The Virgin Who Humbled Lord Haslemere by Anna Bradley

Chapter Thirteen

The trouble with kissing a rake was that one became so distracted during the kiss they didn’t consider what might happen once it was over.

Georgiana had never kissed a rake before. She’d never kissed anyone, so she hadn’t understood how heady a kiss could be until Benedict’s lips took hers. She hadn’t known she could lose herself in a man’s scent, his touch, or that a simple kiss could steal her thoughts, her breath—even her reason.

But by the time she reached the top of the steps the haze of passion had receded, and doubts were already crowding into its place. By the time she gained the entryway, it occurred to her it might not have been wise of her to kiss Benedict, and by the time she closed the door behind her, she was convinced the kiss had been a dreadful mistake.

Not the during part. No, that had been…delightful? It seemed too stiff a word to describe it. Splendid? No, that was the sort of word one used to describe a particularly delicious slice of tea cake. Benedict’s kiss had been something else entirely, something out of her experience.

He’d seemed to enjoy it, but according to Sophia and Cecilia, a man’s passions were easily aroused. To hear them tell it, a mere touch to a man’s hand was enough to stir his lust.

Benedict was lustier than most, but what worried her wasn’t that he’d enjoyed it. It was that she had. It was shocking enough a man had even kissed her at all. She’d never imagined such a thing would happen, much less that she’d tumble headlong into it.

She leaned back against the door, closed her eyes and raised her hand to her lips. They felt tender, swollen, the memory of his kiss lingering like a warm caress.

Dangerous. That’s what his kiss had been—

A step in the hallway made her look up. Lady Clifford was standing there, watching her. “My lady—”

“I think it’s time we had a chat, dearest.” Lady Clifford disappeared into the drawing room, and Georgiana, who knew a summons when she heard one, followed after her.

“Sit down, Georgiana.” Lady Clifford nodded at a chair. She seated herself on the settee across from it, and Gussie crawled into her lap, turning in a circle before settling down with a contented snort.

Georgiana perched on the edge of her chair, her heart pounding. Had Lady Clifford seen her in the carriage with Benedict? If she had, what must she be thinking right now?

“There. Isn’t this cozy?” Lady Clifford stroked her hand rhythmically over Gussie’s sandy head. “Now, let’s get right to it, yes? Suppose you tell me all about Lord Haslemere.”

Georgiana twisted her fingers together, eyes downcast. “I already told you everything, my lady. Lord Haslemere has proven to be far more…persistent than I imagined, and he’s managed to wriggle his way into the middle of our business with the duchess.”

“Wriggled, has he? My dear child, I’ve never known you to let anyone wriggle their way around you. But I’m not asking for details about the Duchess of Kenilworth’s business. You’ve already told me about all that. I want you to tell me what’s happening between you and Lord Haslemere.”

Oh, no. “I—there’s nothing to tell, my lady.” Georgiana winced at this feeble reply. She was quite an accomplished liar, but Lady Clifford—and strangely enough, Benedict—seemed able to see through her every falsehood.

“No?” Lady Clifford raised a slim, blonde eyebrow. “Well, if you insist, dearest. I suppose there’s a perfectly innocent, rational explanation why you were dallying with him in the carriage just now, then.”

Dallying?Oh, dear God. Heat flooded into Georgiana’s cheeks, and she buried her face in her hands with a groan, all of her defenses collapsing at once. “That’s just it, my lady! Nothing about this is rational. If it were, I’d know just how to proceed, but it’s messy and confusing and…and now he’s gone and kissed me, and I don’t know what to do!”

Lady Clifford didn’t look at all shocked at this confession. She continued stroking Gussie’s head, her face calm. “Ah, I see. Well, kisses do tend to complicate things. Perhaps you’d better start there. Lord Haslemere kissed you, and what did you do?”

“Nothing at all!” Georgiana’s words were too quick, however, and too vehement. It was a pathetic attempt at a denial, and Lady Clifford, predictably, saw through it at once.

