Page 6 of A Bet with a Duchess (The Gambling Dukes #1)

SIX

Georgiana

When I opened my eyes, it was to see a spattering of daylight across my ceiling, and to feel the regret I had gone to sleep with still settled in my chest.

“It was a mistake,” I told myself in the warming darkness, the curtains around the bay window not quite managing to keep out the glorious early morning sun. “A mistake. People made mistakes. It didn’t mean I was weak.”

But I was. I knew I was, and there were not sufficient words in the world to prove me otherwise.

My actions had done that work for me.

“You’re the one who said you’ve stacked the deck.”

“I didn’t know you’d be the dealer. Kiss me, Fynn.”

I groaned as I closed my eyes, then forced myself to get up. Lying here in bed, feeling guilty about permitting Fynn Monroe to kiss me—kiss me expertly, awakening things in me I had thought long dead, or at the very least dormant—wasn’t going to do me any good.

I needed to get moving. Move away from the assumption I could just fall into bed with the next gentleman who offered me…well. Sensual delights the like I had never known.

No one had ever kissed me like that.

As I dressed, I tried to push away the memories of just how dominant, how powerful, how certain Fynn had been.

He had wanted me. I had felt his need, not just his manhood pressing against me, hinting at promises he could most definitely keep, but in the way he had kissed me. The reverential way he had kissed my…

I grazed a finger along my collarbone but felt none of the awakening he had inspired. Strange. I had never thought of my collarbone as a particularly sensual part of the body.

He had proved me wrong.

But that was neither here nor there, I told myself firmly as I walked downstairs into the cool early morning air. It was a moment of weakness, yes, but I was stronger than that.

At least, I now knew where my weakness could lie.

And that was why I was going to avoid Mr. Fynn Monroe as best I could for the rest of his visit, which surely wouldn’t be long now. I mean, it was Thursday. Today, tomorrow, and he would be gone.

Forever.

And that was why, I told myself, I was just going to…check on him. There could be no harm found, after all, by checking on Fynn. Checking he had everything he wanted to conclude his investigation, and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Gambling Dukes were absolutely spick and span.

Cleaner than a whistle.

That was why I found myself standing outside the drawing room which I had allotted as his personal study. There could surely be no other reason. Surely.

I cleared my throat but could not open the door. I stood there, like the fool I was.

It was about Paul, I tried to convince myself. I was lonely, yes, and a little heartsore.

But that did not mean I was going to throw myself into the arms of the first man who knew how to kiss without slobbering all over me.

“Ah, there you are,” said Fynn absent-mindedly from the desk in the big bay window as I opened the door and stepped into the drawing room. “I was about to go onto the terrace to look for you.”

My stomach twisted horribly.

No, not horribly. I could try to tell myself that it was a horrible sensation, try to convince myself I had no wish to see him, that my visceral reaction to him was pain, or disgust, but I would be lying to myself.

My breath caught in my throat. Goodness, he was so handsome. Painfully handsome. The way his hair was all ruffled this early in the morning, he clearly hadn’t bothered yet to do anything with it. His feet were crossed on the desk, his long legs strong and covered in tight breeches that trailed upwards, leading me to?—

I almost tripped over a side table and cursed my inability to concentrate whenever Fynn was in the room.

That was why I had allowed it to happen. Yesterday. The kiss—well, many kisses—which certainly should not have happened.

Which would not happen again.

“Are you leaving today?” I asked crisply.

Fynn’s head jerked up from the ledger resting on his knees. “What?”

“Well, as you haven’t found anything,” I said, as airily as I could manage, “I thought you may wish to return to London. Your friends must be missing you after all, and your editor must have plenty of work for you to be getting on with, and then…well. Any lady that you are courting must miss you, I suppose…”

Damn. The words had slipped out of me before I could do anything to stop them, and I could feel my cheeks darkening with heat.

Fynn’s lips curved into a smile that was far too knowing. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard what I—never mind,” I said swiftly.

My hands, nervous, smoothed the blue gown I had picked out that morning.

