Forever and a Day (35 page)

He swiped a hand across his face, glancing off to the side before shifting back toward her. “Jesus Christ, Georgia. Do you really intend to draw this out? I have suffered more than enough all these months without hearing a word from you and dreading you were going to show up at my door naked just to give the
ton
something to talk about. And the sad thing of it? I wanted you to do it. I wanted you to show up naked.”

She paused, peering up at him past her limp hand draped against her forehead. “That would have actually been a good idea. But I have bigger plans. Something that involves a lot more…
suffering
.”

Shifting against the bed, he leaned down closer toward her draped figure and growled down at her, “I dare you to draw this out.”

“Dare taken.”

Stripping his gloves, he whipped them onto the bed.

He then skimmed his hand across her throat and leaned down and kissed the smooth, powdered skin just above the upper round of her left breast. “I’m sorry.” The tantalizing scent of lemon blossomed from her heated skin as he dragged his lips across its softness. “Take me back, Georgia. For God’s sake, take me back. Take this idiot back so that he may spend the rest of his life making it up to you.”

She snorted. “You are going to have to do better than that,
Yardley
.”

He kissed the well of her throat, firmly pressing his lips against that throbbing pulse, and then licked its entire length, causing her to suck in a breath. “If you haven’t noticed, your Robinson depends on you for everything. It would be nothing short of cruel to deny him of you.”

“I’m not taking you back.”

He lifted his head from the heat of her throat and glared at her. “Georgia, Christ. Are you serious? I’ve barely been in your presence for forty minutes and I’m already exhausted.”

“Yes, well, I’m the one who is really exhausted after almost a year of ‘don’t do this’ and ‘don’t do that’
lest you be called a whore. Do you have
any
idea how hard it is being a lady?”

He lifted a brow. “Do you have any idea how hard it is being a lord? Especially after having met you?”

She sighed. “Now I do. ’Tis piss hard, is what. These bastards expect the world from us yet give us nothing, in turn, but superficial airs laced with misery.”

He bit back a smile, rather impressed she had already learned their role in society. “Whatever you want, you shall have from here on out. You have more than earned it, madam, and I look forward to crawling for the rest of my life.”

He grabbed up her hands, stripping her gloves, and kissed their softness repeatedly. He paused and held up one of her hands, fingering its smoothness. His gaze snapped to hers in disbelief. “Your hands.”

“I know. It took a lot of scrubbing and daily soaks. They’re still not what they should be, but in time, they will be.”

His heart squeezed as he glanced back down at those hands that seemed so small in comparison to his own. “Oh, Georgia.” He kissed the tips of her fingers and then those knuckles. “A part of me is so sad to know that I have forced you to change yourself and your life merely to be with me.” He kissed her hands again. “I will miss my Georgia. I will miss her so damn much and only pray she won’t entirely disappear.”

She slowly smiled, watching him kiss her hands. Releasing her hands, he dragged his own down the length of her body and back up again, reveling in the feel of her softness and the smoothness of her silk embroidered gown.

His chest tightened, along with every muscle in his body, realizing that
this
and
she
were real. She was here in London. With him. “God, did I ever miss you,” he whispered. “I waited and I waited for you to come. It was torture of the worst sort. I cannot believe you did all of this for me. I am beyond honored.”

She raked her hands and nails through his hair. “I can’t believe it, either. You owe me.”

“I know I do.” He leaned in, angling his mouth toward hers. “Be forewarned, this is about to get rough.”

“Now, now, keep it all buttoned up.” She sat up on the bed, daintily scooting out of his reach and away. She scrambled out of bed, hopping down to the floor with a soft thud and rounded the bed with the
click-click-click
of slippered heels as she sashayed her way to the closed door.

He paused and then swung toward her direction, the linens dragging up and shifting beneath his movement. “Wait. What are you doing? Where are you going?”

“This isn’t Orange Street, you know. I have a reputation to uphold and I don’t trust you any more than I trust myself.” Opening the door, she pushed it wide with the graceful thrust of a gloved hand. “
That
will ensure we don’t get into trouble.”

She paused, glancing toward the empty corridor beyond the open door, and then turned toward him, dragging up one side of her gown. Gathering the vast amount of material, she exposed the shapely length of a leg draped in a white silk stocking that was held in place above her knee with a tied bright red garter. “Do you like my stockings? I just bought them. They’re silk.
After
we marry, you may take them off. If you’re deserving of it, that is.” She primly dropped her skirt with a rustle and rearranged her gown.

He slid off the bed, his muscles roaring in lust. Only Georgia could ever make him crawl and make him love every moment of it. Striding toward her, he purposefully towered before her.

She snapped her gaze up to his face.

He grinned. “How about we close the door and tell London to go to hell?”

She stepped toward him and poked him hard in the chest. “Go get Robinson before I dirk you, Yardley.”

