Unraveling the Earl (18 page)

Lifting onto her toes, she brushed a kiss over his lips.
“Now, just hear me out, my lord Henry.”

“Have I any choice?” he quipped and he almost sounded
cheerful, the poor dear.

“None whatsoever.” Stepping back, she took his hands in hers
and led him to the bed, pushing him to sit and climbing into his lap, sighing
with relief as she stretched her injured leg out beside him on the bed.

Winding her arms over his shoulders, she nuzzled his neck.
“I’ve decided I shall host a gathering upon my return to Town.”

“A capital idea,” he praised, sweeping one hand up her back
while the other curled around her hip, tugging her tight against him. “I’ll
show you off to all of my debauched friends and their less than perfect
mistresses.”

“Not that sort of gathering,” Georgie replied with a laugh,
remembering the bacchanals Killjoy had hosted whenever he was in residence at
The Mount. “A proper dinner. With proper guests.”

“Do you know any proper people to invite?” he asked
doubtfully.

“To be sure, I don’t,” she agreed, smiling against his warm
skin as she trailed her fingers over his shoulders. “But you do.”

“You just said I wasn’t to invite my very improper chums,”
he reminded her.

Georgie leaned back in his loose embrace, her gaze finding
his. “Your relations, silly. I shall invite your relations.”

“Pull the other leg,” he said with a grin.

“I’m quite serious.”

Henry smile fell away and Georgie’s heart missed a beat.

“You must know that is impossible, love.” His words were
delivered in the gentlest tones imaginable and still she heard them as clearly
as if he’d shouted.

“I don’t see why,” she answered, her heart rate increasing
as if desperate to make up for that one missed beat.

“A gentleman does not invite his family to dine in the home
of his mistress.”

“Is that all?” she asked with a laugh, relief making her
almost dizzy. “We’ll simply host our gathering at Hastings House.”

Henry shook his head, his gaze shifting away.

“Why ever not?” she asked, battling to hold on to her dizzy
relief.

“Georgie, I cannot introduce my mistress to my relations. It
simply is not done.”

“Says who?”

“Says everyone,” he replied as patiently as if he were
speaking to a child and Georgie gave up on dizzy relief. “It would offend the
ladies’ delicate sensibilities and the gentlemen…let’s just say they would not
treat you with respect.”

“Lady Easton was his lordship’s mistress before they
married,” she pointed out. “Do your menfolk treat her with anything less than
the upmost respect?

“Beatrice was not Easton’s mistress,” Henry replied in
genuine surprise. “Their courtship was all that is proper.”

Oh Lord, he truly was naïve, well beyond a tad, if he
believed that bit of nonsense.

“And I suppose a certain countess was not found in a
carriage pleasuring a gentleman not yet her husband?” she asked. “And do not
even get me started on your cousin who has taken half of London to her bed
while her husband slept just down the hall.”

“See here, Olivia was a widow and she married Bentley. And
Alice is a respectable married lady,” Henry said, his eyes gleaming and Georgie
realized that she’d taken a wrong turn. She would get nowhere by maligning his
female relations, never mind that she suspected they hadn’t a speck of delicate
sensibility between them.

“You can hop from bed to bed without a care for the gossip
or the offense it heaps on the delicate sensibilities of your female
relations,” she replied, forcing her lips into a smile even as her temper
unraveled around the edges like snagged lace. “You can dally with twenty-six
women, have your affairs written of in the papers, but you cannot introduce one
woman to your family?”

“I know it seems ridiculous,” he agreed. “But there you have
it.”

“So I am to be relegated to Mistress Lane lest I shock my
neighbors,” Georgie said, the words rushing from her lips as she comprehended
the reality of the bargain she’d struck with the earl. “I am to be hidden away
and only brought out when you’ve a mind to play with me.”

“Of course not,” Henry replied, one hand coming up to cup
her cheek. “I’ve no intention of hiding you. On the contrary I look forward to
showing you off, to draping you in diamonds and silk gowns and taking you
about.”

“Will we attend the theater?”

“Absolutely,” he answered readily. “Not on opening night,
naturally. The third Thursday of a showing is customarily reserved for
gentlemen and their paramours.”

“I see.” She was certainly coming to see, to truly grasp the
magnitude of her blunder. “And will we ride through the park together?”

“Most assuredly.”

“But not at the fashionable hour, leastwise not in an open
carriage,” she added before he could tack on that little disclaimer.

