina slipped into the darkness of the night. She was dressed as though she were going to a ball, in fine pale blue silk with her hair done perfectly. He stepped down from the phaeton and moved on her.

She smiled through the dim moonlight. “I’m so glad you’re here. I feared you might have changed your mind.”

“I would not,” he said softly, though in truth he had reconsidered this course of action dozens of times in the past few days. Everything in him knew this was a mistake and yet he was making it regardless.

Seeing Georgina look up at him in excitement and pleasure was well worth it.

“Shall we go?” he asked, motioning to Marcus’s rig.

She nodded and took his hand for help up into the phaeton. As he touched her, a spark seemed to jolt through him. By God, but he wanted her. But he frowned for he knew that would never be.