Page 84 of A Dare too Far


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Had he scared her? She’d taken a leap coming to London, and now he was running her off. He had not known he wanted her to come after him until she was there, by his side, in kissing distance.

Run her off, you fool, the warning bell at the back of his head insisted.Run her off for her own good!

He held tighter. At least for now. He banished thoughts of his uncle—pale, his breaths shallow, lying like a corpse upstairs. Such a contrast to the woman before him, bouncing on her toes.

“Do you have any other family joining you today?”

“No,” George said. “Neville is my only uncle. I have family on my mother’s side, but they do not like reminders of the rather unmerry aspects of life. My aunt says she’ll join me when Uncle Neville is gone from these halls.”

“Hm.”

Jane’s disapproving sound made George want to kiss her again. He pulled her to the other side of the room. “Why did you come?”

A shadow spread across her face. “Do you wish me to return to the Clarke’s?”

“No. But I did not expect to see you.”

She dropped her gaze to her hands twisting before her. “I had already taken the risk to fall in love with you. Why not dare further and follow you to London? I wish to be by your side, to help in any way I can.” She lifted her eyes meet his. “You caught me when I fell. And now I wish to catch you.”

George did not hear her words so much as feel them in every atom of his being. He leaned low, pulled her close, and whispered in her ear, “How do you feel about spending Christmas day in bed? My bed.” Terribly bad idea.

Her palms flattened against chest. Her head tilted until her lips whispered against the underside of his jaw.

“No,” she said.

“No?”

“I’m quite delighted with your sister and brother-in-law, and I would like to sing carols and enjoy a repast with them. This is my first Christmas away from my own family, my own home. And it would be nice to see how others celebrate.”

“As you wish—” he stepped past her, stopping near her shoulder for only the length of time it took to say—“but tonight, after, you’re mine.”

She nodded, and the barely there movement felt like victory,wasvictory.

“Martha,” George called, striding toward the pianoforte where she now sat, lightly plonking out a tune. “When is dinner?”

Martha’s eyes darted toward Jane. “Neville’s… episode delayed things a bit.”

Jane joined Martha at the instrument. “I do hope he is well.”

Martha stood and circled the pianoforte. “It was nothing. He had a night terror while we were at church this morning, but his fever seems to have abated. The nightmares have come more often the past few days, and George is the only one who can calm him. The footmen did as well as they could until we arrived back home.”

Martha’s speech, offered so factually and calmly, felt like punches to George’s gut, reminders of the home he brought Jane to. Panic rose within him, and he sliced his fingernails into his palms to calm it. Yet the bolts of unease did not abate. When he’d had hope for his uncle’s recovery, asking her to come to London for Christmas had seemed a fine thing to do. Now he saw how stupid he’d been. But Jane was already here. She’d come to him, and he could not reward her bravery by sending her away.

Martha knelt beside her husband’s chair. “Are you ready to eat, Sebastian?”

“I’m famished.” He twined a trembling arm with his wife’s and leaned his weight into her as he stood. They crept toward the door arm in arm.

George wound his arm through Jane’s.

She’d thought falling in love a danger, but she’d never met George’s uncle in a frenzy.

He threw the thought away, abandoning all caution. She’d faced her fears. He would face his. For her. And he’d be her damned knight in shining armor if it came to that. He’d have to. Life with him came with sharp-toothed dragons.

Chapter 22

Jane could not look away from Lord Wix and his wife. Instead of sitting at far ends of the long dining table from one another, they sat right next to each other, on the other side of the table from George and Jane. Martha held the stem of a wine glass in one hand and her husband’s thin hand in the other, and Wix talked animatedly to George, something about a parliament. Jane should attend the conversation, but she could not stop contemplating the viscount and viscountess’s hands, intertwined for all to see. Their hands looked much alike, fingers long and slender and pale, the nails well-manicured. If one did not look closely, one would not see a difference. But then one saw a thumb with a slight dusting of light hair rub rhythmically against another thumb, saw the dying husband comfort the grieving wife.

More pain.