He tsked and grabbed her by the waist, and holding her firmly against himself, he grazed the tip of his finger across her powdered cheek. “It appears I’m not the only one going by more than one name,
Miss Georgiana Colette Tormey
.”

Georgia smacked his shoulder and lowered her voice all the more. “Georgia is no more until
after
we marry. Do you understand? There is to be no touching or kissing until I
legally
become Lady Yardley. You hear?”

“I hear,” he murmured, searching her face. “Will you at least please pass on one last message from me to Georgia, Miss Tormey? Given that I won’t be seeing her again until my wedding night?”

A smile touched her lips. “What is your message, my lord?”

Glancing toward the door and the still-empty corridor, Roderick leaned down, grabbed her face and kissed her, aggressively parting those soft, warm lips with his own. Closing his eyes and giving in to an ecstasy he never thought he’d know again, he kissed his Georgia passionately and lovingly and erotically, tracing her teeth and her tongue and her lips before releasing her.

He stepped back, opening his eyes, and hissed out a breath, wishing it didn’t have to end. “Tell her that I love her.”

Georgia lingered before him with her eyes still closed, and her chin tilted upward, those full moist lips parted as if half expecting his return. She eventually opened her eyes and whispered, “I’ll be sure Georgia knows.”

Quick footfalls echoed from down the corridor heading their way.
“Yardley?”
the duke yelled out, those steps now breaking into a run.
“Yardley!”

Her eyes widened. She gathered her skirts and dashed back to the bed, her slippers skidding across the wood floor. Scrambling up and onto the mattress, she frantically arranged herself and her skirts around her, before draping herself calmly and demurely onto the bed.

Roderick dragged in a much-needed breath. He doubted any woman had ever gone
this
far for a man in the name of love. “I ardently hope you feel better soon, Miss Tormey. I would hate for you to have come all this way only to never see past a bed. Though I have a feeling illness may overtake me soon, as well, and we will both be confined to the same bed. What will London say?”

“Shh!”
Her head jerked up to give him a reprimanding glare before settling herself back against the pillows.

He grinned.

“Yardley!”
The duke skidded into view and stumbled into the doorway, his face panicked and flushed. “How is Georgia?”

“Quite well, Your Grace,” she called out, a hand darting up into the air before it dropped back down onto the mattress. “No need to panic.”

The duke huffed out a breath. “Good. One less thing to worry about. This night is about to turn into a mess.”

Roderick’s grin faded as he swung fully toward his father, his pulse roaring. “Does someone already know about Georgia?”

“No.”
The duke jumped toward him and seized him by the lapels of his coat, shaking him. “Atwood arrived into town. He’s
downstairs
. He approached his father just this morning, demanding he fess up to what had led to his disappearance, but the man is denying everything, along with his legitimacy, and there appears to be no goddamn proof of his likeness anywhere. I haven’t told Atwood yet, but I mean to help him. I mean to help him in the name of your mother. So, God save me, I am about to not only publicly turn against your mother’s family, but I am about to dig up that portrait that was buried with her thirteen years ago to prove his likeness and who he is. Are you with me in this? Will you see me through this, knowing Atwood is all we have left of your mother?”

Bloody hell. All of London’s mightiest bridges were about to come falling down. Roderick swallowed against the tightness overtaking his throat and half nodded in a daze, knowing he had
no
idea what he was getting himself into. “Yes. I am with you.”

“Good. Good. I want you to go to him. Go! He is in the study and I have to tend to my guests lest this turns into a circus. I’ll join you as soon as I am able. Keep him in the study, and for God’s sake, don’t let anyone see him. The man will only scare people. I told him he really needs to do something about his appearance. Now go. Go to him. I’ll be there in about a half hour.” His father turned and jogged back out.

Glancing back at Georgia, who had sat up, Roderick pointed at her. “Stay where you are. Keep playing the game. I’ll be back.”

He dashed out of the room and sprinted down the corridor after his father, knowing full well he was going to finally see the face of a man he had yet to remember. The face of what had started this all.

Pounding down the stairs and weaving past guests that were lingering outside the ballroom, he jogged toward the closed doors of the study. He slid both doors open and quickly stepped in, sliding them closed behind himself.

The solid broad back of a tall man, whose shoulder-length, disheveled black hair bore whispers of silver, lingered before the portrait of his mother, the Duchess of Wentworth. The one he, his father and Yardley used to pray before every Sunday after church. It appeared Atwood was praying, too, the way he stood in silence. The black boot-length riding coat he wore was heavily frayed to gray and even bore a rip at the curve of his shoulder. It was as if he had crawled out of the Five Points itself.

By God, he was about to meet and face yet another blank he had never regained. It was eerie. The floorboards creaked beneath Roderick’s boots as he slowly made his way toward Atwood. He paused several feet behind him.