Pretty Persuasion (15 page)

"Lemonade?"

Georgie jerked her gaze to his face. His eyes were narrowed, perhaps because he had caught her staring. Or perhaps because he recalled the last picnic they had attended before he left for the West Indies. It had been mere days after the maze incident, and it was the day she decided to do all that was in her power to make him uncomfortable. So she had "accidentally" spilled lemonade in his lap. He had not been happy.

She tilted her head and glimpsed the top of a long-necked bottle in the basket. "Champagne, please."

Unblinking, he fished out the bottle, then proceeded to cover the blanket between them with so much food she nearly felt full at the sight. There was chicken and ribs, ham and pies, bread and cheese, puddings and fruit—and that was just to begin with. Cook must have thought she was preparing a feast for dozens.

Feeling restless, Georgie distracted herself from his presence by concentrating on the food—on the juicy, cold chicken seasoned with herbs, the sharp cheese, and the freshly baked bread. And most pleasing of all, the sparkling champagne that tickled her nose and rolled frothy and cool over her tongue.

She consumed far more of the sumptuous food than she ought, occasionally glancing at Robert only to find his eyes fixed on her. She, quite unintentionally, did the same—meeting his gaze boldly one moment, then looking away, pretending indifference until she worked up the courage to look at him again.

Perhaps there was some sort of ceremony they had yet to perform, phrases that must be uttered after a woman let a man shove his tongue down her throat—and had no intention of doing so again. Something that would put an end to the tension, quiet the hum of words unspoken that seemed to hang suspended between them.

Whatever had to be said to settle things, she suspected "We're even now" was not it.

"Why did you do it?" he asked so suddenly she nearly sloshed champagne on herself.

Steadying her hand, Georgie took a sip of the bubbly wine, then cleared her throat. "Do what?"

"The lemonade," he explained. "Don't pretend you don't remember. It was the first attack in a campaign to make a pest of yourself, so you're not likely to forget."

She knew she'd blush if she looked at him, so she stared into her glass instead. "Why would I need a specific reason?"

"Because until then, you had been nothing but friendly."

"An angel, was I?" she said with self-deprecating humor.

"Oh, no," he replied. "Never that."

Deciding to see what had been packed for dessert, she inched closer to the basket and peered inside. After a moment's hesitation, she picked out a bowl of yellow pudding.

"Friends, Georgie," Robert murmured close to her ear; he had slinked up beside her. She gave a start and nearly dropped the dessert, but he took it from her hands just in time and set it on the ground.

And then he captured her gaze, so firmly she could not break free. "We were friends," he said quietly. "But you turned on me, and I want to know why. It's not too much to ask, is it?"

Well, no, not really… "I merely discovered what a despicable rat you are."

His eyebrows shot up. Letting him think on that, she shifted back to her spot on the blanket, putting a checkered pillow under her bottom.

"A despicable rat?" he finally said incredulously, just as she picked up a spoon and dug into the mouthwatering pudding.

"Mmhmm." The taste of tangy lemon melted on her tongue, and she closed her eyes and sighed with delight. "Oh, I love canary pudding." She opened and raised her eyes to his. "You ought to try it."

He simply stared at her. "A despicable rat." He hesitated, as if he were stating a fact without quite understanding why it was so. "How exactly did you make this enlightening discovery?"

She pulled the spoon slowly out of her mouth to capture the remnants of flavor. "I don't think I ought to tell you that. You won't like it, and I don't want to spoil the day."

Seeming baffled, he fell back to rest on his elbow. "What did you think telling me I'm a…
despicable rat
would do, if not spoil the day?"

"You wanted the truth, did you not? And besides, you take insults so well, I assumed it would scarcely discompose you."

"You assumed," he said in a caustic tone. Pushing aside empty plates, he cleared a path and slid across the blanket until he sat so close his leg touched her skirts. "Assume this, then. You're going to tell me what happened, or we return to London at first light tomorrow."

Georgie's temper flared. "That was not the agreement. You can't change the rules like that. It's—"

"It's time you understood there's only one rule," he interrupted. "For the duration of our stay here, you do as I say, or I will rush you pell-mell back to your parents. That is my reward for humoring you."

