Ashdowne was still reeling when he arrived at Camden Place, after returning a glum Georgiana to her parents, for the brisk walk had done little to bring order to his unruly thoughts. He felt hot and tingly, like someone who had survived a lightning strike—or a man torn between his good sense and a lot of wild ideas, he thought grimly.
“I need a drink,” he called to Finn as he strode into the study. There he fell into one of the hard armchairs, for once not noticing the discomfort of his furnishings.
“Right, milord,” Finn said, hurrying after him. He closed the door and moved to the sideboard, eyeing Ashdowne over his shoulder. “But what of the miss? Have you abandoned her to her own devices?”
At his words, Ashdowne frowned. He had been so consumed with his own thoughts that he had forgotten about Georgiana’s annoying habit of getting into trouble in his absence. “She’s fresh out of suspects for now, at least,” he muttered, more to reassure himself than his servant.
Finn said nothing as he crossed the room with a delicate crystal glass and handed it to his employer. Murmuring his thanks, Ashdowne took the port and stared into the depths of the liquid as if seeking an answer there. When none appeared, he related his afternoon encounter with the mistress of punishment, much to Finn’s amusement.
Finn’s robust laughter was a welcome diversion, but Ashdowne’s uneasiness must have been apparent, for the Irishman’s amusement faded as he studied his employer shrewdly. “You should have let the vicar take the blame for it,” he said.
“What? The theft?” Ashdowne asked. At Finn’s nod, he shook his head. “The vicar isn’t guilty of much more than unpopular polemics. And he’s right about most of the ton being a bunch of hypocrites.” He paused to fix his gaze on Finn. “Do you know that he suggested Lady Culpepper’s necklace was never stolen, but simply broken down in a plan to collect the insurance money?”
“Did he now?” Finn asked in a speculative tone, and the two exchanged a look fraught with meaning. “But what of the miss, milord? What will she do now? She’ll be looking for another suspect before long.”
“Perhaps her interest in the case will dissipate at last,” Ashdowne said hopefully.
Finn scratched his chin. “I don’t know, milord. She seems quite fierce about the whole thing.”
“Yes, I know,” Ashdowne acknowledged. If only she felt that passionate about him instead of some deuced mystery! His disgust turned to a kind of horror as he realized that he was becoming jealous of a case. Just how low was he sinking? He rolled his shoulders in an effort to ease the tension that had seized him ever since Georgiana had confided her dream.
“Unless you can distract her,” Finn suggested slyly.
“Yes, but—” Ashdowne began, only to jerk as the Irishman slapped him on the back.
“Aye. Now, there’s your answer, milord,” he said heartily. “And I’ve no doubt of your abilities in that regard.”
Ashdowne smiled weakly. He was glad that Finn had such faith in him, but truth be told, he was not quite sure anyone could keep Georgiana distracted for long. A man would have to have the stamina of a…
“Shall I keep a watch on her until you can make sure she’s occupied with other matters?” Finn asked.
“Yes. Thank you,” Ashdowne muttered as he tried to ignore his accelerating heartbeat. He thought of himself as a worldly gentleman, with his share of love affairs, so why did the thought of distracting Georgiana excite him so? He stifled a groan as his attention returned to all the other questions that plagued him.
Vaguely he noted Finn’s agreement and subsequent departure, but neither the port nor the conversation had brought him any closer to making sense out of the mad thoughts that careened through his brain. The indecision was doubly frustrating, for usually he was the most meticulous of thinkers. In the past, his very life had depended upon careful planning and foresight, yet now he felt as if one petite blonde had totally disordered his existence with a simple toss of her curls.
And, despite the clamor of his good sense to the contrary, Ashdowne knew it would never be the same again.
A night of serious contemplation had restored Ashdowne’s equilibrium, if not his reason. He knew what he wanted all right, but his entire body rebelled against it. Well, not every portion, to be exact, just enough to make him hesitate. And even setting aside his lingering doubts, he was not one to take such a precipitous step lightly. There was a part of him that wasn’t ready, no matter what the provocation. And there was another part that warily guarded all his secrets.