“Well, you must have done something, dear, to put such a blush on your cheeks.” Lady Clifford chuckled. “Now isn’t the time to be secretive, Georgiana. A kiss is nothing to be ashamed of, you know. Lord Haslemere is exceedingly handsome and charming.”

“Yes, he is. It’s quite provoking of him.” But the real trouble was that Georgiana wasn’t as immune to those charms as she should be. She still had no idea how he’d managed to sneak under her defenses. It wasn’t as if he’d tried to charm her. Indeed, when he had been trying, she hadn’t had the least trouble resisting him. It was this blasted sincerity that was doing her in.

As for the kiss…well, it meant nothing. Less than nothing. It had simply happened. No doubt Benedict had already forgotten it, and she’d do well to do the same. Nothing would come of it, and she didn’t want Lady Clifford to know what a fool she’d been.

“I kissed him back!” she blurted, then slapped a hand over her mouth, horrified. She hadn’t meant to confess to it, but since this business with Benedict began, her natural reticence seemed to have fled. She was like a cracked teapot now, with hot tea leaking from every fissure.

To Lady Clifford’s credit, she didn’t squeal or fall over in shock. “And?”

“And what? And nothing. He kissed me, and I kissed him back, and that was it.” That had been it, too, unless one counted the flood of emotions and confusion that had followed that kiss. Georgiana didn’t count them, so there was no reason to mention them, was there?

“You mean to say, my dear, that Lord Haslemere—the same Lord Haslemere every lady in London either wants to seduce or marry, that Lord Haslemere kissed you, and that was it?”

Georgiana fussed with the folds of her skirt, studying them as if they were the most fascinating folds she’d ever seen. “Yes, that’s it.”

Lady Clifford reached over and plucked the fabric from Georgiana’s fingers. “Look at me, Georgiana. Lord Haslemere kissed you, and you kissed him back. None of that sounds terribly shocking, so what has you so upset?”

Georgiana stole a look at her. Lady Clifford didn’t appear perturbed, but then she knew a great deal more about this sort of thing than Georgiana did. That is, about gentlemen, and attraction, and…things of that nature.

She drew in a deep breath. “I kissed him back, yes, but after it was over, I thought perhaps he…”

“Yes? What did you think, dearest?” Lady Clifford asked, her tone gentle.

It was the gentleness that undid Georgiana. “I thought perhaps he only kissed me because he…he pitied me.”

No sooner were those words out of Georgiana’s mouth than the pressure behind her eyes started to burn. She didn’t cry—she never cried—but there was no denying the troubling stinging sensation in her nose.

This, this right here, was the reason she didn’t let anyone trifle with her, particularly not handsome gentlemen. Because it led to emotions, and tears and regrets, and it was dreadful, truly dreadful the way it all got so tangled up inside her, and pulled so tight she couldn’t breathe anymore.

Oh, why had she ventured out to Lady Wylde’s ball in the first place? As if that weren’t reckless enough, why had she insisted Benedict take her to Lady Archer’s? She should have stayed safely behind the closed doors of the school with her account books. This sort of thing didn’t happen with numbers. Numbers were tidy, sequential, predictable, not like people, who were messy and chaotic and confusing—

“No,” Lady Clifford said.

Georgiana’s spinning thoughts ground to a halt. “No? What do you mean, no?”

“Lord Haslemere didn’t kiss you because he pitied you. That’s utter nonsense. Gentlemen don’t kiss ladies because they pity them, and in any case, why should Lord Haslemere pity you? I can’t think of a single reason. No, Georgiana. Lord Haslemere kissed you for one reason, and one reason only. Because he wanted to kiss you.”

“You don’t understand, Lady Clifford. He was…we were…I said a gentleman wouldn’t choose to make me his mistress because I don’t look anything like Lady Wylde, and then he asked what Lady Wylde had to do with it, and I said Lady Wylde was the sort of lady gentlemen lost their heads over, or something like that, I can’t quite recall—I had several glasses of champagne, you see—but then he got angry and asked if I was saying I couldn’t entice a protector, and then he kissed me to prove a point.”

