One Night with a Rake (Regency Rakes) (10 page)

“If your debt was paid, what would you do? Where would you go?” Nathaniel asked.

Vesta shrugged.

“Surely you have family,” Georgette suggested.

Vesta’s laugh was brittle. “None that’d be glad to see me.”

“Have you any marketable skills?” Georgette asked.

“Plenty of ’em.” Vesta’s smile turned lascivious and she flicked her gaze at Nathaniel. “I’d give him a sample, but Madam don’t allow no free tosses.”

For once, Georgette found herself in complete agreement with the madam.

“What did you have in mind, guv? Are you looking to set up a ladybird of your own? It’d be no hardship tending to the needs of the likes of you.” Vesta slinked across the room toward Nathaniel, earthy sensuality oozing from every pore. “Your friends, too, if you’re the generous sort.”

She lifted a perfectly arched brow at him. “We could have ourselves a time.”

“No doubt,” Nathaniel said. “But that’s not my intent. Sadie’s House of Sirens just across the lane recently came into my possession. The madam there has been evicted and the debts her girls owed have been repaid. I gave them the same choice I now offer you. I’ll square your debt. Go, if you wish. Stay, if you wish. But if you choose to stay at the House of Sirens, you must not sell yourself again. You must remain sober and you will apply yourself to learning a trade so that you will be self-supporting within six months.”

“You mean there’s a room for me at the Sirens?” Vesta cocked her head at him. “And I don’t have to lift my skirts to keep it?”

Nathaniel nodded. “A few of the girls were from the country and have decided to take their chances and go home. There are three open rooms. One is yours, if you want it. Under my terms, of course.”

Vesta narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “What are you, some kind of saint?”

“Hardly.” The word slipped out Georgette’s mouth before she could stop it.

Nathaniel splayed his fingers across his chest as if she’d pierced him with an invisible arrow. “You cut me to the quick, Lady Georgette.”

“No one asked you to get involved,” she said, turning toward him tight-lipped.

Nathaniel Colton didn’t have an altruistic bone in his body. There was something else behind this sudden spurt of goodness. And she doubted that ulterior motive was good in the least.

Nate started toward her. “Contrary to what you might believe, you are not the only one in this room capable of compassion.”

“Yeah, yeah, the two of you can go at it hammer and tongs later.” Vesta placed herself firmly between them. “What about me? Don’t you think it likely Madam Bouchard will send Mr. Duggins after me once the pair of you do-gooders flit back to whatever cloud you dropped down from?”

“That’s why I hired Mr. Bagley to act as guard for the residents across the way,” Nathaniel said, casting Georgette a smug grin over Vesta’s shoulder. “He’s a former pugilist and is easily a match for Mr. Duggins in height and girth.”

“What about the fact that Vesta must learn a trade?” Georgette asked, wishing she could persuade this Mr. Bagley to smack that grin off Nate’s face. “I doubt your pugilist will be much use if Vesta wants to pursue the craft of millinery or flower arranging.”

“That’s why I’ve also engaged Mrs. Throckmorten.” Nathaniel waved Vesta out of his way with every courtesy so he could plant himself firmly in front of Georgette. “She’s a former headmistress at a ladies’ academy with ties to several merchants all along Bond Street. She’ll evaluate Vesta’s skills and set her up with an apprenticeship or find her a suitable position in domestic service.”

Georgette crossed her arms over her chest. “So it doesn’t bother you to think of Vesta emptying someone’s chamber pot so long as it’s
your
idea.”

“No.” He raised a finger in reproof. “Only so long as it’s
her
idea.”

“Seems you’ve thought of everything,” Georgette said grudgingly. An academy of sorts for soiled doves was nothing short of brilliant.

He gave her a mocking bow. “One does one’s best.”

“Oh, why don’t the pair of you just shag each other and get it over with?” Vesta said. “We’re supposed to be talking about me, you know.”

“So we were. My apologies, Vesta,” Nate said. “And I will take your shagging suggestion under advisement.”

Georgette’s cheeks heated, but there was nothing to be gained by protesting that she wouldn’t dream of letting Nathaniel “shag” her.

Besides, she was afraid she just might.

“What have you decided?” Nathaniel asked Vesta.