The irony of his situation was not lost upon him, yet Ashdowne knew an urge to let matters take their course. Although at odds with his calculating nature, it drove him to Georgiana’s residence, where he coaxed the dispirited investigator out for a carriage ride, while fending off the invitations of her younger sisters.
She didn’t want to join him, really, and Ashdowne felt the snub right down to his boots. Along with the prick to his pride came an overwhelming desire to prove to her just how well she liked his company. It was a rather primitive sensation, the kind that presumably fueled the Norse invaders who dragged their stolen brides back home without a twinge of guilt. He was more civilized than that, Ashdowne told himself as he rolled his shoulders in an effort to be rid of the tension that gnawed at him.
Although some sticklers for propriety might not approve of Ashdowne escorting a genteel young woman in his curricle, the two of them had thoroughly flouted conventional custom so often lately that he refused to consider a chaperon. And they could hardly speak freely in front of another about Georgiana’s beloved case. Or at least that’s what Ashdowne told himself in order to justify taking her off to some secluded grove above the city.
And Georgiana’s father, whether from lack of good sense or an optimistic view toward a title for his daughter, was fool enough to entrust her to him. Although Mr. Bellewether’s jovial good wishes fell in well enough with Ashdowne’s plans, he felt a surge of annoyance at the man for not safeguarding Georgiana.
When he had a daughter, he would take better care of her, Ashdowne vowed. And, surprisingly, the notion of siring children was not so startling as it once might have been. He pictured cherub-faced girls with golden curls sprawling on the lawn in front of the family seat and smiled, firmly ignoring the now familiar thrum of doom that accompanied the vision.
Handing Georgiana into the waiting curricle, Ashdowne climbed up beside her and breathed a sigh of relief that he did not have to spend the morning lounging outside of the vicar’s apartments, waiting to follow him. The pleasure of having Georgiana all to himself was an anticipation that built rather feverishly, despite Ashdowne’s best efforts to quell it.
However, it wasn’t long before he realized that the case still stood between them, for Georgiana sat beside him in dour silence, her lovely face drawn up into a glum expression, her pretty shoulders slumped. When she sank her chin into one gloved palm, Ashdowne decided he had never seen a female look so positively disappointed to be in his company. He didn’t know whether to laugh or be insulted, but that was Georgiana.
No matter what, she was always interesting, he thought with a smile, although he didn’t like to see her so dejected. But all his efforts to point out the buildings of Bath or make conversation did little to cheer her, and finally, Ashdowne began to wonder if he should suggest a new suspect. Only the absurdity of the notion, along with the desire to steer clear of Bedlam, kept him from doing so.
To his delight, Georgiana perked up when they reached the hills that encompassed the city, and even Ashdowne could admire the greenery and tall oaks. After tethering the horses, he tossed aside his gloves and lay his cloak upon the grass. He urged Georgiana to sit, but she seemed transfixed by the view of the city below.
“It is beautiful,” he murmured, moving to stand behind her.
Georgiana made some noise of agreement, then pointed to the pale stone buildings in the distance. “Look how well you can see the houses!” she said, leaning forward and squinting as if she would focus on some particular dwelling. Turning to him suddenly, she blinked. “I wonder how closely you could view the doings with a spyglass.”
Ashdowne simply stared at her a moment, then burst out laughing. Leave it to Georgiana to ignore the romance of such a spot while considering the practical applications of her visit. If she wasn’t so entertaining, he would have taken insult. Any other woman alone with him here would not be thinking of what was happening in the city, but any other woman wouldn’t see suspects behind every corner, either.
Georgiana’s unique perspective was both alluring and frustrating, for his thoughts were such that he wanted her attention on himself, for once, and not her case. “Surely, there must be something else in Bath besides robbery that could draw your interest,” he suggested wryly.
“Yes, but I am still unsettled by the theft. I keep feeling as if I’m missing something,” she mused thoughtfully.
