“Piffle!” Aunt Dottie said from the corner seat.
“I beg your pardon.” Aunt Agatha turned on her sister with freezing hauteur.
“Granted,” Aunt Dottie said loftily. “But only as long as you stop this hypocritical nonsense. We all know you’re thrilled to the back teeth, so stop ranting at poor George and pretending to be shocked!”
George blinked. Aunt Dottie, normally so mild mannered, had spoken quite sharply.
“Poor George?Pretending?Did you notseehow the wretched gel behaved?”
“It takes two, Aggie—or are you suggesting that the duke was a helpless innocent seduced against his will?”
“No, of course not, but—”
“The trouble with you, Aggie, is that you’ve never understood the power of passion. You never have and you never will.”
Aunt Agatha’s bosom swelled with indignation. “That’s rich, coming from the family spinster.”
Luckily, before the argument could get any worse, the carriage slowed. Aunt Dottie glanced out the window. “Ah, here we are back at Ashendon House, and look, Burton has waited up for us—see, he’s opening the door—and, oh, good, he has two footmen ready with umbrellas. No need to get down, Aggie. You go on home and get to bed. What we all need is a good night’s sleep. Everything will look better in the morning.”
Her sister snorted. “I doubt it.”
***
Hart punched his pillow. It wasn’t even dawn yet, but he was wide awake, despite having barely slept thenight before. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. Each time he’d drifted off to sleep, he’d awoken a short time later, restless, erect, taut with arousal.
Georgiana Rutherford... The taste of her was still in his mouth—along with the cognac he’d drunk when he got home. She’d fired his blood. The cognac hadn’t helped; it only inflamed his memory of the taste of her.
He ached for her.
That explosion of... passion, that... conflagration. Unfeigned, unforced. Her kisses were eager and untutored, but there was a wildness in her, a deep hunger that awakened something in him that he’d never felt before.
It made him uneasy. The whole situation had gotten perilously close to careering out of control. For a while there he’d quite lost his head. He never lost control. Particularly around women. Never.
He lay in bed, waiting for the dawn chorus in the trees outside, but there wasn’t a peep.
Of course it had all worked out as planned...
But his own, unplanned reaction still shocked him.
The taste of her mouth, the unique female fragrance of her, the remembered feel of her slender thighs locked around his waist... His body throbbed. Frustration. Futile agony. A damnable situation.
Exercise, that’s what he needed. Fresh air, fresh thoughts, not this everlasting churning of the same scenes over and over in his mind, reliving that extraordinary scene. Those kisses.
He lay brooding, then in a decisive move threw off his bedclothes and leapt out of bed. Dawn rides. She often went riding at dawn, Sinc said.
Hart washed, and donned his buckskins and boots and in a short time was heading for Hyde Park, just as the first rays of light gilded the spires of the churches.
The streets were already busy with costermongers and barrow-boys setting up; but the park, once he passed through the gates, was largely deserted. He rode for a short while, enjoying the loosening of his tense muscles and thefresh scent of the earth, damp and fragrant from the previous night’s downpour. The birds were awake now, and the twittering was deafening.
A movement caught his eye. He turned and there she was, demure and proper in a sage-green habit, riding her glorious black stallion sidesaddle, elegant as the finest lady. Her shaggy hound lolloped along beside her, then veered off on some canine errand.
There was no sign of the groom who’d accompanied her before. Good.
Hart started forward, then, with a muttered curse, reined in, as Cal Rutherford, her uncle and guardian, moved into view, mounted on a fine-looking bay gelding.
Damn. Hart had no intention of speaking to her guardian, not here, not now. His little fish was hooked but was not yet in his net.
She called out something and with a laugh raced away, riding fast and furious with a grace and skill few women had. And giving Cal Rutherford—no mean rider himself—a run for his money.