Spots appeared before her line of vision, and with the rush of blood, a swooshing sound filled her ears. Her gaze fell to the bowl of pudding she held. It would only take one quick twist of her wrist—

He snatched the bowl away. She cried out in protest as he stole her spoon as well.

"I think not," he said, flashing a thin smile. "Not today."

"And you wonder why I think you're despicable," she spat. "I wasn't done with that."

Arching an eyebrow, he dipped the spoon in the pudding, then lifted to hold it a couple of inches from her lips. Her jaw fell. Did he really think she'd let him feed her, like a child still in the nursery? She started a scathing retort, but he took advantage of her opened mouth and put the spoon inside, and she automatically clamped down. The mouthful slithered over her tongue, tasting delicious still. She swallowed quickly.

He had another spoonful ready but held it back. "Confess."

Robert waited for her to respond, breath bated. She held her lips pinched, glaring at him, and as she gave no response, it became a test of whose gaze would waver first. And that was why he felt a wave of victorious pride when she bent her head and grabbed his hand. Speechless, he watched her dip her head toward the spoon. She wrapped her full, red lips around it and gazed up at him through lazy lids. At first, he recognized nothing but innocence in her expression, but he was not surprised when a devil crept into the depths of her violet irises.

His mouth went dry, and he felt the tug on his hand straight down to his groin. The sight was agonizingly erotic, made even more so because the action seemed so calculated on her part. Did she have any idea what she was doing? And more importantly, would she, please, do it again?

He scooped up another spoonful and moved it to her lips, but as they parted to take it in, his hand quivered and the pudding spilled over the edge. It landed with a splat on her chest, an inch above her modest neckline, where it trickled down toward the valley between her breasts.

As Georgie hissed in her breath, he quickly stopped its progress with his thumb, brushing most of the squashy mass off before it disappeared into her bodice. He started an apology for his clumsiness when she did the unexpected again. Dipping her head, she took his thumb in the warm, moist hollow of her mouth. Growing hot and hard in an instant, he stared, mesmerized, as she sucked and licked his thumb clean. His pulse kicked off in a gallop, and raw need rushed through his veins.

She stopped abruptly, pulling her head back, and he was left in a dumbfounded state with a sticky, wet thumb and an exigent erection. He had not even begun to recover his wits when she frowned at his hand and said in the most diabolically affected voice, "Oh, I missed a spot."

Her head dipped, and he watched his thumb disappear between her full, pursed lips again. She knew what she was doing, if not consciously, at least on some primal level. He saw it in every deliberate motion, every stroke of her tongue against his flesh, in the sensuous imitation that was driving him half mad with the desire to toss up her skirts and bury himself inside her.

He became vaguely aware of the sound of horses whinnying. Suddenly, a mocking voice invaded his lust-dazed mind. "Well, gentlemen, I dare say we have found an answer to our question. I don't think she married Rossemore after all."

"O! I hate Anthony Balfour! I vow, if he calls me Spotty or Gangly Bits again, I shall scratch out his eyes and feed them to the stable cats! Why cannot Robert have a more agreeable brother? And why are they such famous friends? It must be to Robert's Credit; he abhors and is abhorred by no one."

— From the diary of Lady Georgiana Montford, aged 11

"BLOODY HELL," ROBERT muttered beneath his breath as Georgie's heart gave a little hiccup, then jumped into her throat. She felt his thumb slip out of her mouth, and as she followed his gaze across the clearing, a quiet groan escaped her.

Their audience, as it were, loomed tall and imposing on four equally striking horses. The voice belonged to her golden-haired cousin Hugo, whose countenance seemed uncommonly fitting to his nickname, Grim. It took Georgie a moment to recognize the dour man on his left as Anthony Balfour, perched on a charger and wearing civilian brown instead of the scarlet of his cavalry regiment.

There was no mistaking the russet hair visible beneath the brim of her cousin Edward's hat, and in their midst, his restless gray a step ahead of the other horses, sat her brother, Richard.