Somehow, Lady Clifford managed to sort through this convoluted explanation. “A man doesn’t kiss a lady to prove a point any more than he kisses her because he pities her.”

“Well, Lord Haslemere did.”

Lady Clifford only smiled. “No, he didn’t. Men are transparent creatures, Georgiana, especially when it comes to their passions—”

“Passions! There was no passion on either of our parts.” That was a scandalous lie, of course, but it was bad enough she’d already admitted to the kiss. Admitting to passions on top of that was out of the question.

Lady Clifford ignored her, and went blithely on. “But let’s put aside Lord Haslemere for a moment, shall we? The more important question is, how did you feel about this kiss?”

Georgiana opened her mouth to deny she’d felt any way at all, but she couldn’t quite force the lie past her lips. The truth was, she felt a dozen different ways about it at once, and not one of those feelings made any sense to her.

“I don’t know.” She gave Lady Clifford a helpless look. “I don’t know what I think about it.”

“Ah. It was one of those sorts of kisses.” Lady Clifford patted her knee. “Why don’t you sit here and have a little think about the kiss. You’ll feel better afterward, I promise it.”

Georgiana nodded reluctantly. “All right, but do I have to tell you what I’m thinking about?”

“Not if you don’t like it. What matters is you understand it, not that I do.”

Georgiana squirmed about for a bit, wrestling with herself, but eventually she closed her eyes, stilled, and let her thoughts start to untangle themselves in her head. “I liked it while it was happening, but then afterwards I felt…frightened.”

She opened her eyes, surprised. Why should she be afraid of a kiss?

Fear wasn’t a rational emotion in this situation, and how had emotion crept into this again, anyway? She’d agreed to sit here and think about the kiss, not feel it.

But the feelings were always sneaking back into it somehow, weren’t they? She couldn’t seem to separate the two, and feelings were even messier than people were. The trouble with feelings was once you’d had one, others inevitably followed, and soon enough they took over, overwhelming any chance at rational deliberation.

That was why they were best avoided, or shoved deep down inside where they couldn’t trouble her. That wasn’t going to work this time, however, because Lady Clifford wasn’t going to let her hide from it.

“So, Lord Haslemere’s kiss frightened you, Georgiana? Well, I imagine he, ah…knows what he’s doing. It’s not surprising you enjoyed it.”

Georgiana’s eyes widened. “I never said…how do you know I enjoyed it?”

“It wouldn’t have frightened you otherwise. Dull, insipid kisses don’t inspire any passionate feelings.”

“But there was no passion—”

“It sounds to me as if there was. Lord Haslemere kissed you, there was an explosion of passion between you, and it frightened you. Now that makes perfect sense, dearest.”

Perfect sense!None of this made the least bit of sense to Georgiana.

“Once the kiss had ended, did you wish he might kiss you again?”

Wish for it? She’d done more than that. She’d allowed—no, encouraged—him to kiss her again.

Again, and again, and again…

What would it be like, to believe he was kissing her because he desired her, wanted her?

But that was what had frightened her. It hadn’t been the kiss itself. Benedict had been gentle and sweet, tender even. But his kiss had lured to the surface all the dreams and wishes she’d long since given up on, long since buried. It was better that way—better if dreams destined to go unfulfilled remained buried.

She didn’t want them back.

Did she?

Oh, she didn’t know! The only thing she was sure of was her head was once again spinning with questions that had no answers, and now long forgotten hopes had rushed to the surface along with a miasma of wretched feelings.

Georgiana sagged against the chair, suddenly exhausted. “May I go to my bed now, my lady? I-I think I’d better rest.”

“Of course, my dear.” Lady Clifford gave her a reassuring smile, but before Georgiana could escape the drawing room, she stopped her. “Georgiana?”

Georgiana turned at the door, waited.

“Not everyone is like your mother, my love,” Lady Clifford said quietly. “There are those you can trust, and those you can’t.”

And no way to tell the difference between them.

Georgiana had learned that lesson young, and she’d learned it well.