“Precisely.” Henry pressed a quick kiss to her brow and when
he pulled back his eyes were shining. “Oh, and I shall take you to Covent
Garden and Vauxhall.

“Where we will view the fireworks from a private box.”

“And when the Season winds down we’ll have house parties to
entertain us,” he continued. “We’ll have a grand time together.”

Georgie placed one finger over his lips lest she give into
the overwhelming urge to use the same finger to poke him in the eye, in both
eyes. After all, he had no use for eyes, being woefully blind.

“I know all about house parties,” she told him, careful to
keep her voice light and airy.

“You see,” he exclaimed, grinning to beat the band. “That is
why I adore you. You shan’t be shocked by the goings on we’ll find as we travel
about the countryside.”

“You adore me.”

“I have well and truly fallen under your spell,” he assured
her.

“You mustn’t claim I did not warn you,” she replied
flippantly, too flippantly.

Had he truly adored her, had he genuinely known her, he
would have seen the signs, marked the warning and taken heed.

But Henry Tinsdale, the Earl of Hastings, a man too handsome
for his own good and far too confident of his appeal, knew Miss Georgie
Buchanan not at all.

Georgie prowled around Idyllwild Cottage in the small hours
of dawn, feeling vexed and prickly by the absolute silence after two days and
nights of relentless rain, wind and thunder.

She boldly strolled into each and every bedchamber to poke
her head into armoires, rifle through dresser drawers and peer under beds,
fully aware she’d find nothing to assist her search.

Still she was curious about the house and those people who
made it their home from time to time, traveling for days to spend a few weeks
or months in a cottage that likely would have fit within the grand ballrooms of
their various ancestral homes.

The house, the entire small estate, brought to mind River’s
End, had Himself not allowed the cottage to fall to ruins and the land to lay
fallow.

With a shake of her head, Georgie dislodged the melancholy
thoughts.

As she traversed the staircase she found the seventh step
that squeaked and gave it a good bounce, enjoying the screeching note it gave
in return. So much so that she repeated the little hop and then gave it a good
solid jump, ignoring the jagged pain that shot up her shin to lodge just below
her knee.

If Georgie possessed one talent, one true skill, certainly
it was the ability to ignore what could not be altered while she went about her
life doing precisely as she pleased.

“Hide me away on Mistress Lane, will he?” she asked of the
step, giving one last bounce before she gingerly moved down to the next. “Fat
lot of good that will do me.”

When she’d agreed to be his lordship’s mistress, she’d
imagined she would be gifted with unfettered access to the
ton
, to those
people who had made up Lady Hastings’ circle and, by extension, that of Connie
of the brassy yellow curls and beady blue eyes.

And why not? Killjoy had made a habit of inviting his
various mistresses to visit The Mount for days, weeks, and in the case of one
temperamental opera singer, months at a time. Catarina Rosselini had sung for
her supper each night, much to the delight of Lady Joy and the other dowagers.

Alas, the Earl of Hastings, a man who played fast and loose
with Society’s rules when it suited him, had made it abundantly clear that he
would not bend them even the slightest bit to hold to his end of their bargain.

No, he’d rather throw trinkets her way. Carriages drawn by
scrawny horses. And set her up in a house where all of her neighbors would
believe she was his whore.

Some might say she’d bartered her favors, traded her passion
and sold off pieces of her heart for far less. And they might be right. But
she’d done so on her own terms.

The Earl of Hastings’ terms simply did not suit her, not in
the least.

She would be no man’s plaything to be brought out when the
mood struck him only to be tucked away in the corner when the real world called
to him.

Cater to his every whim, indeed.

Georgie had whims of her own and was unused to stemming the
urge to act upon them.

Terribly impulsive, Lady Joy had proclaimed time and again.

Utterly selfish and stubborn, Killjoy was fond of announcing
to anyone who might listen.

Sorely trying, Millie had stated while Himself had
pronounced her pigheaded and lippy.

Rash and brash, Tag had declared only two days ago when
they’d climbed into the carriage and set off from the village.

Wonderfully wicked and vastly venal, Brain had called in
through the open window.

Georgie knew she was all of those things and more.

It was only a matter of time before his lordship realized
it, as well.

As far she was concerned the sooner he realized it, the
sooner she would be free of the jittery nerves and teetering emotions that had
plagued her since the handsome devil had approached her after his mother’s
funeral.

