Unraveling the Earl (25 page)

“Today.”

“You considered all of these garments today?”

“Well, first I had to decide what to wear to a morning
wedding, muslin or silk, boots or slippers. Morning weddings are tricky as a
lady must never be under-dressed, but a bride might take offense should one of
her guests outshine her. And then I had to change gowns for the park, of
course.”

“Of course,” Henry wandered over to the drying rack before
the window, ran his hand over a pair of matching monogrammed stockings, setting
her nerves to jangling.

There was something terribly intimate in the way he made
himself at home in her bedchamber, as if he somehow belonged there, surrounded
by her beribboned corsets and silk stockings.

“I considered a pretty dress of the palest blue but as it
requires three petticoats, two if they’re starched properly, and more than a
single petticoat makes traversing the park akin to hiking up a mountain.”
Georgie was rambling, she knew it but could not seem to stop. “Then I thought
to wear a simple yellow gown. But the lace that borders the neckline becomes
frightfully itchy in the heat. And, too, I somehow sat upon the matching bonnet
and crushed the crown.”

“So you opted for a white dress trimmed with red ribbon and
a bonnet festooned with cherries.” Henry left off caressing her hose to join
her at the foot of the bed.

“I didn’t think you’d seen me.”

“You were saved from discovery only by Fanny’s shenanigans.”
He lifted her hand and brought it to his lips. “Which you instigated, I
believe.”

“I might have told her about the time I rolled a barrel down
a hill, scaring the dickens out of Chester McDougal,” Georgie admitted.

“And did you pick your battle well?” His breath fanned over
the back of her hand. “Were you victorious and your denial plausible?”

“I was nowhere near that hill when Chester was knocked over
like a bowling pin.” Georgie raised her free hand and sifted it through his
curls. “I was in the stables tending a colicky foal.”

“What an accomplished little liar you are,” Henry said,
turning her hand over to place a kiss on her wrist.

“You ought not to believe a word I say,” she agreed,
unnerved by the tender gesture in light of her revelations in the carriage. By
all rights the man should be running for the hills, not gifting her with chaste
kisses and doe eyes.

“I’ll keep that in mind in the future.”

“We have no future,” she argued, ignoring the shaft of pain
that sliced through her chest.

“Liar,” he teased with a grin.

“It is time you left, Lord Hastings,” she said, deciding one
more night in his arms would likely be one too many.

“I don’t think so.”

“I am done playing with you.”

“Who will cut you free of your gown?”

“I’ve a bevy of handsome footman at my disposal.”

Georgie recognized her error immediately.

Far sooner than the time it took for the amusement to fall
from Henry’s face, in fact. “I will be damned if another man will see you in
your unmentionables.”

Why err once, when twice was vastly more amusing? “Then it’s
a good thing I’m not wearing any.”

Henry dropped his gaze to her breasts and lower, to sweep
over her belly and down her legs. “You are naked beneath that gown?”

“You’ll never know,” she taunted, fully aware that she was
baiting the beast.

“You don’t think so?” he asked, his voice pitched wickedly
low.

“I know so.” Georgie lifted her chin, daring him to prove
her wrong.

Without a word, the earl turned on his heel and strode to
the vanity to rifle through the tangle of ribbons, choosing a long length of
lavender satin and stuffing it into his pocket.

“What are you about, my lord?” she purred as he stalked her,
the strip of satin dangling along his thigh.

“Henry,” he corrected, reaching for her hands and bringing
them up over her head to press against the crystal ball that served as a finial
at the top of the carved bedpost at her back.

“I thought you meant to free me from my gown,” she drawled,
heat shivering down her spine to take up residence between her legs.

“I offered and you refused,” he replied, looking into her
eyes. “Now we’ll do things my way.”

Holding both of her wrists in one hand he reached into his
pocket. The lavender ribbon flicked through the air like a whip.

“You wouldn’t,” Georgie protested weakly, not believing for
a moment that he actually meant to bind her.

Henry ignored her, bringing the ribbon up and looping it
around her wrists, one at a time.

“I’ll allow you to undress me,” she said on a huff of
laughter.

Intent upon his task, he did not reply to what she
considered to be a generous offer.

“You can cut off my dress, rip it to shreds if you like, and
have your way with me.” More generous still.

The ribbon pulled tight and Georgie craned her head back to
watch, dumfounded, as Henry wrapped the ends around the top of the bedpost, in
the deep groove below the crystal ball.

He slid one finger between the ribbon and her bound wrists
to check the fit before stepping back.

Georgie pulled against her bonds, found that he’d tied her
wrists independent of one another and the bedpost, using some sort of slip knot
that allowed her a limited range of motion while effectively keeping her hands
above her head. Nifty trick that.