“The one that brings out your eyes,” Lilah had called it a few months ago when I had ordered it from my modiste, partly against my wishes, from an up and coming designer from France.

I had to admit, it did. The trouble was, Fynn was now gazing into those eyes, and he seemed to bore into me, deeper and deeper until I found I could keep nothing from him.

Nothing.

“Did you just ask me if I was courting anyone?” he asked, delight in his tones.

“You have found nothing and I have given you full access to our archives,” I said in a rush, trying to calm my voice, trying to slow the panic within me.

I couldn’t let him see that I…what?

That I liked him?

I almost laughed at the ridiculous thought. I think, after yesterday, Fynn had plenty of evidence I liked him without me needing to ask such ridiculous questions.

“Kiss me, Fynn.”

A shiver rushed through me and as my gaze caught his, I knew somehow he was thinking of the same moment. The same request.

God, he could have had me begging on that desk if Kineallen hadn’t interrupted us.

Fynn carefully placed his notebook on the desk and dropped his feet to the ground. “Let me get this straight. Are you asking me to leave?”

I bit my lip as I stopped right before the desk, the infuriating man only feet away.

No. I couldn’t ask him to leave; that would seem suspicious, as though I, we, had something to hide. As though I was worried if he stayed much longer, he would find it.

As though the Gambling Dukes had ever been anything but completely above board.

The trouble was, every hour Fynn remained here I could feel my self-control ebbing away. More accurately, being kissed away by a man who knew precisely how I wanted to be?—

“I am not asking, but I am suggesting you have come here on a—a wild goose chase,” I said calmly. At least, it felt calm. I wasn’t rushing anymore, but I had somehow placed my hands on the desk.

I looked at my hands. An image flashed through my mind, of my hands on another desk, holding Fynn’s hand. Something I should not have done, or perhaps should have done earlier, for that surely had been the catalyst that had made him kiss me.

Kiss me hard, and fast, taking hold of me and placing me on the desk so swiftly I could hardly tell what was happening, only that I wanted it.

I blinked. I looked at the desk, then raised my gaze to Fynn.

His thoughts were so potent I could almost hear them.

Yes, I could take you on this desk right now, and you’d like that, wouldn’t you?

“We agreed a week.”

Fynn’s voice was calm, slow, but if I wasn’t kidding myself—and there was a very good chance I was—there was also something akin to disappointment in there.

Something I had not expected.

“We did,” I said lightly, “but after not finding anything in five days?—”

“You gave me seven,” he pointed out, his handsome jaw tightening for a moment. “Are you so afraid of losing our bet that you would try to discourage me from staying?”

My stomach twisted painfully, heat soaring through it—and lower. Pooling between my legs.

“Why, Lady Cartice, then you can do whatever you want with me.”

I hadn’t thought much about his offer then. I was now.

“I know what we agreed, and I am not the sort to attempt to escape a debt,” I said, my voice only a murmur. “But I don’t want…complications.”

I could barely meet his eye, but I had to. He had to know, he had to see what his presence here was doing to me. Tying me in knots, making it difficult to sleep, impossible to be in his presence without wanting?—

“Complications,” Fynn said delicately, “like you asking me if I was courting anyone?”

Fynn

I held her eyes as I spoke. “Complications like you asking me if I was courting anyone?”

I was being bold—stupid. I knew that, but I had to point out why this woman had my heart beating so quickly I was sure she could hear it.

Georgiana looked at me, her eyes fierce and lips pressed together in that way I was starting to recognize.

She didn’t want to admit someone else was right.

My heart skipped a beat, then quickened again. Oh, this woman. Bold and brash and yet quiet and unsure of herself.

Sure of herself until she gave someone something of herself, her kisses, her truth, and then she crumpled like someone who had been hurt so badly, my hands curled into fists at the mere thought of whoever had done that to her.

Breathing out slowly, I forced my hands to relax. That wouldn’t help. Georgiana didn’t need to see my anger here, my protective nature soaring out of me against my will.

No, she needed reassurance. I couldn’t tell whether it was reassurance that I wouldn’t touch her again, or that I would.