She was that tired of feeling all topsy-turvy whenever he
was near, of finding her thoughts dominated by him when they were apart.

It was only that the coupling was so blessedly wonderful, so
appallingly satisfying, she assured herself as she wandered into the parlor,
her gaze unerringly finding the long settee where he’d gone flying arse over
heels.

Falling onto the velvet sofa with a sigh, Georgie stared up
at the ceiling, seeing his crooked smile and the dimple that flashed when he
was being especially mischievous, the upward sweep of his right eyebrow when he
was acting the arrogant lord, the rather befuddled softness in his eyes when
she looked up from this task or that to find him watching her.

She knew without doubt she would miss that most of all, that
look of confusion mingled with tenderness.

No one had ever looked at her in just that manner, not one
person in her entire life.

She’d read desire in a man’s eyes, affection and annoyance,
amusement and dismay, shock and, on one occasion, absolute revulsion.

Not a single man, not a lover or a friend, had ever looked
at her as if she were a big dish of raspberry crumble topped with what might be
either sweet cream or fuzzy mold and he was willing, eager even, to take an
enormous bite without first prodding and sniffing to determine its origins.

Georgie laughed at her fanciful imaginings before tucking
her unbound hair over her shoulder and rolling to her side. She curled her good
leg nearly up to her chest while stretching the other out until her foot
dangled off the settee. Tucking one hand under her cheek, she closed her eyes,
suspecting she might sleep for a bit. Perhaps an hour or two.

“Ah, love.”

Henry’s voice, soft and underlain with amusement, pulled
Georgie from her slumber as one hand reached beneath her back and a second
wrapped around her legs.

She opened her eyes to find him bent over her, golden
morning sunlight shimmering around his head, a tender smile lifting his lips.

“Foolish man,” she murmured, winding her arms around his
neck as he lifted her.

“That I am,” he replied with a quiet laugh.

“You ought not take the risk.”

Henry pulled her close to his chest and jiggled her about to
assure a proper grip before turning toward the door. “Which risk would that
be?”

“There might be fuzzy mold on the berry crumble,” she said,
pressing her lips to his neck just below his ear. She did not kiss him but
rather held her lips there, just there, where she could feel the warmth of his
skin and breathe him in, clean linen and musk, the unmistakable scent of her
lover just arising from his bed.

“I prefer sweet cream, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Quite a bit of trouble, I’m afraid,” she said, feeling the
need to warn him one last time.

“Fuzzy mold it is.”

Georgie felt the sting behind her eyes first, a warning of
its own, and clamped her eyes tightly shut.

Silly to find his words sweet when he was only humoring a
barely awake woman spouting nonsense. But sweet she found them. Unbearably
sweet.

A lone tear seeped from beneath her lashes and she dragged
an uneven breath through trembling lips, fighting to hold back a laugh that
might be a sob. Whatever it was, it took up residence just below her left
breast and she would be damned before she granted it freedom.

“Georgie?” Henry’s voice was barely audible, more a
vibration against her lips than actual sound, and she suspected the single tear
had landed on his shoulder.

“I’m so sleepy,” she whispered, pleased when her voice did
not waver, when the foreign object lodged in her chest did not break free.

“Poor darling,” he crooned. “What were you doing sleeping in
the parlor?”

But Georgie was finished speaking, unwilling to take the
same risk twice. Instead she sifted her fingers through the hair at his nape,
memorizing the silky texture, the way the strands curled around her fingers.

They made the journey upstairs in silence, Henry carefully
stepping to the far right on the seventh step so as not to set it off and she
found herself missing the soft screech of the old wood.

Once inside his chamber, he lowered her to the center of the
bed, wrestled his robe from her supine form and crawled in beside her.

“Sleep, love,” he ordered, settling onto his back and easing
one arm beneath her to turn her onto her side against him.

Georgie continued the motion, rolling until she was draped
over him from his muscular chest to his lean hips, his shaft riding low on her
belly. With her legs dangling along his, she placed her hands on his shoulders
and lifted her head, blindly searching for his mouth, sighing in gratitude when
he met her halfway.

His lips were warm and soft beneath hers, brushing softly,
nibbling one corner before returning to pay homage to her bottom lip as his
hand sifted through her hair to rest at her nape.

Oh, God, his kiss. Tender, so bloody tender.

