Georgie was still trying to decide what to do about Josiah’s assault and Wylde’s almost-kiss two days later.
Mother had finally yielded to Juliet’s moping and allowed Simeon to call at the house, but since she was upstairs with a headache, Georgie had been designated as her sister’s chaperone. She was now trapped in the upstairs parlor pretending to read a book and being forced to listen to Simeon compose his latest masterwork: “The Ballad of the Bee Sting.”
Georgie was seriously considering singeing her own skirts as an excuse to leave the room when Mrs. Potter announced a new caller. She glanced up, pathetically grateful for any interruption, and her heart stuttered as Wylde stepped into the room. His hair was windblown, and he looked as devastating as ever in a pair of buff breeches, a snowy-white shirt, and a forest-green jacket.
“Good afternoon, ladies.”
“Oh, hello, Mr. Wylde,” Juliet said listlessly, and immediately turned back to her beau.
Simeon looked up from the bureau and sent him a cool nod of acknowledgment. “Wylde.”
Benedict returned the nod solemnly. “Pettigrew.” He crossed the room and took a seat next to Georgie on the sofa. “Afternoon, Miss Caversteed. I trust you’ve recovered from your adventures at Vauxhall?”
Georgie cleared her throat and tried to ignore the heat that spread through her limbs every time she recalled their almost-kiss. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Wylde.” She glanced at the small bunch of flowers in his left hand, a posy of tiny dark purple violets and drooping snowdrops, the kind sold on street corners by ragged flower girls. They looked comical and fragile in his large masculine hands. She recalled those hands on her and her blood heated.
He offered them forward with a self-deprecating look. “What does one get for the girl who has everything?”
The men trying to court her usually sent great overblown bouquets, huge hothouse flowers that always made her a little sad. Everyone assumed she’d scorn something cheap, but she greatly preferred these hand-picked weeds. They had personality.
“Thank you. They’re lovely,” she said, and genuinely meant it.
Wylde glanced over at Simeon and Juliet. “So these are the star-crossed lovers, eh?”
“Mr. Pettigrew has impressed Mother with his ‘stalwart persistence.’ She’s decided to give him a second chance, although he’ll find it hard to convince her he’s a more acceptable match than someone with a title and a fortune.”
“It doesn’t look like his drenching did any lasting harm.”
“No.”
Juliet was perched delicately on the chaise longue nearest Simeon, one elbow resting on the scrolled arm as she gazed worshipfully at him. The morning sun haloed her dark hair and showed off the smooth perfection of her skin. She looked luminous and delicate, like one of the porcelain Meissen shepherdesses on the mantelpiece. Doubtless Wylde, a connoisseur of the female form, was enjoying the view.
“I think Simeon sees you as something as a threat for Juliet’s affections,” Georgie whispered.
He raised his brows. “There’s no danger of that.”
She shot him a disbelieving look. “Are you seriously telling me that you don’t find my sister attractive?”
He shrugged. “Oh, she’s beautiful, I grant you. A diamond of the first water. But not my type, at all. She’s too young, for starters. And too docile. I like my women with a little more spark.” His smile could have melted rock. “Someone who knows her own mind and isn’t afraid to stand up for herself.”
Georgie’s body warmed at his insinuation, then reminded herself that he was being paid to be attentive. His flippant charm meant nothing. It was as natural to him as breathing.
“Simeon is writing me a sonnet, Mr. Wylde.” Juliet sighed soulfully. “Isn’t that romantic?”
“I’m sure you think so, Miss Caversteed,” he said politely.
Georgie fought a snort. Her idea of romance wasn’t a man composing her sonnets. Romance was a strong man standing aside, letting her fight her own battles, and only stepping in if she needed help. What would Simeon have done if he’d been faced with Josiah at Vauxhall? Hit him over the head with a poetry book? She suppressed a smile at the ridiculous image. They said the pen was mightier than the sword, but she’d take Wylde’s swordstick over Simeon’s pencil any day.
“I have immortalized the events in verse,” Simeon announced grandly. “I shall read it to you if you like, Mr. Wylde.”
“Oh, God, no,” Benedict groaned, sotto voce.
“That would be lovely, Mr. Pettigrew,” Georgie said with a wicked glance at Wylde. She lowered her voice. “Juliet thinks Mr. Pettigrew is extremely talented.”