Ashdowne knew what he was missing, but he was trying to keep his rampant desires in check. Despite the casual air he had long presented to the world, he was very aware of all that went on around him. It was necessary. He had to consider every detail and plan accordingly, for the slightest miscalculation could spell disaster. Never before had he allowed himself to become diverted from the business at hand, and yet, ever since meeting the intriguing Miss Bellewether, he had felt his control slipping.
It was slipping now.
Although he felt like Achilles going in for a boot fitting or Samson asking Delilah for a trim, the ominous sense that Georgiana meant his downfall was somehow all mixed up with the wild notion that she could well be his salvation. Ashdowne could no longer judge what was best. He knew an urge to surrender entirely to the force that had seized him and let it take him where it may.
Stepping behind her, Ashdowne leaned close in order to catch the delicate scent of her curls. He felt her sway toward him, and he knew a gratifying salve to his pride. Despite her behavior to the contrary, Georgiana was drawn to him, and her standoffishness became a challenge, filling him with a rush of excitement that made his body tighten.
He moved closer, laying his hands on her shoulders, and for one moment she leaned against him, her head resting upon his chest, before she jerked away to turn and glare at him accusingly. “I thought we agreed to keep to…business,” she said, her face deliciously pink.
“Actually, I had a more permanent relationship in mind,” Ashdowne said, reaching for her.
Totally ignoring the import of his words, she stepped back, holding up a hand as if to ward him off, and he grinned at her rather panicked expression. No woman had ever refused his advances, let alone fought them, but Georgiana’s seeming reluctance only incited his passion. Although he would never force her to do anything, Ashdowne knew from experience that she could be easily persuaded, and he fully intended to coax her willingly into his arms.
“No! Don’t come any closer,” she said, as if well aware of his intentions. “My mind gets all muddled when you are too near.” Her mouth took on a prim little twist that made him want to feel it relaxing beneath his own, but he remained where he stood, and when he raised a hand toward her face, she swatted it away. “And no touching!” she said.
Ashdowne tried his best to look innocent. “What if I but take your hand?” he asked.
“Well, I—”
Before she could answer, he caught one of her hands in his own, while lifting his brows, as if to question her wariness. But Georgiana remained chary, frowning at him in a manner that told him she knew him too well. “All right, but just my hand,” she said grudgingly.
Ashdowne laughed in pure delight, anticipation flooding his veins at her eventual surrender. He had never been a rake, prone to prey on young women, but this game with Georgiana was too enticing to relinquish. Once before he had made her moan and sigh and cling to him, had brought her to exquisite release, and he would do so again. He gazed into her dazed blue eyes and knew that she was aware of the power he wielded.
But Ashdowne had no intention of rushing anything. Making no sudden moves that might scare her away, he simply stood before her, holding her hand in what could be construed as a most innocent gesture. Then, very slowly, he began to rub his thumb over her palm, against the soft kid of her gloves, though he longed to strip the concealing fabric from her, to feel her bare skin as he had the other night in the baths.
The memory rushed over him, kicking Ashdowne’s desire to a new level as he stared down at her tiny wrist, enchanted by its delicacy. Lifting her wrist to his mouth, he pressed a kiss to her pulse point, smiling when it tripped erratically beneath his lips. He glanced up at her face, already flushed, to see her staring at him in rapt fascination.
Once certain he had her attention, Ashdowne took the edge of her glove in his teeth and tugged, watching her eyes widen and her lips part on a startled breath. Tugging gently, he slowly revealed an inch of pink palm and then another. He took his time, as if he were undressing her body for his viewing, and found that the ritual heightened his own excitement, as well as Georgiana’s.
Her delicate fingers followed as he edged the glove down to the tips and tossed it aside. With a groan, he pressed his mouth to the center of her palm as he tried to rein in his burgeoning passion. The delicate scent of Georgiana filled his nostrils, and he licked the tender skin on the inside of her hand, creating little circles. Moving on, he traced her fingers with his tongue, finding each tip and each indentation between.
Finally Ashdowne looked up, catching her gaze with his own, and took one small finger into his mouth. He sucked on it, watching her blue eyes glaze over as she blinked in an endearing manner. His own groin jerked in response, but he held himself still, his only movement the suckling of her fingers, the only sounds in the quiet grove that of their shallow breathing. Slowly, tenderly, he bit at her tiny nail, and she gasped and swayed, her legs giving way.
