Unraveling the Earl (33 page)

“Alice, no,” Beatrice called from the open doorway.

“What did you do to him?” her cousin demanded, taking hold
of Georgie’s arms.

“I—I—I saved—him,” she stammered.

The tears she’d been fighting finally fell, cascading down
her cheeks, dribbling into the corners of her mouth and over her chin to run
down her neck.

“Saved him from what?” Alice asked, only marginally less
hostile.

She could not catch her breath. It was backed up in her
throat, choking her, making words impossible.

“God save me from weepy women.” Alice released her and
Georgie sank to her backside on the dais and wrapped her arms around her waist.
Bending over, she pressed her forehead to her knees and fought to breathe. When
air rushed into her lungs, it was born on a wrenching sob, followed by another
and another, until the sound of her crying filled the old chapel, bouncing off
the walls to lambast her with the proof of an effective flogging of her heart
and soul.

If this was how it felt to be good and clean and whole, she
was glad she was wicked and dirty and broken.

She was never again going to attempt another selfless act of
kindness.

Alice knelt in front of her and patted her head in an
awkward attempt at sympathy. “What were you attempting to save Hastings from,
child?”

Georgie looked up at her through her tangled curls. “Me.”

“Foolish chit.” Alice brushed her fingers over Georgie’s
cheeks. “There, there, dear, hush now. You’ll make yourself sick.”

At which point, Georgie Buchanan proceeded to do just that,
losing the meager contents of her stomach down the Countess of Piedmont’s
beaded black silk bodice.

There was nothing like waking with the sour taste of whiskey
coating one’s tongue and a marching band pounding out a tune against one’s
temples to remind a man, should he forget, that he was an idiot.

And on the off chance said man was still laboring under the
impression he possessed even a modicum of intelligence, an early morning visit
from his female relations was certain to disabuse him of the notion quite
effectively.

The Earl of Hastings was studiously ignoring a plate piled
high with coddled eggs, ham, bacon and buttered toast in favor of nursing a
glass of the hair of the dog when Olivia rushed into the dining room, Alice
strolling along in her wake.

“Oh, Henry, thank God you’re here.” Olivia rounded the table
and dropped into the chair at his left, eyeing his dressing gown with something
like horror. “Why are you not yet dressed?

“There’s no need to shout.” Henry winced as a straggling
drummer boy tapped out an encore just over his left eye. “And I am not dressed
because I have just awoken from a drunken stupor and I bloody well didn’t feel
like dressing.”

“I certainly was not shouting,” his sister replied, pitching
her voice a notch lower.

“Is Miss Buchanan perhaps hiding beneath the table linens?”
Alice asked as she took the seat to his right.

“Why would Miss Buchanan be hiding beneath the table
linens?” he inquired in a bored tone entirely at odds with the emotions
seething just below the surface.

“The possibilities are endless.” Alice plucked a piece of
ham from his forgotten plate and popped it into her mouth.

“She isn’t at home in Bedford Square,” Olivia informed him
as a footman placed a cup of tea liberally laced with cream before her.

Sweet cream. Fuzzy mold.

Another warning he’d ignored.

“Are you aware that your mother’s butler is now employed by
your betrothed?” Alice asked.

“Miss Buchanan is no longer my betrothed,” Henry corrected.
“And she likely hired Dobbins so she could wheedle information out of him. Why
were you two in Bedford Square?”

“Henry, she is still your betrothed,” Olivia chided gently.
“I know an announcement was not made last night but the betrothal notice was in
this morning’s paper. I don’t know what happened between you two in that chapel
but—”

“I have a fairly good idea of what happened,” Alice
interrupted with a sly smile but neither of the cousins paid her any mind.

“But whatever it was you can fix it, Henry,” Olivia
continued doggedly. “You must find Miss Buchanan and make things right. Now.
Today.”

“I have spent the better part of two months chasing after
Georgie Buchanan,” Henry replied. “And she only ever allowed herself to be
caught when she wanted something from me. I no longer have anything she wants.”

“Henry, what nonsense,” Olivia admonished. “I am quite
certain there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for whatever it is you
think Miss Buchanan has done.”

“I rather doubt there is even a single reasonable
explanation for anything Miss Buchanan does,” Alice replied with a laugh.
“Truly, I don’t know that I’ve ever met a sillier girl in my life.”

“Don’t let her fool you,” Henry cautioned. “Georgie has a
mind as sharp as a well-honed blade and she is forever using it to search out a
man’s deepest secrets to use as bargaining chips.”

“That is a ridiculous accusation,” Olivia said, giving his
fingers a squeeze. “The lady you left crying in the chapel last night certainly
hadn’t bargained for that sort of misery.”

“Georgie was crying?” Henry asked before good sense
returned. “She was putting on a show.”