He sent her a droll glance. “Yes, but I bet Juliet also thinks rainbows are made from magical fairy dust and that dragons live in Scotland,” he muttered.
“Who’s to say she’s not right about the dragons?”
“Basic common sense? Complete lack of empirical evidence? Zero credible sightings for hundreds of years?”
“There are plenty of wild, unexplored places in the world—”
He shot her a wicked, glinting look from under his lashes and raised his eyebrows. “I have Wylde places you can explore any time you like, Miss Caversteed.”
She fought an answering smile. Really, it was scandalously improper, to be flirting with him like this. Even worse to be enjoying it quite so much.
Simeon cleared his throat.
“O, thou naughty stripy felon,
Round thou art, just like a melon.”
Wylde gave her a horrified, disbelieving look, and Georgie stifled a laugh. She’d been the unlucky recipient of Simeon’s performances before.
“You are a wicked little fellow,
With your stripes of black and yellow.
Your tiny body is covered in fuzz
And the sound you make is ‘buzz, buzz, buzz.’”
Simeon styled himself very much on his hero George Gordon, Lord Byron. Georgie assumed his hairstyle—if, indeed, it could be called a style—was meant to be romantically wind-tossed, but he succeeded only in looking unkempt. Wylde, on the other hand, managed to make the same style look completely effortless. And eminently touchable. She fastened her fingers together in her lap to avoid temptation.
Simeon was in full flow now, waving his paper all over the place.
“I love the way you tilt your cheek up,
I love the way you hold your teacup.
I love—”
Wylde turned to her, a pained expression on his face. “Can’t someone stop him?” he whispered. “Isn’t there enough terrible poetry in the world without some adolescent fool adding to it?”
“He adores the role of lovesick swain. Back in Lincolnshire, he was very taken with the Arthurian legends. Troilus and Cressida, Lancelot and Guinevere. He spent an entire week last summer splashing around in the lake looking for some mystical sword.”
“Well, I wish he’d go and search for the holy grail of poesy somewhere else. All that sighing and languishing. It’s exhausting just watching him.”
“I believe he’s cultivating a fashionable ennui.”
“Bloody hell. Since when was it fashionable to drape yourself over the furniture and spout godawful verse? What is the country coming to?” He shook his head. “Is this the sort of watery whelp I fought hand-to-hand at Waterloo to protect? What happened to British manhood while I was away?”
Georgie bit her lip. “He’s what they call ‘a sensitive soul.’”
Wylde cast Simeon a disapproving glare. “Ten minutes in the Rifle corps would toughen him up. He’d probably faint if he ever had to hold a loaded gun.”
Simeon was still going strong.
“If I were a bee, and you were the clover,
I’d drink of your sweetness and—” He paused, searching for a suitable rhyme.
Benedict leaned in close. “That has to end with ‘and bend you right over,’” he whispered.
Georgie’s cheeks flamed. The man was outrageous. Every time he looked at her like that, she experienced a strange, melting, squirming sensation just below her ribs, not entirely pleasant, but not particularly comfortable either.
Simeon scribbled something, then crossed it out and frowned. Twin lines furrowed his bushy brows.
“Having trouble, Mr. Pettigrew?” she enquired desperately.
“Indeed. I’m trying to find a satisfactory rhyme for ‘lady luck.’ But my muse has deserted me.”
“Thank the Lord,” Benedict murmured.
“How about Puck?” Georgie suggested. “Shakespeare’s character from A Midsummer Night’s Dream?”
Wylde glared at her for encouraging him. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and the word “suck” popped into her brain. She imagined catching his lower lip between her teeth and—
Stop it.
Wylde was watching her. His lips twitched, as though he guessed the wicked direction of her thoughts. He glanced over at Simeon with a bland look. “Maybe if you go through the alphabet? Buck. Chuck. Duck. Nothing starting with E, of course.”
Georgie wasn’t fooled by his innocent expression. The next letter was F. And she knew precisely which word he was thinking of, even though a gently bred woman shouldn’t. She’d spent too much time around foul-mouthed sailors. They’d bellowed that profanity enough times when they’d thought she was safely out of hearing. A very emphatic, Germanic word.
Wylde bit his lower lip with his top teeth, beginning to form it in slow motion. His eyes twinkled in delight, and he looked like he was about to break out laughing. “F—”
“Gluck!” she blurted out, too loudly. “You know, the German composer?”