“Now then.”

At his words, the first he’d spoken since he started down
this twisted path, Georgie gave up on freeing her hands, wrapped them over and
around the finial, and looked to Henry.

“Turn around,” he ordered as he shrugged out of his jacket
and tossed it over a chair, right on top of the scarlet gown she’d contemplated
wearing to dinner. A gown with a perfectly nice row of jet buttons running down
the back.

“You’ve had your fun, now untie me.”

“My fun has only just begun,” he answered as he went to work
on the gold buttons of his waistcoat. “Turn around.”

“I want to watch you undress,” she argued.

“My way, Georgie.” He shrugged out of his waistcoat and
allowed it to fall to the floor. “Turn around. I won’t tell you again.”

Georgie was tempted to discover what he might do should she
continue to defy him, but decided the handsome earl would only regret whatever
punishment she dared him to dish out.

Georgie released the crystal ball and turned around, her
bonds slipping and sliding in perfect accompaniment.

She could hear Henry moving around behind her but, short of
contorting her body into all sorts of undignified twists and bows, she had no
way to see what he was about.

Closing her eyes and resting her forehead on the bedpost,
she listened to his movements. A swish of fabric and she pictured him pulling
his shirt over his head. A squeak of springs and she envisioned him sitting on
a chair, likely crushing whichever garments were tossed over it, to pull off
his boots. Silence and she wondered if he stood behind her, imagined she felt
his gaze caressing her shoulders.

“You are a puzzle.”

Georgie started when Henry whispered the words at her nape.

“One I doubt very much I will ever solve,” he continued. “I
adore that about you.”

“You shouldn’t,” she answered as he pressed his lips to her
neck just below her ear.

“You are forever telling me what I should not, must not,
ought not do.” He nipped her earlobe. “Perhaps one day you will tell me what I
should be doing.”

“Running as fast and far as you can.” As the words left her
mouth, Georgie decided it was the last warning she would give him. If he chose
to ignore it, he deserved whatever he got.

“Too late, love.” His lips left her, along with his warmth
at her back.

She heard a soft
snip
, then another and another, as
Henry plied Tag’s tiny scissors down the seam that ran from just between her
shoulder blades to the swell of her bottom.

Cool air rushed over her back and she shivered.

Warm lips traced a path down her spine and she sighed.

Hard hands gripped her hips, holding her firmly as a wet
tongue trailed over each pointy bone on the way back up and she swayed.

Snip. Snip.

Georgie’s gown fell to the floor, dragged down by the weight
of a hundred or more jewels and the rendering of the scraps of lace that passed
for sleeves.

Henry wrapped his arms around her, one hand riding low on
her belly while the other came up to cup her breast. He bent his knees, his
mouth trailing down her neck and the hard ridge of his cock beneath soft wool
riding the crease of her bottom.

“Do you feel how I desire you?” He lifted her breast, caught
her nipple between thumb and finger.

“Yes,” she breathed, arching into his touch.

“Only you.” He dragged his shaft up along the seam of her
derriere and plucked at her pebbled nipple.

Henry slowly slid his hand down her belly, his fingers
sifting through the curls before dipping down to find the tight bud already
pulsing with anticipation. He teased her, circling over and around, and Georgie
canted her hips forward, desperately chasing his fingers.

“Tell me,” he whispered against her neck. “Beg me for what
you want.”

“Please, touch me.”

Henry lashed the swollen flesh with his finger, tormenting
her with the promise of what was to come.

“More,” she pleaded, undone by his touch, by his mastery of
her will and her body.

Henry gave her more, pressed two fingers hard over the
pulsing peak and set up a delicious rolling tempo that had her sighing and
swiveling her hips in counterpoint to his touch. He pressed his mouth, open and
wet, to the tendon at her shoulder, teeth nipping, tongue laving as he plucked
at her nipple to the rhythm of his fingers between her legs.

“Yes, yes,” she panted, twisting and bucking, tossed onto
the edge of release.

“You’re nearly there, aren’t you?” His breath was warm on
her shoulder, his voice heavy with satisfaction. “You say I’ve nothing to offer
you, but I can awaken your sweet cunny with no more than a look and have you
teetering on the brink with a touch, can’t I?”

“Yes, damn you,” she answered on a wispy breath of laughter
as the first tremors began deep within her womb.

“Do not come yet,” he ordered.

Georgie let loose a ragged moan, fingers clasping the
crystal finial, seeking purchase as she fought back the orgasm that battled for
freedom.

“Do not climax until I am inside you.” Henry’s voice was a
low growl and filled with command.

