‘You are not being any help,’ said Edmund, gazing down at the almost-comatose dog. ‘You are the one person—I mean creature—who knows her as well as I, since you were there for many of our escapades. Have you no useful advice to give me?’
Of course Lion didn’t have any advice to give. He was a dog. By heaven, he was actually talking to a dog, instead of sitting down and going over the encounter with Georgiana in a rational fashion.
But how on earth could he possibly go over the encounter in a rational fashion, when it felt as if he’d been beaten about the body all day by a series of highly irrational explosions?
First, the letter had infuriated him, dredging up as it had a whole host of insecurities and hurts he’d deliberately buried beneath years of strenuous denial.
And then there had been his visceral reaction to seeing her again, standing in the place that represented a sort of oasis during his childhood, wearing that figure-hugging, vibrant pink gown that stood out like a beacon against the background of all those dead reeds. His entire body had leaped in response. That was what it had felt like. Almost the same as the feeling he’d had when taking part in those experiments with galvanism. An involuntary reaction in his muscles that had nothing to do with his brain, his intellect.
And then she’d shocked his mind too, with that completely unexpected proposal. But what had been most shocking about it was the fact that, for a moment, he’d actually considered it. Even though he’d assumed she’d only proposed out of ambition to become a countess.
Which had made him twice as angry as he might have been when she’d explained that the reason she wanted him was because, primarily, she didn’t think he’d be interested in bedding her. She might as well have spat in his face. Which had, in turn, provoked him into telling her exactly what he wanted from marriage. The words had come pouring out of his mouth like a dam bursting, in spite of never having actually sat down and thought it through.
He strode to the sideboard and wrested the top from the decanter.
He couldn’t believe, now, that he’d become angry enough to grab her. Grab her! Which meant that he’d been so close to her that when he’d drawn breath, he’d unwittingly filled his nostrils with the scent of her. And had, at the same time, become aware of the warm contours of her shoulders, rising and falling under his palms.
He shook his head as he poured himself a large brandy. If he didn’t habitually keep such firm control over himself, he’d have flung her to the ground right there and shown her exactly how normal and healthy his appetites could be.
What man wouldn’t react that way to having such a slur cast on his masculinity?
He downed half the drink and slammed the glass back down on the sideboard.
And how on earth had she reached the conclusion that sexual congress was a revolting act that would humiliate her, anyway? Though at least he now could see why she’d wanted the sterile union she’d imagined she’d have with him.
He whirled away from the sideboard and strode to the window. What was he doing, taking brandy at this time of day? Five minutes in her presence and she’d driven him to drink.
And yet...
She’d turned to him. She might have insulted him in the process, but she had practically begged him for help.
He braced his hands on the windowsill and gazed out in the direction of their stream. If only he’d stayed calm and cool and rational, he could have walked away from that encounter feeling like a victor. Instead of which...
An image of her face swam before his eyes. Her face, not as it had been today, all pinched up as she struggled not to cry, her whole body rigid with the effort of sacrificing her pride and begging him to rescue her from being bedded by a Real Man, but alight with laughter as she hung upside down by her legs from a tree.
‘I still miss her, Lion,’ he whispered, bowing his head in defeat. ‘Where did she go? What happened to that girl who wasn’t afraid of anything, or anyone, to turn her into the woman she is today?’
And, more importantly, what was he going to do about it?
Nothing. That was what he was going to do. Not until he was able to think straight. He’d learned at his mother’s knee that giving way to an emotional appeal, out of pity, or guilt, or a sense of indebtedness, or...whatever, only resulted in him committing what he’d later regard as an error of judgement.
But in spite of constantly reminding himself that he had far more important matters to think about, Georgiana’s outrageous proposal, and, to his mind, his even more disgraceful reaction to it, kept on pushing everything else aside.
They even affected the way he dealt with estate business.
‘I do not care what my mother says,’ he found himself saying, shocking both himself and his steward by pounding his fist on the desk. ‘I am the Earl of Ashenden. I am running this estate and all my other holdings. And if I wish to...to plant the whole of the water meadow with pineapples, she has no right to gainsay it.’
Rowlands’s jaw dropped. ‘Pineapples, my lord?’
‘It was merely a hypothetical example,’ Edmund bit out. ‘The point is, my word here is law. Or should be.’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘Then why do you persist in coming to me to report that work has not been done because the Countess would not like it? I do not,’ he said, rising to his feet and leaning forward, resting his palms on the desk, ‘wish to hear that excuse ever again. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, my lord,’ said Rowlands, twisting the sheaf of papers he held in his hand into a tight screw.
Edmund wiped his hand across his face. Devil take it, he was losing his temper with a subordinate. Shouting at a man who had not the liberty to answer back.
It was because he was tired, that was what it was. He’d fallen asleep with Georgiana on his mind, then been plagued all night by dreams in which he’d watched her being dragged to the altar by a variety of unsavoury-looking characters. Worse still, he was always present during the subsequent wedding night. Time and again, she’d turn her big brown eyes to him as the men had been stripping her naked and pushing her on to the bed, pleading with him to come to her rescue. But he never could. Either his legs had remained stubbornly immobile, no matter how hard he’d struggled to get to her. Or he’d reached out to thrust the shadowy bridegroom away, only to find his hand was pushing at empty air. At which point he would awake, sweating, and roused, and ashamed. Because he couldn’t be sure that his motives for getting to Georgiana were completely honourable. Had he been trying to rescue her, or did he simply want to replace the man in her bed?
Self-disgust had him getting up hours before his hapless valet could reasonably have expected a summons, ordering a breakfast which he couldn’t manage to eat and then marching down to the boathouse.
He must have rowed upstream for the best part of an hour. But no matter how hard he pushed himself, he could not achieve the clarity of mind that being out on the open water normally bestowed.
Infuriated to find that he couldn’t even escape her out there, he allowed the current to carry him back to the boathouse, and stalked to his study in the hopes that he could bury himself in work. And this was the result.
‘I appreciate you are in a most awkward position, Rowlands,’ he said as he sat down. ‘I am asking you to carry out orders of which she does not approve. I know that she comes here far more often than I and that you have been used to doing her bidding for some considerable time.’
Rowlands flushed. ‘We were all that grateful she took up the reins when your father dropped them, my lord,’ he pointed out. ‘Begging