Wylde looked comically crestfallen that she hadn’t fallen into his verbal bear pit and made a face that clearly said “spoilsport.”
“That’s not how you say it,” he murmured. “It rhymes with book, not luck.”
Pettigrew, of course, was oblivious to the scalding undercurrents in the room. He chewed the end of his pen. “No. I don’t think I can put a composer in here. Perhaps I can insert a chicken? And use ‘cluck.’”
Benedict clapped his hands. “Excellent idea, Mr. Pettigrew. I’ve yet to encounter a poem that wasn’t immeasurably improved by the inclusion of a chicken. Carry on.” He waved his hand like a royal pardon, then caught Georgie’s elbow and steered her toward the window seat on the other side of the room. “A moment of your time, Miss Caversteed.”
As soon as they were safely out of earshot, Georgie turned innocent eyes on him. “Don’t tell me you’re not a fan of poetry, Mr. Wylde?”
“That is not poetry,” he growled. “That is a mangling of our great and noble language. I’ve heard better verses in St. Giles.”
She raised her brows.
“There’s one by Prinny’s favorite, Captain Charles Morris, that starts, ‘The Dey of Algiers—’”
“I’m sure I don’t want to hear it,” she said swiftly. “I doubt it’s suitable for a lady’s ears.”
“Why not? It’s amusing. And at least it rhymes. It celebrates the Dey’s magnificent—”
“Naval victory?”
“—manly appendage,” Wylde finished, completely unrepentant. “But perhaps your ‘gentle ears’ aren’t ready for such profanity.”
Georgie suppressed a snort. He knew she’d been thinking of that dreadful word earlier. And unlike every other man of her acquaintance, he found it amusing, instead of censuring her for it. How liberating, to be able to share a joke with someone of equal wit and flexible morals.
“All right, what about this one by Robert Burns?” he pressed.
“Tom and Tim on mischief bent,
Went to the plains of Timbuctoo;
They saw three Maidens in a tent,
Tom bucked one, and—”
“Let me guess,” Georgie said dryly, determined not to let him discompose her, “‘—and Tim bucked two’? How original. At least Mr. Pettigrew’s verses are about more than…” She strove for an appropriate word and settled on “… tupping.”
“No, they aren’t. They might be couched in obfuscation and circumlocution, but at the heart of every one of them is tupping. Or screwing. Or whatever else you want to call it. The hero of any courtly romance, whether he admits it or not, is pining for a good, hard—”
“Kiss,” she finished emphatically.
“No. Not a kiss, Miss Caversteed. I can tell you quite candidly, that there’s not a man alive who would turn around after killing a bloody great dragon or vanquishing some horrible witch and be happy with a kiss on the cheek.”
“So die my dreams of courtly love,” she sighed, emulating Juliet’s breathy tone to perfection.
“Courtly love isn’t what populates the world,” he finished darkly. “If you ever want a demonstration of what does, I’ll be happy to show you.”
His gaze caught hers, and Georgie thought her body would go up in flames. Good God, what did one say to that? “That’s very magnanimous of you,” she managed weakly.
The corner of his mouth curled upward. “Isn’t it? Now, tell me honestly, when you came up with your lunatic plan to marry a criminal, surely you didn’t intend to eschew male company for the rest of your life?”
“As a matter of fact, I’d planned on taking a lover once I returned to Lincolnshire. A widow can do as she pleases, as long as she’s circumspect.”
Georgie marveled at her own boldness. What was it about him that made her say whatever was on her mind, however indiscreet?
He nodded, entirely unperturbed. Did nothing shock him?
“And now I’ve ruined your plans by refusing to be hanged or shipped off to Australia. I do apologize.” His roguish grin was in no way apologetic. He leaned forward again. “As your legally wedded husband, one could almost argue that it’s my duty to teach you such things.”
Her happiness evaporated. Of course. That’s all she was to him—a duty. An entertaining one, quite possibly, but a duty nonetheless. Theirs was a marriage in name only. Any emotional entanglements—which would naturally ensue if she agreed to such an outrageous offer—would only complicate things when it came time to part ways.
If only it wasn’t so tempting to say yes.
“That aspect of our union is not something I require your help with,” she said.