He cradled her head in his palm, gently angling her just so
as he deepened the kiss, easing her lips apart to trail his tongue over the
upper, the too thin upper that no man had ever taken the time to explore.

Until him.

As if he knew how devastatingly sensitive his touch was just
there, he lingered. Dipped and stroked. Suckled lightly, oh so lightly. He
cuddled her flesh and sighed, his breath whispering into her mouth, mingling
with her own until she could taste him, taste them together on her tongue.

Undone by the intimacy, desperate to banish it, Georgie
pulled her knees up along his thighs, his hips, his ribs until she straddled
him. Tilting her hips, she dragged her mound up the length of his shaft,
parting her folds, exposing her flesh to his hard length.

She fused her lips to his and speared her tongue into his
mouth as she reached the engorged head of his cock.

Henry met her tongue with his own, curled around and
beneath, drawing a low hum of satisfaction, of pleasure and anticipation, from
her. She wrapped her fingers around his shoulders and bore down, forcing her
clit almost painfully against his rigid flesh as she made her way slowly down
his length only to glide back up again.

He moaned, his fingers clenching on her head, tangling in
her hair.

She moaned in return, canting her hips and riding up and
over the broad tip of his shaft until he hovered at the portal to her body.

She pushed back, taking the fat head into her quim,
welcoming the faint burn before her muscles relaxed to accept the sudden
invasion.

“Georgie,” he whispered into her mouth, a plea or a warning,
she neither knew nor cared.

With a final swipe of her tongue over and around his, she
broke the kiss and rose to her knees, his cock, snug within the rim of her
cunny, rising with her.

Henry’s hands fell to her hips, his long fingers wrapping
around to her bottom while his thumbs found the curving bones and traced them.

Georgie met his eyes, found them bright in the morning
sunlight. His cheeks were flushed, his lips parted as he drew a raspy breath,
exhaled on a low moan.

Holding his gaze, she swiveled her hips, slow and languid,
and took an inch of his shaft into her body.

His fingers flexed on her hips.

Georgie took another inch, then two more.

“Is this what you want?” she purred, shifting her legs to
widen her stance.

“Yes.”

In one smooth glide, Georgie impaled herself upon his cock,
surprising a ragged moan from some dark place within her as he filled her,
utterly and completely filled her.

Henry laughed, the sound weighty with arrogant satisfaction.

“Is this what you crave?” she whispered as she rose above
him once more.

“Yes,” he gasped.

“Liar.” Battling an unexpected fury, she dropped down over
his cock, hard and fast, dragging a savage groan from him.

Henry’s hands clenched on her hips, his fingers digging into
her buttocks as he changed the angle of their joining and pulled her up the
length of his shaft.

The motion dragged her clit over his hard flesh, setting the
bud to pulsing. She tossed back her head and arched her back, a wave of
delicious heat racing through her limbs. Slapping her hands to his chest, she
dug her fingers into hard muscle as he eased her back, forcing his cock deeper
into her body.

Lust coiled tight within her womb.

When he repeated the move, forward and back, Georgie
shuddered and let loose a laughter-laced groan.

“Ride me.”

Georgie wanted to disobey his raspy command, but the
pleasure was too great, the desire a terrible hunger. Already she felt her
orgasm looming. She had only to submit to his will to find relief.

So Georgie rode him, adding a slow roll of her hips with
each deep thrust. Shivers raced up her spine and light danced in her peripheral
vision.

Over and over she took his cock deep into her quim, finding
a rhythm that had her nearly delirious as need climbed and just kept climbing.

When Henry moaned and thrust up hard, adding his own
twisting hips to the mix, he sent Georgie tumbling over the cliff into
oblivion.

“Henry,” she gasped, undulating wildly, digging her nails
into his flesh as wave after wave of a glorious climax rained over her, nearly
drowning her in delicious pleasure.

“Yes, love, yes,” he grunted, his big body bucking as he continued
to thrust into her convulsing cunny.

No sooner had she begun to descend from the heights did a
second climax begin to build within her core, gaining momentum as Henry let
loose a rough, broken groan.

At precisely the same moment her leg cramped, her calf
muscles contracting, curling her toes into frozen talons.

“Oh God,” she hissed.

“Again, Georgie,” he ordered.

Desperate to relieve the damaged limb of her weight before
the cramping of her muscles gave way to agonizing pain, she leaned to the left.

“Not yet.” Henry’s grip on her hips tightened. “Ride me
until you come again.”