“Hurry,” she implored.

He released her breast to tear at the placket of his
trousers, his knuckles brushing against her bottom, two fingers continuing the
onslaught on her clit, steadily, relentlessly.

“Spread your legs.”

Georgie obeyed readily, opening her legs and curving her
back as best she could without losing her grip on the ball at the top of the
bed post.

Henry wedged his knees between hers, bent low and found her
quim with the fat head of his cock. Pressing his fingers hard between her legs
and gripping her hip to hold her steady, he thrust into her body.

“Sweet mercy,” she moaned as he filled her in one long,
powerful stroke.

“Christ, I’ve missed you,” he growled, barely withdrawing
before lunging into her again, hard and deep.

“Henry?” she whispered, a desperate plea.

“Come for me.”

She gave herself up to the decadent pleasure, a
laughter-laced groan erupting from her lips as her orgasm slammed into her,
over and around her. She soared, lost to everything but the unbearable joy
exploding in her womb and arrowing outward, down her legs flush against his, up
her spine bowed in surrender, and all the way to her bound wrists and clutching
fingers.

As Georgie began to drift down from the pinnacle of release,
her cunny still pulsating with delicious tremors, clasping Henry’s foraging
shaft, he jerked his hand from between her legs and wound both arms around her.
Leaning over, he pressed his open mouth between her shoulder blades, his breath
billowing over her flesh.

He thrust once more, hard and heavy, planting his cock deep
within her body. With a grunt followed by a long, guttural groan that shook his
frame, he came into her body, his seed a lush wave swirling around, warming her
from the inside out.

“By God, that was amazing,” Henry said as he picked at the
knot which held Georgie’s ribbon wrapped tight around the bedpost.

“You did not withdraw,” she murmured, turning to face him
within the space between his body and the bedpost.

“Which made it all the sweeter,” he replied, still a bit
lightheaded from the pleasure of spending within the tight clasp of her
convulsing cunny.

“Henry, you must not spill your seed within.”

The knot came lose and he looked down into her upturned
face.

Georgie had the look of a woman well-loved, heavy-lidded and
flushed. The once elegant twist at the crown of her head listed to the left and
wispy tendrils of hair drifted along her temples. Her lips were parted, the
bottom poking out in an adorable pout.

Unable to resist, Henry dipped down and captured that pout,
pulled her plump flesh between his lips to suckle.

Georgie sighed.

He released her lower lip and trailed his tongue over the
upper, the nearly indiscernible slip of pink skin that only truly came to life
when he kissed her. The sweet thread of flesh became a lush bounty when he
pressed his lips just there, brushed his tongue over the delicate bow in the
center that no man who hadn’t kissed her would ever imagine existed.

Georgie trembled, her back curled and her nipples grazed his
chest.

So he stayed a while, reverently paying homage to the hidden
treasure that no other man would ever discover. The treasure belonged to him.
Georgie belonged to him.

“Henry.” His name was a sigh, a puff of breath that held
more meaning for him, offered him greater hope and allowed him clearer vision
into her heart than any shouted declaration she might have made to him.

He eased his tongue into her mouth, caressed hers, slowly
and tenderly, retreated to slip between her teeth and the inside of his own
personal cache of soft, sensitive flesh.

Georgie giggled.

Henry planted a final kiss across the infinitesimal arch in
the middle of her upper lip and lifted his head.

Her eyes were closed, her long golden lashes fluttering and
a tremulous smile gracing the lips that now belonged to him.

“My arms have gone numb.”

It took Henry a moment to process her words so caught up was
he in the sultry lilt of her voice.

“Damn, I’m sorry.” He stepped back from the temptation of
her upraised mouth and went back to work on the stubborn knot of the lavender
ribbon that he would tuck into his box of cherished trinkets the moment he
returned to Hastings House. If he could get the damned thing untied from the
bedpost.

Georgie gasped, pulling against her bonds just as he managed
to loosen the knot.

An inch of satin slid through the knot just as she jerked
her hands downward, tightening it on her wrists but leaving the loop slack
around the post. The ribbon slid down and Georgie’s bound hands disappeared
behind her head, her raised arms hugging her ears.

Her eyes flashed open. “Henry?”

“We’re halfway there,” he said, fighting not grin at the
picture she presented with her bony elbows sticking up and her chin lifted in
the air in a fair imitation of a haughty noblewoman.

“Halfway?”

“Perhaps a third.” Henry attempted a sympathetic smile only
to lose to the grin that would not be denied.

“Damn and blast,” she muttered, lifting her arms and turning
around to face the bed.

The ribbon and her hands slipped down the post to rest on
the busiest, brightest, ugliest bed coverlet he’d ever had the misfortune to
see.