She’d trusted her mother, all those years ago, and look where it had gotten her. Left on the London streets like so many children before her, discarded by a desperate mother who could hardly care for herself, much less her young daughter. But what was the use of sniveling over it? She wasn’t the first to be abandoned thus, and God knew she wouldn’t be the last.

“Go on, then, and go to your bed, Georgiana.” There was a hint of sadness in Lady Clifford’s eyes. “But think about what I said, won’t you?”

Words tangled in Georgiana’s throat, so she only nodded.

Lady Clifford smiled. “Good. Sweet dreams, dearest.”

* * * *

It wasn’t until Georgiana had disappeared behind the doors of the Clifford School and he was returning to Grigg that Benedict saw the carriage.

If he hadn’t followed her to her door, he would have missed it entirely, as it had emerged from the mews on the opposite side of the school.

He recognized it at once.

That particular shade of bottle green, the handsome brass fittings, and the black and gold crest emblazoned on the door…only one man in London drove a carriage like that.

If the Duke of Kenilworth wanted to sneak about unnoticed, he should have chosen a less conspicuous vehicle. Benedict ducked behind one of Lady Clifford’s thick shrubs and waited until the carriage pulled smoothly out of the mews. Once it had disappeared down the street, he hurried around the corner to where Grigg was waiting.

When Grigg caught sight of him, his brows shot up. “My lord?”

“Kenilworth had us followed from Lady Archer’s.” Whoever was driving had been damn sly about it, too, or else Benedict would have noticed them sooner, when it still might have done some good.

Beforehe led them right to the Clifford School. If the duke hadn’t known who Georgiana was, he did now.

Benedict’s fingers curled around the walking stick in his hand. It was an act of pure instinct—a need to grab onto something solid as the world tilted under his feet.

Kenilworth had complete control over Jane and Freddy, and now that he knew who Georgiana was, it would be the easiest thing in the world for him to target her, as well. Benedict had to warn her, now, before she took it into her head to wake at dawn and call on Jane, or send her a note that would hardly have a chance to graze Bagshaw’s palm before he handed it over to the duke.

Whether Georgiana liked it or not, she was done chasing after Clara Beauchamp, and the sooner she understood that, the better. Benedict didn’t want her anywhere near Kenilworth.

“Listen to me carefully, Grigg. I need to have a word with Miss Harley. I want you to leave me here and go to Kenilworth’s mansion on Grosvenor Street. Keep out of sight, and keep your wits about you. If you see anything amiss—if Kenilworth’s eye so much as twitches—come fetch me at once.”

“Aye, my lord.”

“Good man.” Benedict waited until Grigg had taken off down the street, then he was on the doorstep of the Clifford School, pounding with the brass knocker.

Heavy footsteps approached, and the door burst open with such violence it threatened to fly off its hinges. “What the devil do you want, Haslemere?”

Damn it. Benedict let out a silent groan. Why must Daniel Brixton be the one to come to the door? “Let me pass, Brixton. I need a word with Georgiana.”

Brixton’s answer was a scowl. “Come back tomorrow if ye want to talk to Miss Georgiana. Or don’t. Makes no difference to me.”

He attempted to close the door, but Benedict shoved his foot between the door and the frame. “No. Now. Damn it, Brixton, it’s urgent.”

“Urgent for you, mayhap, but not for Miss Georgiana. Get back, Haslemere.” Brixton glared at Benedict’s foot as if he’d be more than happy to crush it against the door frame.

Benedict peered over Brixton’s massive shoulders into the inner sanctum of the Clifford School. He fancied he’d have more luck with Lady Clifford, but the hallway was empty of everything but shadows. “Look, Brixton. I realize this is irregular, but—”

“Go home, Haslemere. Whatever your business is, it can wait until tomorrow.”

“No, it can’t. Look here, Brixton—”

Benedict didn’t get any further before Brixton gave him a shove. Benedict wasn’t a small man, but he was obliged to shift his foot from the doorway in order to keep himself from toppling backward down the steps. By the time he caught his balance and righted himself, Brixton had slammed the door in his face.