Ashdowne moved forward to catch her and press her back against the smoothness of his cloak spread upon the grass. He felt light-headed, aroused beyond anything he had ever known, and he had done nothing but lavish attention on her hand. With a low sound of straining impatience, he rose over her, eager to ply the rest of her body.
But something stopped him.
Hovering over her, his weight on his arms, Ashdowne stared at her beautiful face and paused. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips parted, and her head was thrown back, so that he could not mistake her desire. But her eyes were closed.
“Georgiana. Look at me,” he whispered.
Her lashes fluttered open to reveal a glimpse of hazy blue depths before drifting shut once more. Ashdowne remained prone just inches from her lush form, his groin throbbing painfully, every part of him screaming for release, for the pleasure to be found here, with her. He had but to lower himself and…
Instead, he rolled away and groaned, throwing an arm over his face. It would be so easy to take her, or even to satisfy them both and still leave her a virgin, but he felt a fraud, as if he had somehow robbed her of her choice in the matter. As absurd as it seemed, he wanted her to greet his lovemaking with her eyes wide-open, welcoming, wanting him no matter what. No matter all that stood between them.
With another groan, Ashdowne realized that he was just as mad as Georgiana! First he had begun to understand her, which was alarming enough, and now he was thinking like her, in bizarre convoluted ways that made no sense to anyone with wits! Muttering a curse, Ashdowne sat up and rose to his feet to stare unseeing at the panorama of Bath below.
“Ashdowne?” He felt her hand tugging at his sleeve, but he did not trust himself to face her. What would he see in her eyes? Dazed passion? Rebuke?
“Just the hand, remember?” he said as lightly as he could manage. “I was only to touch your hand and nothing else.” He turned then, with a casual grace he had long ago perfected, his expression bland.
“Ashdowne?” Whatever she was going to say was lost to the wind, as the sound of horses reached them. They both swung toward the path, where a pair of hack horses pulling what looked like some sort of converted cart came into view.
“There you are!”
Ashdowne recognized the cries but couldn’t believe his ears—or his eyes. Barreling toward them were Georgiana’s sisters in a ramshackle conveyance, driven by her brother Bertrand.
Ashdowne spared a moment to send up thanks that he was not right now under his companion’s skirts, deeply embedded in her gorgeous body, while he stared in amazement at the vehicle that came to a halt. Georgiana’s sisters, sporting matching parasols and frothy gowns, waved and giggled and fluttered their fans in greeting.
“We’ve been looking all over for you!” Araminta, the rather strident one, scolded. “Luckily, Miss Simms said you headed this way.”
“Mother sent us to fetch you!” Eustacia said, with a sidelong glance at Ashdowne that was intended to be beguiling but fell far short.
Bertrand, as usual, said nothing, having no doubt expended his meager supply of energy to search for them when he could be lounging in the Pump Room.
Georgiana, looking unrelated to any of them, glanced toward them and then back to Ashdowne, as if torn, until he nodded toward her family.
“You are obviously wanted,” he said, noting the new blush that pinked her cheeks at his soft words. Despite his frustration, Ashdowne had to admire her mother, who obviously had more sense than her gregarious husband. She was a wise woman not to trust him with her daughter, and Georgiana was wise not to give herself to him.
“Well, I suppose I must go,” she said, though she looked less than enthusiastic about joining her siblings. When she leaned close as to impart some fond farewell to him, Ashdowne drew in a sharp breath.
“I was hoping we might find Mr. Jeffries and see if he had shed any new light upon the case,” she confided.
Ashdowne stared at her, astounded that after what he considered a most momentous morning, all she could think about was the damned case. His pride flinched, along with the rest of him as he acknowledged his place in Georgiana’s world. But she was eyeing him expectantly, so he arranged his expression accordingly.
“Meet me in the Pump Room after luncheon, and we’ll see what we can do,” he said. She nodded furtively, and he smiled. “Try not to get into any trouble without me,” he added, touching her nose in a gesture of affection that was all he trusted himself to do.