“If you square me with Madam, I’ll take that room.” Her expression softened. “Thank you.” Her gaze flicked to Georgette for a moment. “You too, milady.”

Mercy hugged her friend. “You won’t regret it, honest you won’t.”

“I regret it already.” Vesta fingered one of her silk gowns in the open wardrobe. “Don’t imagine a lady’s maid has any call to wear something as grand as this.”

“Sure I do. There’s a Ladies’ Maids’ Ball coming up and I plan to deck myself out like a duchess. No offence, milady, ye bein’ only a marquis’s daughter and all.” Mercy cast a lopsided grin at Georgette in apology and turned back to her friend. “Besides, ye might decide to do something different than me. Something ye haven’t even dreamed before. Trust me, Vesta. Life is ever so much sweeter when ye get to do the deciding for yerself.”

“We should leave you two to do some packing.” Nathaniel turned and offered Georgette his arm. “My lady, would you care to accompany me while I do business with Madam Bouchard?”

She slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow. Once they cleared the doorway, she hissed, “Where did you get so much money that you can run around Covent Garden clearing the debts of fallen women?”

“I won more than the deed to the House of Sirens in that poque game. If I didn’t spend it on this, I’d just waste it paying off my tailor.” He covered her hand with his. “Mercy’s right, you know.”

“In what way?”

“Life is sweeter when you do the deciding for yourself. When are you going to give that a try?”

Normally, Georgette slept well when it rained, pulling the bed linens up to her nose and reveling in the snug feeling of being warm and dry and safe.

This was not a normal night.

She squirmed and fidgeted under her sheets, but nothing could persuade her to stop reading. The first time she’d skimmed through this section of Madam Charpentier’s journal, it hadn’t meant much to her. The courtesan’s memoirs stirred up all the feelings Nate’s waltz had awakened in her and made her body pound afresh. She’d never dreamed mere ink on a page could rouse her so.

But then she’d never had any carnal experience to draw upon in order to breathe life into the words before. Now her imagination, always prodigious, danced about like a drunken nymph at a bacchanalia.

During the day, she kept busy with fittings for her new ball gown, social calls, and all manner of honorable pursuits. But at the most inopportune times, her mind would drift back to that night in the ballroom and the waltz that upturned her world.

Only yesterday at Lady Hepplewhite’s luncheon, Georgette mentally wandered off somewhere between the cucumber sandwiches and lemon cake. Sitting there surrounded by worthy matrons and tittering debutants, all she could think of was the feel of Nate’s mouth on her breast and the wicked sensation of his hand between her thighs. Lady Hepplewhite had to ask her twice about the upcoming ball. Her mother was quick to excuse Georgette’s wool-gathering as maidenly anticipation of a grand event.

If her mother had been able to read her mind, she’d have been shocked into apoplexy.

Now at night in her own chamber, there was nothing to call Georgette back from her shocking thoughts. She smoothed the coverlet over her breasts, tried to ignore the way the tips ached, and resumed reading the courtesan’s memoirs.

And
if
there
is
no
gentleman
available
to
give
her
ease, a lady can always take matters into her own hands, as it were,
Madam Charpentier suggested.

Oh, bother!
Georgette tossed the little gilt-edged book across the room. It smacked the wall with a satisfying thud and slid to land facedown, the spine cracked wide open.

Georgette regretted giving in to the fit of pique almost instantly. That thud might bring Mercy, or worse, her mother, to investigate. She held her breath, listening for sounds of anyone stirring in the great house.

Except for the constant patter of rain against the windows, silence continued to reign. She exhaled in relief.

The problem with the courtesan’s advice was that there
was
a gentleman available. And even though Nathaniel had been on his best behavior of late, she imagined he was still more than willing to “give her ease.”

What
would
he
do
if
I
turned
up
unannounced
in
his
chamber?
she wondered as she climbed out of bed and went to retrieve the little journal. She picked it up and closed it gently, feeling guilty about the cracked spine. Georgette secreted it back in the drawer that held her unmentionables where it belonged, but she didn’t return immediately to her bed where
she
belonged.

According to chimes of the long case clock in the parlor below, it was a quarter past one. No one could possibly be about. Georgette knew every creaking floorboard between her chamber and Nathaniel’s and could easily avoid detection.

