He wasn’t saying.
She pulled away from him once they entered the barn. “Where is everyone?” She needed people about to ensure her safety from a kiss she shouldn’t want and that should not happen.
“About, I’m sure. Though with a single day left until Christmas, we’ve sent many home. It’s just family here. No need for formalities.”
Family. The word put a hitch in her steps. She stumbled as if it had appeared suddenly and physically before her, an unseen ha-ha in an otherwise even field. She was here. Did that mean he considered her family? Family to this large and loud group of people? She’d lost the only family she’d ever had, had never thought to gain one back. Had not thought she wished to gain one back. But… perhaps she did?
The word she’d stumbled over poured liquid gold inside her, ambrosia in linguistic form, bringing with it images of yesterday, everyone laughing as they played cards, teasing by the fire. Warm. And good. So very good.
He cupped her elbow and peered down at her, his fingertips sizzling heat through layers of clothing, heat so visceral she looked down to ensure his hands had not turned to fire. No gloves, but no flames, either. At least none either of them could see.
She yanked her arm away. “I’m well. Thank you. Where are these puppies you promised?”
“Wait a moment.” He spoke around a grin then strode off, disappearing into the bowels of the building.
When he did not soon return, Georgiana called out, “Jos. You’re not leaving me here like a fool, alone and cold are you?”
“Never!” His voice boomed back to her though she could not see him.
She ventured toward the sound, and then he appeared, bouncing into view.
“This way. I’ve made it just perfect for Lady Georgiana, mistress of London Town.”
“You do know how to make a lady suspicious.” She ventured carefully, one small step at a time until she passed through the stall doors and stood beside him, looking down at tumbling balls of fur. “Oh.”
“Go ahead,” he said, “kneel down and play. I’ve put a blanket over the hay to protect your skirts, and I’ve another one here.” He patted a dark blanket hung over the stall door. “We can rest it over your legs to protect your lap. Can’t help with your bodice unless I wrap you up from head to toe.”
She sank to her knees on the blanket, her hands fluttering to her belly, her belly fluttering for reasons related to the man behind her she’d rather not investigate.
Why’d she have to kiss him and ruin everything?
“Take one up,” he said, kneeling beside her and reaching for a tiny dog. “They won’t bite much. Watch out for sharp little teeth. Like daggers, they are.”
She glanced at him to see if he teased. It was entirely unable to tell, so she reached for a dog. They were brown with white blotches and floppy ears, and she touched her fingertips softly to one’s back. It whipped around to sniff, and she snatched her hand back. Another pup, another time, had sniffed her hand, licked it.
“Oh.” She pressed a hand to her cheek, digging deep into her memory, and stared firmly into the puppy-strewn hay. “It has been so very long since I’ve held a dog. I had one once. A little one. When I lived with my father and mother.” Pocket had been his name. She’d loved him more than a little. “It’s been so long since I thought of him. I missed him. When I first went to live with my aunt.”
“When was that?”
“When I was ten. Almost. Let’s see. It was the day after Christmas, and twenty-two days until my birthday.”
His hand wrapped around her neck and nudged her, encouraged her to look his way, and she did but dropped her gaze. Until his knuckles beneath her chin raised it, forced her to see his eyes. “Your parents sent you away during Christmas? When you were so young? Hell, Georgie. Did you know the woman they sent you to?”
“I’d met Aunt Prudence once before.”
“Once? And your parents sent you to live with her?”
“My father, the Earl of Hatchetford, was much in debt with too many children. I have nine brothers and sisters. Living ones. And when my aunt, my father’s sister offered to take me, my father and mother gladly shoved me off in her direction. She’d married rich. But she was widowed by the time I met her. They’d had no children, and everything was entailed except her dower share that went to some distant cousin, but she also had her own wealth, secreted away and invested with the help of a lover. She wanted an heiress to leave it to. Mostly as a final insult to her dead husband, a way of saying, look, a woman will inherit it all!”
Shadows fell heavy across his grim face. “She adopted you as an insult to her dead husband?”
Georgiana shrugged, the only way she could face the disgust in his voice. She’d never considered it as anything other than a fitting revenge for a man she’d been told was nothing but cruel.
“When you left to live with her, on Christmas day, did they travel with you? Your parents?” No disgust in his voice now. Only softness, the gentle reach out toward a wild thing that might bolt.
What need had Georgiana to bolt, though? They were just the facts of her own life. “No. My aunt sent a coach for me, and I was deposited on her doorstep, valise in hand.”
“Hell.”