“She isn’t that good an actress,” Alice argued. “Cybil
Fairley isn’t that good an actress.”

“Henry, she was crying like her heart had been ripped from
her breast and trampled beneath someone’s boots,” Olivia insisted. “Tears were
streaming down her face and she was sobbing until she couldn’t catch her
breath.”

“Sobbing until she made herself ill,” Alice tacked on.

“Georgie is ill?” Henry staggered to his feet.

“We don’t know that she is ill today, as Dobbins would not
allow us in the house.” Olivia rose with him, her hand still clutching his.
“But she lost her dinner last night.”

“Desert,” Alice corrected. “Raspberry crumble, if I’m not
mistaken. All over the bodice of my new gown.”

“Georgie was crying? Until she was ill?” Henry asked, the
beat of his heart nearly drowning out the sound of his voice.

“Because she’d sent you away,” Olivia whispered.

“Poor dear just kept sobbing about revenge tied up with a
pretty pink ribbon and saving your honor and integrity and a convoluted list of
qualities she believes you possess that when listed together make you sound
like a pompous bore.” Alice pulled Henry’s abandoned breakfast across the
table, nibbled a piece of bacon. “I could barely make heads or tails of it,
what with all the weeping and whatnot.”

“Christ, I’m an idiot.” Henry pulled his hand free of his
sister’s grasp and dragged it through his hair, his mind filled with the image
of Georgie as he’d last seen her. Fiery curls surrounding a pale face beneath
the multi-hued moonlight, eyes bright and lips trembling.

It had never been about vengeance at all, the pretty little
liar. Georgie had traded her future for his honor and all the other malarkey
that didn’t mean a damn thing without her.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” Beatrice strolled into the dining
room. “The darned morning malaise makes it impossible for me to rise from my
bed before noon most days. Where is Georgiana?”

“She’s not beneath the table linens,” Alice replied before
lifting Olivia’s cup and taking a dainty sip.

“Miss Buchanan has left Henry,” Olivia replied. “He’s after
finding her.”

“Georgie hasn’t left me,” Henry argued, circling around the
table and striding for the hall. “It was a misunderstanding, a little show of
pique. We’ll talk it out. I’ll apologize and she’ll laugh at me and we’ll kiss
and make up.”

“There, you see,” Beatrice exclaimed as he passed her. “I
knew Georgiana would not leave you.”

“I don’t know, Henry,” Olivia said, following on Henry’s
heels. “I don’t think Dobbins was prevaricating when he said she wasn’t at
home.”

“Henry, please don’t go chasing your tail all over Town.”
Beatrice turned to trail after her siblings. “Georgiana will come to her senses
and you simply must be here waiting for her when she does.”

“If you ask me, Hastings ought to let Georgiana Buchanan
chase him for a change.” Alice abandoned her purloined breakfast to join the
parade through the hall. “After all, she jilted him.”

“No one asked you,” Beatrice retorted.

“Georgie did not jilt me.” Henry took the stairs at a clip,
already rehearsing the things he would say when he pushed past Dobbins and
found Georgie in one of the gaudily decorated rooms in her house. Preferably
the bedchamber with its pink and green floral wallpaper and ugly matching
coverlet.

“Of course she didn’t,” Beatrice agreed. “If she’s anything
like me, her thoughts and emotions are all in a tangle just now, but she’ll be
back when she gets them sorted out properly.”

“Georgie is nothing like you.” Henry replied, impatient to
escape their chatter and be on his way. “She is unlike any other woman I’ve
ever met. She has her own brand of loyalty, warped ideas of right and wrong and
skewed notions of honor. And last night she bartered all of it, sacrificed her
happiness for mine. But I never agreed to any such trade and as soon as I tell
her so, all will be well.”

“Honestly, Bea, try to pull your head from beneath your
skirts,” Alice drawled, ignoring Henry’s words in favor of sparring with
Beatrice. “For whatever convoluted reason, the woman jilted Hastings.

“You pull your head from beneath your skirts, Alice,”
Beatrice snapped. “No woman in her right mind would jilt her fiancé when she is
carrying his babe.”

Henry missed the next step, banging his shin and grabbing
for the banister as the world tilted around him. His feet slipped out from
beneath him and he went down hard on his knees, turning at the last possible
moment so that his shoulder took the brunt of his fall rather than his chin.

“Georgiana’s with child? But how do you know?” Olivia
whispered as Henry slid down a step, completed the rotation and landed on his
ass, his gaze finding the ladies clustered like hens at the foot of the stairs.

“Like recognizes like.” Beatrice said with a graceful shrug
of one shoulder.

“Well that certainly explains why I ended up with raspberry
crumble dripping down my bodice.”