Georgie felt as if she had fallen into a pit of mortification so deep she could spend the rest of her life trying to scramble out of it and still never see the light of day. It hit her how ignominious, how utterly mad her behavior of the previous minutes had been, and she didn't know which was worse: that she had done it or that she had been caught.

"Robert?" she whispered.

"Hmm." He got to his feet and reached out a hand to help her up.

She accepted his assistance, then quickly smoothed down her skirt. "Could you dig me a hole in the ground?"

His eyebrows creased. "What?"

"So I can crawl into it and die," she muttered.

He looked startled, then a quiet burst of laughter rumbled in his chest. His hand closed around her own. "I'd oblige you, except I have no intention of handling your irate relatives on my own."

She supposed that was only fair. The four men rudely remained seated on their horses as Robert and Georgie crossed the clearing. The warmth from Robert's hand lent her the courage to meet their eyes squarely as she approached.

"They don't look particularly irate," she commented. Robert let out a grunt of agreement, and suddenly, the hand wrapped around hers gave comfort no longer. Walking hand in hand, they must look the very picture of a happy couple—a couple that had reached an understanding. No wonder the men did not seem angry.

She jerked her hand away from Robert's. Afraid of what he would say if she let him speak for her, she resolved to take charge. She would attack, and attack swiftly, on her own. "Richard!" she said happily. "And Edward and Hugo. What a wonderful surprise! But whatever are you doing here?"

"I believe they're concerned with the welfare of their wayward sister and cousin," Anthony took it upon himself to reply. He was, unfortunately, not easily ignored.

Georgie whipped her head toward him. "And you?" she said with false sweetness. "Pray tell, Mr. Balfour, what caused you to travel all this way when we could just as well hear your braying all the way from London?"

His lips pursed, and he hesitated, eyes shifting. Finally, he ground out, "Brotherly love. I was concerned for Robert's health. Too much of you could damage a man beyond reparation. Much like cheap gin."

She felt Robert stiffen beside her. "Tony—"

"Come now," Hugo interjected lightly as he moved to dismount. "I think we all know our Georgie's anything but cheap."

Georgie flashed her cousin an appreciative grin. He'd serve her well enough as a provisional ally, and so she waited until his feet were planted on the ground, then hurried to him and threw herself into his arms. He returned the hug with a quick, brotherly squeeze.

"I'm so pleased you're here," she said, linking her arm through his.

"And I you, cousin Georgiana," he replied, one corner of his mouth twitching. He obviously knew she was using him as a distraction and seemed willing to humor her. "You're looking very well, if I may say so."

"You may, and I thank you. It's the country air, I'm sure."

"Enough!" her brother barked. "I would be much obliged if you'd cut the twaddle and explain what is going on."

"I assure you, it's easily explained," Robert began.

Georgie cut him off, saying to her brother, "How odd. I would have thought you'd recognize a picnic when you saw one."

"Not the picnic," Richard said with measured calm, as if he'd anticipated her response. "Balfour said you'd eloped with that coxcomb Rossemore. You can imagine our surprise to arrive and find you crawling all over Sheffield."

Georgie huffed. "I was hardly crawling—"

She stopped short, remembering that the night before she'd been doing just that. And she had no intention of acknowledging that anything at all had just happened, let alone anything improper.

Edward chose that moment to cut in, commenting in his bored-yet-piqued tone. "It's deuced inconsiderate of you, Georgie. You could play slap-and-tickle with every able man in Yorkshire for all I care if it weren't certain to put the elders in a snit. They'll take it out on us, too, y'know."

She shot her cousin a glare, not surprised he'd found some way to make himself the wounded party.

"Well?" her brother demanded.

A worm of unease crawled through Georgie as she eyed the five men in turn. Richard sat rigid as he awaited her response, and Edward's sour expression still reflected his resentment towards her. She ignored Anthony and slid her gaze to Robert's now taut face. Even Hugo's arm felt tense beneath her hand.

Her discomfort gave way to annoyance. She could find no reason why she must answer to either one of them. "I'm fatigued," she said curtly. "I have not been well, and I should like to return to the house now. You'll escort me, Hugo?"

"Of course, my dear," he said with a smile.