“Bloody savage.” Very well. If he couldn’t get past Brixton, he’d go around him.

Benedict ran back down the steps and rounded the side of the school, pausing to pluck up a few pebbles from the ground as he went.

The entire house was dark, including Georgiana’s window. Benedict winced as the first pebble hit the side of the building with a crack that sounded much louder than he’d anticipated. He waited, but there was no sign of either Brixton or his pistol, so he tried again. This one didn’t strike the window either, but hit the brick about a foot below it.

Surely, he could do better than that. He’d been one of the best bowlers on his cricket team at Eton, damn it.

He closed one eye, focused on the window with the other, and let another pebble fly. This one hit the dead center of one of the panes. A moment later he saw the drapes twitch, heard the window slide open, and then Georgiana’s head poked out.

“Lord Haslemere? What are you doing down there?”

In spite of his worry, Benedict’s lips curved in a helpless smile. “I’m standing outside your window like some sort of demented Romeo, Georgiana. Under the circumstances, one would think you could see your way clear to calling me Benedict.”

“Is that why you’ve come? To tease me once again about calling you by your Christian name?”

Even from down here, Benedict could see the prim pinch of her lips, and his grin widened. If she thought that severe frown would scare him off, she was very much mistaken. All it did was make him want to kiss her. “No, but I thought I’d just mention it, since I’m here.”

She glared down at him. “Why are you here? For pity’s sake, I would have thought you learned your lesson the last time you tried this.”

“I did learn my lesson. If you recall, the last time I threw pebbles at your window you came downstairs to scold me, and I coaxed you into helping me with Jane. Even better, I got to see you in your night rail.”

“No, you didn’t. I was wearing my cloak and a hat, and I distinctly remember you saying neither flattered me. Now, will you listen to reason this time, or will I need to come down there again and make you go before Daniel catches you?”

“No, don’t come down.” If she did, Benedict wasn’t sure he could let her return to her bedchamber without begging her to take him with her. Better not to risk it. “I only want to tell you something.”

“You do realize you can tell me things during the day, don’t you?”

“This couldn’t wait. Kenilworth followed us here from Lady Archer’s tonight. I saw his carriage sneaking out of the mews behind the school. He knows where you live and that you’re associated with Lady Clifford, and very likely knows who you are.”

Georgiana hesitated, then shrugged. “Well, it was inevitable he’d find it out sooner or later. I don’t see that there’s anything we can do except inform Lady Clifford and Daniel, and carry on as we have been.”

“Carry on? No, Georgiana. Do you have any idea how much power a man like the Duke of Kenilworth has at his command? Now that he knows who you are, I don’t want you anywhere near him. It’s no longer safe for you.”

“What? You can’t mean you expect me to simply drop it! What about Clara Beauchamp? We still haven’t figured out how she fits into this, and what of your sister, and your nephew? I can’t just walk away—”

“You can, and you will! Do you understand me, Georgiana? You’re no longer my employee—”

Benedict broke off as a light suddenly illuminated one of the rooms on the ground floor.

“Now you’ve done it,” Georgiana hissed, her head so far out the window she was an inch from toppling to the street below. “You’ve woken Daniel with your shouting.”

“Get back inside, Georgiana. I’ll deal with Brixton.”

As usual, she ignored him. “I’m coming down. Someone has to keep Daniel from shooting you.” With that, her head disappeared, and a moment later the dull glow of candlelight lit the window.

“Damn it. That woman is going to drive me straight to Bedlam.” He had half a mind to climb up the trellis that led to her bedchamber window to stop her coming down, but before he could execute that ill-conceived plan, he heard the clop of horses’ hooves, and the rattle of carriage wheels drawing near.

Georgiana’s head appeared at the window again. “Who’s that?”

Whoever it was, they were moving quickly. Benedict waited, and a moment later, his own carriage came around the corner and shuddered to a sudden stop on Maddox Street.

“Lord Haslemere!” Grigg shouted as soon as he caught sight of Benedict. “Something’s afoot with the duchess and the little lad. You must come at once!”