Some twenty minutes later the earl who’d so recently been
reminded he was an idiot realized that there was nothing quite like a
supercilious butler who’d once changed a mad countess’s nappies to effectively
raise an idiot’s temper to a boiling point.

“Get the hell out of my way,” Henry snarled, pushing past
Dobbins with enough force to send the man reeling out of his way.

“You cannot just barge into this house.” The old man lifted
his bald head to stare down his bulbous nose at the intruder in his domain.

“Where is Georgie?” Henry bellowed, his voice echoing off
the scarlet damask walls and the domed ceiling where nude nymphs cavorted.

“Miss Buchanan is not at home,” Dobbins replied from his
stance at the open door. “If you’d care to leave your calling card I’ll be
certain to see that my mistress receives it.”

“If you don’t tell me where Georgie is I’ll shove my calling
card so far up your—”

“What the hell is going on out here?”

The Duke of Mountjoy stood in an open doorway dressed in a
turquoise silk robe festooned with brightly colored embroidered dragons.

“Can’t a man get a few minutes of peace and quiet in his own
house?” Mountjoy demanded. “You, Bob and Weave, shut the fucking door and get
me a pot of strong coffee and some of those lemon things Cookie bakes for me.”

“The tarts, Your Grace?” Dobbins asked as he eased the door
closed.

“Bugger the tarts. The other, the heavy cakes. I’ll take
two.”

“Two slices of lemon pound cake and a carafe of coffee,
right away.” Dobbins bowed with great dignity.

“Not two slices, Booby, Boxer, whatever the hell your name
is. Two bloody cakes.” Mountjoy ignored the servant’s silent retreat to turn
his attention to the unexpected guest in the foyer. “You look like you were
rode hard and put away wet.”

Henry could hardly deny the words, seeing as he’d tossed on
whatever garments came to hand before riding hell for leather through the muddy
London streets. His hair was damp with sweat and sticking to his scalp, his
chin whiskered and his cravat and jacket forgotten. If that weren’t enough, he
suspected his waistcoat was not buttoned correctly, what with the way the gray
silk pulled beneath his left armpit.

“I realize it is unseemly, my arriving so early, Your
Grace,” Henry said, striving for a measure of gentlemanly conduct regardless of
the proof to the opposite. “But I must see Georgie immediately.”

“Hell, lad, I thought she spent the night with you.”

“You thought…after I gave you my word there would be no
further…er, dallying before the wedding?” Henry felt the flush crawl up his
neck as he sidestepped for all he was worth, wondering how Georgie managed it
without any telltale signs.

He would have to ask her the secret just as soon as he
apologized for his behavior the night before and begged her forgiveness for not
recognizing the bargain she’d offered up to save him.

Perhaps while they traveled to Gretna Green.

“Ach, I never expected you to hold to your word,” Mountjoy
replied with a rumbling laugh. “I only made you give it so’s to watch you
squirm.”

“What is it with you Buchanans?” Henry asked, fighting the
urge to tug at his waistcoat where it bit into his armpit. “Do you all of you
have such queer notions about honor?”

“I thought we were talking about words, not honor. Words are
just that. Spoken, sung, written, words are cheap. Shite, words can be bought
on any street corner for less than the price of a posy of wilted flowers.”

“A gentleman’s word is his vow and his honor is at stake
when he gives it.” Henry knew he ought not to argue given the dishonorable way
he’d behaved the previous night. All of the dishonorable, disgraceful and
disgusting ways he’d behaved.

“I’m a fucking duke so I guess I must be a gentleman but my
honor sure as hell isn’t tied up in anything so flimsy as the words I speak. My
honor is in my deeds, and make no mistake.”

Well, what do you know? The Duke of Mountjoy not only
possessed the same queer notions of honor as his cousin, he was also something
of a philosopher.

“You might as well come in and take a seat,” Mountjoy nodded
to the parlor at his back, a room decorated in an Oriental fashion complete
with teal silk walls, black lacquered furnishings with gold finishes and half a
dozen Chinese lanterns hanging from the ceiling. “George likely curled up in
her carriage to catch forty winks after the ball last night. Seeing as that
shrew of maid of hers would lop off the head of anyone who dares to wake the
lass, you might be waiting for a while.”

“Are you telling me Georgie did not come home last night?”

“I can’t rightly say.” His Grace scratched his chin beneath
his bristly beard. “I just rolled in with the sun myself.”

“Goddamn it,” Henry bellowed as he turned for the stairs,
taking them two at a time, ignoring the pounding behind his temples and the
panicked beat of his heart.

Georgie’s bedchamber was as neat as a pin, the garish floral
bedspread pulled tight beneath frilly pillows, the lace curtains motionless
before the closed windows.

The vanity was free of lotions and potions, the only item
sitting on the pristine surface a large jewelry box open to display the gems and
baubles organized down to the last earbob.