“Better?” he asked.

“Sweet lord, yes.” She curled her back and twisted at the
shoulders, breathy little sighs and pitiful whimpers falling from her lips.
“Only now the ribbon is twisted so tight around my wrists my fingers are
turning blue.”

“The scissors!” he exclaimed, looking to the floor. “I
dropped them when your gown fell away.”

“Find, them,” she begged.

Henry dropped to his hands and knees, brushed aside her
discarded gown and lifted first one then the other of her slippered feet.
“They’re here somewhere.”

While he searched Georgie stepped away from the post, kicked
off her slippers and bent forward. From the corner of his eye he saw her grasp
the bedpost and twist at the hips, rolling to the right and quickly kicking one
leg up and over the other until she was belly up, her nipples pointed at the
ceiling and her back curled in a perfect arch.

Henry dropped back on his haunches and watched as she
readjusted her hands on the post and continued the odd, though strangely
graceful contortion of her long, lithe body, rolling over until she was once
more staring down at a carpet as brilliantly colored and as dreadfully gaudy as
the coverlet.

“Oh, yes, yes, yes,” she gasped. “Heavenly father, that
feels good.”

“Damn, but you’re flexible,” he said, not even attempting to
hide his wonder, his absolute amazement. “I’ve never seen the like.”

“You’ve never tied a woman to a bedpost before,” she
replied, dropping her head down to look at him from beneath her extended arms.
“Or have you?”

“Not once,” he assured her.

“Another first for me,” she said with a wink.

Henry pressed a smiling kiss to her hip and went back to
searching.

And watching Georgie repeat her amazing acrobatic feat once
more.

“There.” She injected a wealth of satisfaction into the
single word as she hopped up onto the bed and scrambled about until she sat
with her legs dangling over the side and her bound hands tucked along one hip.
“Have you lost Tag’s scissors?”

“They can’t have gotten up and walked away on their own,” he
replied, falling to his elbows to peer under the bed. “Uh, Georgie, are you
aware you’ve a cat under your bed?”

“Is Lydia under my bed again?” she asked. “I’ve told her
time and again she isn’t to sneak into my room.”

Henry bobbed up. “You’ve a cat named Lydia?”

“Countess Lydia belongs to Bobbin. Or rather, Bobbin belongs
to Countess Lydia as she rules the roost.”

“Dobbins has a fluffy gray and white cat named for my
mother?” Henry could not even begin to digest all the ways in which the notion
did not sit well with him.

“Bobbin was devoted to Lady Hastings,” Georgie replied,
leaning her head against the bedpost and gifting him with a soft smile. “Did
you know he was at her bedside when she passed on?”

“He was?”

“Changed her nappies, he did.”

“Mother never wore nappies,” he argued.

“There toward the end she did.”

“And she allowed her butler to…to…” he hadn’t words to fit
the image that flitted through his mind of the giant, ham fisted, cold eyed man
seeing to so intimate a task.

“She pitched a fit if anyone else made the attempt.”

“You are having me on.” It was the only explanation.

“While it certainly sounds like one of my tall tales, it is
the truth,” she insisted. “Bobbin cared for your mother in her final days, as
lovingly as any new mother would care for a babe.”

Unable to comprehend the magnitude of this new revelation,
Henry renewed his search for the lost seamstress scissors, scrabbling around
under the bed while attempting to rid his mind of the picture of Dobbins
attending to his mother’s needs in such a fashion.

“Speaking of babes.” Georgie’s voice was muffled by the bed
above his head.

“I rather doubt you are carrying my babe after just that one
time,” he called back as his fingertips brushed cold metal. He reached for the
scissors only to push them farther under the bed.

“Even so, it is a risk I am unwilling to take,” she replied,
nudging him in the shoulder with her foot.

Apparently deciding he made a good footrest, she placed both
feet on his back, her silk stockings cool on his flesh, her toes tracing his
spine.

Countess Lydia crept closer, her ears tucked low and her
tail swishing from side to side, slithering over the bottom of the bed like a
snake.

“At worst, we have an eight-month wonder,” he assured
Georgie, surprised by the jolt of happiness he felt at the idea of his babe
even now growing in her womb.

“What sort of wonder?”

“A babe born eight months after the wedding,” he clarified
at a near shout.

Georgie made no reply but her feet slowly slid from his
back.

Henry stretched his arm as far as he could, caught the loop
of the tiny scissors with his longest finger and slowly pulled the instrument
toward him. “Found them!”

Countess Lydia chose that moment to find him.

With a hiss that transformed into a growl, the cat swiped
one gray paw across the top of his hand.