She nodded again, and after several minutes of good-byes, Ashdowne waved as he watched the Bellewethers disappear down the hill. In the ensuing silence, he sighed, turning around to take in a view that had somehow lost its luster. Finally he moved to retrieve his cloak from the grass only to spot an errant piece of kid leather. He stooped to pick it up, rubbing the material between his fingers lovingly.
Georgiana’s glove. Tucking it into his pocket, he climbed into the curricle. He would return it to her later this afternoon, he told himself, but he knew he would not. Although he had never been the sentimental sort, he was deuced if he was going to give back the glove. He frowned, once more unable to sort out any thoughts but one.
He was doomed.
It seemed to Ashdowne as if he had finally begun to concentrate upon the correspondence from his bailiff when Finn knocked, although the manservant had been told not to interrupt him. Knowing that the Irishman disapproved of the boring business that came with the marquis’s title, Ashdowne suspected some manufactured emergency.
“This better be good,” he muttered as he bid the majordomo enter.
“A woman to see you, milord,” Finn said, his face impassive. “I put her in the drawing room, pending your instructions.”
Ashdowne, who had spent entirely too much time thinking about Georgiana, didn’t hesitate, but surged to his feet. He had warned her about coming to his residence, but she never heeded him. Never. The frustrations of this morning still simmering, he was beginning to think a lesson was in order. His jaw set, his face grim, he stalked toward the drawing room, pausing at the threshold to prevent her escape as he issued his threat.
“Bertrand had better be in there with you, or you’re a dead woman,” he said in a deliberately low voice. He never shouted, and he was not given to displays of temperament, but Georgiana could surely try a saint.
Only after the words had left his mouth did Ashdowne see the disarray in the room before him. Boxes and trunks littered the floor, a maid stood to one side, and the woman whose back was to him gasped and whirled around. To his horror, he saw immediately that it was not Georgiana, but a female with a taller, more slender form and dark hair.
Biting back an oath, Ashdowne recognized Anne, his dead brother’s wife. She stood staring at him, brown eyes wide, lips trembling, looking for all the world as though she might faint dead away. Knowing Anne, such a fit of vapors was a distinct possibility and one which Ashdowne hurried forward to forestall.
“Anne! I beg your pardon,” he said, but as soon as he took a step toward her, she stumbled backward, as if he were somehow frightening. Unfortunately, his brother’s wife seemed to view the entire world as rather terrifying, and Ashdowne, despite some effort, had been unable to convince her otherwise.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, as the realization that she had undertaken a journey on her own struck him full force. Anne had never traveled until Ashdowne, weary of her continued presence at the family seat, had pushed her off to visit relatives in London—to disastrous results. Upon returning home, she had sworn never to leave again, yet here she was, appearing on his doorstep without notice.
And regretting it, apparently. “Oh, I knew that I should not have come,” she whispered in her thin, reedy voice. And before Ashdowne could garner any explanation, she burst into tears and ran from the room, leaving her maid to glare at him while he frowned in annoyance.
Admittedly, since his assumption of the title, he had not been the carefree, reckless charmer of his youth, but he had never caused any other female to run, crying, from the room. Yet, this was not the first time Anne had fled his presence. At first, he had taken her mourning into consideration. Finally he had simply grown weary of her fragile sensibilities and packed her off to London—much to his later regret.
Now he knew better than to expect Anne to behave in anything but a fearful manner, and he heaved a sigh as her maid hurried after her. Instead of catching up on his correspondence, it looked as though he would have to spend the morning coddling his gentle but exasperating sister-in-law. It was one of the more onerous of his duties as marquis.
“Well?” Finn asked, appearing in the doorway.
Ashdowne shrugged and sent the Irishman a hard look. “You could have warned me,” he said. Glancing at the clock, he hurried toward the stairs. He was to meet Georgiana in the Pump Room soon, and no matter what happened here, he wasn’t about to be late. There was much still to be resolved between them, including the wretched investigation into Lady Culpepper’s theft.