He accepted her withdrawal with a good-natured shrug. “All right, but if you ever change your mind, do let me know.”
Georgie decided it was time to steer the subject into safer territory. “Did you learn anything of import at Vauxhall?” The only thing she’d discovered was how nice it felt to be in his arms, how quickly he could turn her blood to fire and her brain to mush.
She had to stop thinking about it.
“I did. My contact gave me a lead to a man who could be involved.” He glanced over at Simeon and Juliet, but neither of them was paying any attention. A bomb could have gone off, and they wouldn’t have noticed.
“And—?” Georgie prompted. “Who is it?”
He frowned at her. “I’m not sure I should tell you. Issues of national security, and all that.”
She shot him a pointed look. “You don’t think I can keep a secret, Mr. Wylde?”
“Good point, Mrs. Wylde,” he whispered.
“So who’s the lead?”
He sighed in defeat, as if sensing her determination. “A man named Barry O’Meara.”
“Never heard of him.”
“There’s no reason why you should have. He’s the Royal Navy surgeon Napoleon selected to remain on St. Helena with him as his personal physician. O’Meara recently returned to these shores, full of sympathy for the emperor’s cause, and has been lobbying intensely in favor of Bonaparte being freed.” Twin creases formed between his brows. “O’Meara will be familiar with the security arrangements on the island. If he thinks his petitioning is falling on deaf ears, he’d be in a perfect position to advise on a rescue mission instead.”
“He does sound a likely candidate. What do you plan to do?”
“Find evidence to support the theory that he’s plotting something.”
“How?”
“By searching his house.”
“Will you wait until he goes out?”
Wylde grinned at her persistence. “No, I plan to do it while he’s at home, with thirty or forty other people in attendance.” Georgie raised her brows incredulously and he chuckled. “O’Meara’s having a card party next Tuesday evening. There’ll be deep card play, plenty of drink, and lots of available women. I’ve managed to get myself invited.”
“The Westons’ ridotto is on Tuesday night too,” Georgie said. The Westons’ annual masked ball was usually her favorite event of the season; since every guest wore masks and dominos to conceal their identity, she could pretend she was somebody ordinary for a night. People actually flirted with her and spoke to her because they wanted to, not because she was a rich heiress to be envied or entrapped. She loved the thrill of anonymity. Even so, Wylde’s evening sounded far more exciting.
A sudden determination not to be left out seized her. “I have a suggestion.”
It was his turn to raise his brows. “I’m all ears.”
“I should come with you to O’Meara’s house,” she said firmly. “I can attend the Westons’ party, but slip away to O’Meara’s to help you, and be back before my mother even notices I’m missing.”
“And why would I let you to do that?”
She gave what she hoped was a winning smile. “It will be far easier for you to sneak around a house party with a woman in tow. Think about it. A lone man loitering around might be seen as suspicious, but nobody will bat an eyelid if a couple are seen disappearing off into the shadows.”
His eyes glinted wickedly. “And what do you know about disappearing into the shadows with gentlemen?”
She fought to contain her blush. “Nothing at all. But I’m sure if O’Meara’s guests are as disreputable as you suggest, they’ll think nothing of it. Especially considering your reputation as a rake.”
His smile made her blood heat. “You mean nobody will be shocked if we’re caught kissing on the billiard table?”
Georgie’s breath caught, but before she could remind him that there would be no kissing, or anything else for that matter, he said, “Actually, you make a good argument. O’Meara only lives a few streets away from the Westons. And you’ll be masked, so there’s no chance of you being recognized. It shouldn’t be too risky. All right, you can come.”
She quelled a little crow of elation. She hadn’t really imagined she’d be able to persuade him, but here, suddenly, was her chance for an adventure!
Her heart thudded against her ribs as she saw the challenge in his eyes, and she had a sudden vision of what he must have been like in the war. Flashing that devil-may-care grin, sneaking off to do something dangerous that might just get him killed. She had no doubt his men would have followed him anywhere, even into hell itself. His charisma was magnetic, irresistible.
He smiled. “I’ll take my leave. I’ve had quite enough bad poetry for one day.”
“Shall we arrange to meet somewhere specific at the Westons’?”
His gaze roved over her face as if committing it to memory. “No. I’ll find you.”
Georgie wasn’t sure if that was a promise or a threat, but her heart took a long time to regain its normal rhythm after he left.