There’d be no need to even light a candle. All her life, she’d divided her time between Yorkingham House and the family’s country estate. She could navigate the labyrinthine halls with her eyes closed.

Or
even
asleep.

If someone were to stumble upon her on her way to Nathaniel’s room, she could feign sleepwalking. A few months earlier, she’d read
Edgar
Huntley
by Charles Brockden Brown. It was a rather ghastly American tale of a man who sleepwalked through an entire murder investigation. But the whole point was that a body might do any number of unlikely things while totally unaware of it.

Even
let
someone
shag
me.

No, no one would believe her so simple.

Then
why
are
you
thinking
about
it, ninny?

Georgette climbed back into bed. She blew out the candle and pulled the coverlet up to her chin. Under the linens, one of her hands wandered to her “nethers.” She was all achy and swollen and damp. That sensitive bit of her was so warm, she wondered if it were possible for only part of her to have a fever while the rest of her was perfectly healthy.

No, it’s no fever. It’s simply a case of wanting what I shouldn’t.

And there might be a way to relieve herself without going to Nathaniel. But even if she was willing to “take matters into her own hands,” she wasn’t sure what that entailed exactly. Madam Charpentier could probably give her a few hints, but if memory served, the next part of the journal was uncharacteristically coy and dripping with euphemisms.

Lightning illuminated her room for a heart-stopping second, followed almost immediately by a thunderous boom. Then the rain began to fall with more insistence, a steady tattoo of wet rhythm slapping the windowpanes. Like most winter showers, she expected it to ease up in a few minutes, but this storm raged and sulked and raged again. It reminded her of a spoiled two-year-old working itself into a frenzy.

Well, the weather isn’t the only thing that’s worked up.

The restless ache wouldn’t let her sleep, let alone sleepwalk. Finally, she tossed back the linens and sought her wrapper.

A different sort of book, that’s what she needed. Something about drains or ditches or the inherent difficulties in transporting silk from the Japans. She’d be satisfied with anything so long as it was dry as dust and had no mention of body parts and their delightful uses.

Well, not satisfied
, she amended. She suspected only Nathaniel could do that. But if she could be bored to sleep by one of her father’s dusty tomes, it would do.

Georgette slipped out of her room, not even bothering to toe on her slippers, unconcerned about being caught wandering the halls now. After all, she was headed to the library, not a gentleman’s bedchamber. She purposefully stepped down on the third from the top step on the staircase.

Let
someone
hear
that
creak.
She didn’t care. Her conscience was clear.

Her feet hesitated at the landing where she might turn down the long corridor that led to the guest wing.

“Oh, don’t be so stupid,” she muttered. If she could sleepwalk, she could “sleeptalk” too, she reasoned in case anyone should hear her as she continued down the grand curving staircase. Not that she needed to hide behind that sort of subterfuge. She was going to the library, not a gentleman’s chamber.

Going to Nathaniel’s room in the dead of night would be monumentally stupid. And dangerous.

And
wildly
exciting
, a dark part of her heart added.

She tamped down that wicked urge and continued padding toward the library. The marble underfoot was cool, but she needed that. It was bracing. Like a dash of cold water on her cheeks on a morning when she found it difficult to awaken completely.

When she reached the library, a knife-thin streak of light showed beneath the door.

Georgette pushed the door open slowly, taking care not to let the hinges creak.

Lit by a single candle, she found Nathaniel stretched across the banquette in her favorite alcove. He was wearing a black silk banyan and like Georgette, his feet were bare. Ankles crossed, enough of his long legs showed to convince Georgette that he wore nothing beneath the loose robe. One of his arms was tucked up, serving as a pillow for his head, and a book was propped on his chest. He turned a page.

“Come in, Georgette.”

He hadn’t glanced her way, but this time she realized he knew it was her because he’d caught a whiff of her fragrance again. For tuppence, she thought she ought to abandon violet water and take up something spicy and heavy to throw him off his game.

“I didn’t think you’d be here.” She advanced cautiously into the room.

“And I didn’t think you’d come looking for me.”

“I wasn’t looking for you,” she said quickly. “Just so you know.”

He rose and walked toward her. “Then this is merely happy chance.”

“Fate,” she ventured.

