“I don’t care,” Georgie said.
It did hurt, a little, but then came pleasure. Georgie surrendered to instinct, not thinking at all, arching up to Vickery, their bodies striving together, a fierce and primitive dance, and she was hot, so hot, tension building inside her until it almost hurt—and then the tension released in great waves of pleasure. Georgie heard herself cry out breathlessly, heard Vickery cry out, and then the frantic dance slowed and stilled.
Vickery drew in a shuddering breath and rolled off her and gathered her in his arms, holding her close.
Georgie burrowed into him, inhaling the scent of his skin.
It was a perfect moment. A moment she never wanted to end. Slowly their breathing steadied. Slowly their heartbeats steadied. They lay together quietly, warm and sated and relaxed. Vickery stopped holding her quite so tightly. Georgie nestled in his embrace, her hand on his chest, drinking him in with her fingers. Warm skin, a little damp with perspiration, with that soft trail of hair leading downwards. My Vic.
His heart was beating in time with hers. Their breathing was exactly in unison, slow inhalation, slow exhalation.
We match each other, Vic and I.
Finally Vickery said, “Do you like my daydream?”
“I love your daydream,” Georgie told him. “May I borrow it?”
“If you wish.”
“Now?”
“If you wish,” he said again.
Georgie thought for a moment, making patterns on Vickery’s chest with one fingertip. “We’re riding along the beach, the horses are almost up to their bellies in the water, and you fall off—”
“Fall off? The devil I do.”
“You fall off your horse,” she repeated.
“No,” Vickery said, mock indignation in his voice. “I do not. I haven’t fallen off a horse since I was eleven.”
“It’s my daydream,” she protested.
“No, it’s mine,” he said. “And I’m not lending it to you if you make me fall off my horse.”
Georgie huffed out a breath, but what she really wanted to do was laugh. “All right.” She thought for a moment. “My hat blows off into the sea, and you jump in and rescue it for me.”
“Much better,” he said. “You may continue.”
She hid a smile against his skin. “It’s winter, and the water’s freezing, so I take you to the summerhouse to get warm, and I make you take off all your clothes.” She sat up suddenly and dragged on her nightgown. “But I keep mine on, because my clothes wouldn’t fit you.”
“What? You don’t give me your chemise to dry myself with?”
“Oh, no,” she said primly. “It wouldn’t be proper.”
Vickery laughed, as he hadn’t in days, and he looked so relaxed and so happy and so Vic that Georgie couldn’t resist leaning over and kissing him.
He kissed her back, one hand cupping the back of her head, holding her there. They kissed until they were both breathless, then Georgie drew back. She looked at him stretched out naked on the bed. “Poor Vic,” she said sorrowfully. “You’re so cold. Shivering.”
She drew one fingertip lightly up his thigh, which did make him shiver. “I need to warm you up, even if it isn’t proper . . .”
Chapter Twelve
September 16th, 1814
Cornwall
Alexander stared determinedly out the carriage window; it was either that or gaze at Georgiana with a foolish love-besotted smile on his face. He tried to concentrate on the sheer beauty of the day—the blue sky, the sunshine—but his head turned without his volition and he found himself looking at her again.
Damn it.
He wrenched his gaze from Georgiana and focused on the view out the window. He recognized this stretch of road. He’d walked it yesterday. Another minute and they’d be skirting the clifftops.
The carriage slowed to little more than walking pace. Alexander craned his head. There was the exact spot where he’d stood and watched the waves crashing eighty feet below.
He glanced at Dalrymple, and decided not to tell him how close they were to the cliff edge. His gaze slid to Georgiana. Happiness swelled in his chest. After a moment he realized he was doing it yet again: staring at her and smiling like a love-struck fool.
He tore his gaze away and glanced at Lord Dalrymple.
The viscount was watching him, his eyes slightly narrowed.
Alexander felt himself flush. Had Dalrymple guessed some part of what had occurred last night? Not the sex, he prayed. Let him not have guessed that. He cleared his throat. “Uh, sir . . . Georgiana and I have something we’d like to tell you.”
“Do you?” Dalrymple said, and there was a dry undertone in his voice that Alexander didn’t like the sound of.
Shit. He has guessed.
The carriage lurched to a halt. “Whoa!” he heard the coachman cry, and “Whoa!” from the coach-and-four behind.
The carriage swayed as the footman jumped down.
“What on earth?” Georgiana said.
“Sheep on the road, probably,” Alexander said, opening the door and jumping down himself.
It wasn’t sheep on the road ahead of them; it was a boy and a cart and a donkey.
The cart was tilted at a dangerous angle over the cliff, one wheel off the road. The donkey was straining and so was the boy, every line of his body taut with desperation. “Help!” he cried out. “Help!”
Alexander ran. For a moment all was frantic effort, he and the footman heaving and hauling, and then the cart lurched up onto the road again. He turned to the boy. “You all right?” But the boy paid him no attention. He abandoned the cart and ran to the cliff edge. “Janey!” he screamed.
Alexander’s chest tightened with foreboding. He crossed to the boy, crouched, and looked over.
He saw rocks.
Rocks and sea.
Rocks and sea and a girl clinging to the cliff, about twenty feet down.
For a moment it looked impossible—the cliff too sheer, the drop too far, the sea-smashed rocks at the bottom too brutal—and then Alexander’s brain started working again. “Hold tight,” he called down. “We’ll get you up.”
He wasn’t sure the girl heard. She was clinging white-knuckled to a thorn bush, her face bloodless with terror, wisps of hair whipping about her head in the breeze. She looked about fourteen years old, halfway between childhood and adulthood.
Someone crouched alongside him, peered over the side, and recoiled. “Mother of God.”
Alexander glanced at him: the footman, as white-faced as the girl. “Fetch Greenlow.”
The footman scrambled to his feet.
Alexander looked over the side again. He studied the cliff. The rocks at the bottom were still sharp in the foaming waves, but the cliff itself wasn’t nearly as steep as he’d first thought. “Hold tight,” he called down again. “Won’t be long.” And then he said to the boy, sobbing alongside him, “We’ll get her up, I promise.”
He looked west, and saw that the cliffs grew steeper. Looked east, and found a relatively gentle slope down to the water.
“Your Grace?”
Alexander glanced around. The senior coachman crouched where the footman had been. Behind him were his valet, Fletcher, and Georgiana.