Henry lunged back and up, bumping his head but hanging on to
the tiny scissors as the cat darted from beneath the bed and ran across the
room to duck under a chair all but hidden beneath silk and satin and lace.

“Damn cat,” he muttered, falling on his ass and lifting one
hand to gingerly poke at the knot already forming at the crown of his head.

Georgie erupted into laughter, her slender form shaking as a
mottled flush spread up her neck and over her cheeks. Her hands fluttered like
two birds tied together by the feet, bobbing up and down along the bedpost.

“Find my abuse at the hands of a cat named for my mother
entertaining, do you?”

“’Tis fitting,” she gasped, moisture collecting on her
golden lashes. “But ’twas…that other bit…oh, good lord…you had me going for a
moment.”

Henry smiled, enchanted by her unrestrained amusement.

“A wonder, a wedding,” she continued breathlessly. “You
ought not to tease me so.”

“I am not teasing,” he replied, enchantment falling by the
way side as he rose to his knees before her.

“Of course you are, you wicked man,” she argued around a final
huff of laughter.

“We will be wed, Georgie, make no mistake.”

Her amusement fell away to be replaced by a look of absolute
shock, her dewy eyes wide and unblinking.

“Just as soon as the banns have been called,” he assured
her, rudely pointing a finger at her for emphasis.

Her gaze dropped to the tiny scissors looped around that
finger.

“Cut me lose.” Her voice was a quiet command, her eyes fixed
on her only hope for release.

She was quick, recognizing his intention a split second
before he knew it himself.

“I don’t think so, love.”

“Henry.” A plea couched in a warning.

“Not until you agree to marry me.”

“I more than nudged you into madness if you think I will
agree to marriage in return for my freedom,” she replied, with a wave of one
hand quickly aborted by her bindings. “I’ve shoved you from the path—”

“And clapped your hands in glee as I sank into a marshy
bog,” Henry interrupted with a chuckle.

“That’s the last time I tell Mr. Crotchety anything,” she
grumbled.

“I may be a blind, bumbling idiot but I see you, Georgie
Buchanan.”

It was true. For perhaps the first time since waylaying her
on the village street, Henry recognized the prize he’d stumbled upon when he’d
gone harrying after a woman who was not his usual sort.

He had only to turn her twisted logic against her, to make
use of her warped sense of loyalty and her distorted notions of right and
wrong.

“What is it you think you see?” she asked with what sounded
like genuine curiosity.

“I see the unruly child Lady Joy found on her bum in a
pigsty.”

“She thought I was a boy, else she likely would never have
come for me,” Georgie whispered.

Henry ignored the mingled pain and fury that settled like an
anvil over his heart upon hearing her words. “I see the girl who bartered her
body for a leg that would allow her to dance about in the rain just because she
can.”

“I did not lay with Jacob so that I could dance,” she
argued, shaking her head with such vehemence that her listing coiffure gave up
the battle to stay atop her head, long coils and spirals falling around her
shoulders and down her bare arms.

“I see the girl who was named a boy and schemed and seduced
and lied to become the lady she is today,” he continued, gently lifting her
chin with two fingers.

“Only so I could finagle my way into the hearts and hearths
of the
ton
.”

“You’ve certainly finagled your way into my heart,” he
replied, trailing his hand over her jaw, her skin unbelievable soft beneath his
fingers.

“Damn you,” she breathed.

“Give me one good reason why you do not wish to marry me,”
he challenged, tucking one fiery curl behind her ear. “Just one honest,
rational, unsurmountable reason.”

“I don’t want to,” she replied, sounding petulant and all
too endearing.

“You don’t want to marry me or you don’t want to give me a
reason?” he asked.

“Both.”

“Irrational.”

“We don’t suit.”

“Dishonest,” he chided, sifting his fingers through her hair
to cup her head.

“I live in Scotland while you live in England.”

“Surmountable. We shall divide our time between the two.”

“You are too bloody beautiful while I am…not.”

Henry’s temper unraveled just a bit. “Dishonest, irrational
and there is no obstacle to surmount. You are beautiful, Georgie. Lovely beyond
words, from your hair like live flames and your periwinkle eyes and elegantly
tilting nose to your long legs and adorable little curling toes. And everywhere
in between. Beautiful.”

“You lied,” she said after a pause during which she blinked
so rapidly the lashes on her right eye became entangled. “You do have a way
with words even when you are snarling them.”

“One reason, Georgie.”

“It would be a bad bargain.” She tossed back her head and
his hand fell away.

“You’ve something I want while I’ve something you want,” he
countered. “The way I see it we’ve the makings for a perfect bargain.”