His smile carved a dimple in one of his cheeks. It was the sort of smile Lady Yorkingham ought to have warned her about if her mother had been the sort who was in the habit of offering any worthwhile advice.

After she’d recovered from scarlet fever, her family physician had warned Georgette that she might suffer from lingering palpitations due to her illness.

She’d never felt any. Until now.

She glanced at the bookshelves but couldn’t force her feet to move toward them. “I’m only here to find a book.”

The banyan dipped to a low vee over his chest, and a dusting of ash brown hair peeped out. What would it feel like? Her fingers itched to touch it.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted.

“I couldn’t either.”

His brows drew together in a quick frown. “Are you troubled by something?”

You,
danced on her tongue. But if she admitted it, she’d have to explain that she couldn’t sleep because her body was craving him with ravenous intensity. She shook her head instead.

He continued to look at her as if he might somehow penetrate to the deepest wrinkle of her soul. It wouldn’t do for him to realize how she’d been longing for him.

She had to put some distance between them, so she swept past him and sat down in the center of the banquette. “Are
you
troubled by something?”

“Yes,” he said simply as he came to sit beside her, far too close for her comfort. He wasn’t touching her, but she could feel the warmth of his thigh near hers. “Yes, I’m definitely troubled. Tell me, have you ever made a bargain with the devil, Georgette?”

“What? No, of course not.”

“Good. Don’t. He’s a wily fellow.” Nathaniel leaned forward, knees on his elbows. “The black-hearted imp will dangle something you want to coerce you into agreeing with his plan. Then in the midst of things, you’ll discover that what you
really
want is actually something very different.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“I hope you never do.”

Silence stretched between them. Not the companionable silence Georgette imagined would fill the evening of a contented couple. Not the prickly, accusing silence she sensed jabbing back and forth between her parents.

This silence simmered like a pot about to boil.

Nameless wanting hovered around them. It crackled in the air. Georgette breathed it in with shallow gulps. She didn’t dare draw a deep lungful lest the rampant neediness rush in and consume her.

Georgette laced her fingers together to keep from reaching over and smoothing his hair down where it curled behind his ear. She ached to plant a kiss there, just at his hairline, to taste him, all salty and male…

She gave herself an imaginary swat on the nose. Somehow, she had to fill that potent silence with something or she’d end up throwing herself into his arms.

Another low roll of thunder filled it for a moment but didn’t lessen the sense that someone was lacing her stays too tight and something was about to pop. Which was patently ridiculous because she wasn’t wearing any stays.

Oh, my word, I’m all but naked under my wrapper and night shift.
She gave herself a mental shake.
Well, of course I am. Everyone is always naked under their clothes. Georgette, you are turning into a complete goose.

“Mercy tells me that Vesta is doing well.” It was a weak salvo, but it broke the tension that was building by the smallest of degrees.

“Mrs. Throckmorten is placing her with a florist,” Nate said. “She has a talent for flower arrangement, I’m told, and a good head for figures.”

“That’s good.”

Nathaniel nodded.

“And I understand all your rooms at the former House of Sirens are filled now,” Georgette said, desperate not to let the silence creep back in to beguile her.

“They are,” Nate said. “Once word got around the neighborhood, two more women presented themselves to Mrs. Throckmorten and asked for help. One was a vicar’s daughter, if you can believe it.”

“Oh, yes, I can.” It wasn’t simply that Georgette understood the allure of sin now. A young woman without means was easy prey for the likes of the Covent Garden madams. Once they snared a girl with debt, they all but owned her. “I assume her family wouldn’t take her back.”

“Her family is gone, all taken in a cholera outbreak in their village. That’s why she came to London in the first place—to search for work.” Nathaniel dragged a hand over his face, as if he were weary to the bone. “Seems the girl is more educated than most. Mrs. Throckmorten thinks she might be able to place her as a governess eventually with a family of the middling sort.”

“That’s wonderful, Nate. You’ve done a very good thing. Why don’t you seem pleased?”

He studied his own long toes. “No matter what I do, the scales will never balance.”

“Because of that deal with the devil, you mean?”

He nodded.

Her curiosity burned like a lit taper. “So what is it you’ve discovered you really want?”

“You, Georgette.” He turned and put a hand to her cheek. “I want you.”