“Put your legs around me,” he murmured, and without thought she locked her legs around his waist and, oh, that was better. Like riding, she was more in control. Her back was pressed against the wall, his hard swollen masculinity pressed against the notch between her legs and she rubbed herself against him like a cat in heat, kissing and nipping and biting.
He groaned and returned thrust for thrust, all the time, kissing her deep, keeping her head swirling while her body ached and writhed against him.
“Georgiana Rutherford!” The outraged voice of Aunt Agatha pierced the swirling mists of George’s awareness. Dizzily she pulled back, tried to focus.
“Georgiana!”
Reality came back to her in ragged shreds. She was clinging to him, her fingers knotted in his hair, the skirts of her dress were rucked up high around her thighs, and her legs—oh, lord, but her legs were wrapped around his waist. Worse, his warm hand was between them!
For a moment she couldn’t remember whether she was even wearing any drawers, and she felt for them surreptitiously and heaved a sigh of relief when she found she was.
Aunt Agatha was of the old school that held that drawers on a female were a scandalous French plot against English womanhood, but George felt much more secure in them. They weren’t as good as breeches, but at least she wasn’t bare-arse naked under her skirts and open to all sorts of drafts.
“Georgiana Rutherford, you’re a disgrace! Get down from that man immediately!”
George unlocked her legs, and dropped to the floor, wriggling and tugging her skirts back into some semblance of decency, her hands shaking, her brain reeling as she tried to come to terms with what had just happened.
She’d been completely out of control. Had let him do whatever he wanted to her. Worse—she’d wanted him to do it, and more.
She slowly became aware of a babble of voices, and when she peered past the duke’s broad shoulders, oh, lord, it wasn’t only Aunt Agatha gaping and gobbling at her like an outraged turkey, it was half the audience at the concert. People had come out for their supper, and found George and the duke locked in each other’s arms.
A hundred eyes burned into her, curious, scandalized, shocked, disgusted, avid, eating up her mortification with delight. George wished she could shrivel away on the spot. Could it get any worse?
The duke’s arms were still wrapped around her, supporting her firmly against him, which was a good thing, she thought blurrily, because sure as anything her legs weren’t.
“Redmond Jasper Hartley, what is the meaning of this?” Aunt Agatha demanded stridently. Not even “your grace.”
“I would have thought it was perfectly obvious, Lady Salter,” the duke said in a cold, clear voice that cut through the buzzing of scandalized comment. George blinked at his apparent dispassion. He sounded perfectly calm and unruffled, even though she could feel that his heart was pounding as raggedly as hers.
“Lady Georgiana has just agreed to become my wife. We were sealing our betrothal with a kiss.”
His words drew a wave of muttered comment. Aunt Agatha’s brows snapped together.
Wife?George’s brain snapped back into life.Betrothal?“No, that’s not right—”
“Betrothal?” Aunt Agatha cut her off sharply. Pasting a smile on her face, she gushed, “Georgiana, my dearest gel, congratulations. No wonder you are all about with excitement—your head must be spinning.”
By now, the concert room had emptied into the hallway. Delicious smells wafted from the supper room but nobody moved. A much more interesting dish was being passed around; Lady Georgiana Rutherford, caughtin flagrantewith her legs wrapped around the waist of the Duke of Everingham—her own aunt’s jilted bridegroom!
Aunt Agatha turned to the crowd. “Friends, how wonderful that you are here to witness the romantic betrothal of my niece, Lady Georgiana Rutherford—”
“No! I amnotbetroth—” George tried to make herself heard.
Aunt Agatha’s voice rose, sharper and loud enough to fill an opera hall. “—to his grace, the Duke of Everingham. A moment of high romance, I think you would all agree.”
After the first gasp of shock, a scattering of applause started and a murmuring that grew to a swell of congratulation. And some surreptitious muttering.
“I am not betr—” George tried again.
And again, Aunt Agatha, oozing self-satisfaction, cut her off. “I promoted the match myself, you know.”
“We arenotbetrothed!” George shouted.
“Of course you are,” Aunt Agatha said.
The duke pulled her against him. “She’s a little overwhelmed,” he told the crowd.
“I amnotoverwh—”