Damn it.

“I…I-I didn’t mean?—”

“I know you didn’t,” I said, putting the beautiful woman out of her misery. “Forget it.”

Besides, I didn’t know how to answer the question.

On the one hand, it was simple. Was I courting anyone? No. I was a bachelor, had been for years.

A few scattered nights with willing widows did not count.

But the moment I admitted that to her, I knew what would happen. I would start to daydream that she and I, Georgiana and I were…

Well. More than we could be. More than was appropriate.

More than her friends would certainly ever allow.

“You’re the one who said you’ve stacked the deck.”

“I didn’t know you’d be the dealer. Kiss me, Fynn.”

My jaw tightened. The odds were stacked against us, the deck designed to play us both poor hands.

We couldn’t win here. The desire we felt for each other, palpable in this room as I sat looking up at her, had to be ignored.

I would continue my investigation, be gone in two days, and Georgiana, the Dowager Duchess of Cartice would continue as part of one of the most exclusive and intriguing clubs in the world.

“I am…damn, Georgiana, I will not leave before my time, but I promise you, I'm only looking for what I think is in the public interest to know,” I said, more defiantly than I had intended. “I'm not here to ruin you, or your family. There’s no cruelty in me. No matter what you might think.”

My stomach dropped as Georgiana slid onto the desk, her buttocks painfully close to my ledger. My eyes flickered to my notebook, then just to the left and took in the warm swell of her ass.

Concentrate, man.

“You are looking for something scandalous, something that will end our reputations in Society,” Georgiana pointed out quietly.

My gaze flickered to the door. This wasn’t a locked room, a place where no one was going to come—but then, Georgiana had given it to me to work, hadn’t they? I wasn’t likely to see one of the dukes wander in.

I had her to myself. For now.

“You make it sound personal.”

Georgiana laughed gently. “How can I not see it as personal? Fynn, you come here after months of letters demanding?—”

“Oh, I wouldn’t call it demanding,” I said with a smile of my own.

She raised a flirtatious eye. “Wouldn’t you? ‘If I do not receive full access to your paperwork within the week, I will be forced to publish’—”

“You memorized my letters?” I said incredulously.

It was the wrong thing to say. Color flushed Georgiana’s cheeks, a delicate pink that only made her complexion even more lovely.

Something I knew stirred in my loins and I tried to concentrate on the conversation at hand.

“I am the Chief Legal Counsel of this club, and it is my duty to protect the club from threats,” she reminded me.

I raised an eyebrow. “And am I a threat, Georgiana?”

God, I loved saying her name. There was nothing like it, nothing like twisting my tongue around the three syllables.

Except twisting it around her own tongue, of course.

Damn it, Fynn, concentrate!

“I think so.”

My heart sank faster than I thought possible. Her voice was curious, calm, but matter-of-fact. I was a threat; not just to the club, but to her.

Threatening to distract her. God, I wanted to distract her right now. Why did we keep having these conversations with all-too convenient desks by us?

“And I think you would probably be right,” I managed to say with the same light air. “After all, I am here to find dirt on your club, find underhand dealings in the books, something that explains why you have flourished so quickly.”

“It cannot just be because we are good? That we are lucky?”

I swallowed. Georgiana, the Dowager Duchess of Cartice did not kiss like a good girl. “No.”

Georgiana smiled slowly. “You know, I think you were right. That night, in the drawing room.”

My mind rushed back to that night, when I had drunk too much and said too much. “What?” I asked warily.

Oh, I should never have thought it a good idea to drink with them. Markham could have had me under the table, he put away whiskey like it was water. What had I said that I could not remember—what was Georgiana going to hold me to now?

“You said that perhaps, if we had met under different circumstances…” Georgiana’s eyes drifted to my lips, then returned resolutely to my eyes. “Just a thought.”

My jaw tightened, my fingers itching to pull her closer. But she had said, hadn’t she, that it must not happen again.

I was not one to force a woman. But never before had I been faced with a woman so intoxicating, it physically hurt to hold to that line.

“I want to win that bet,” I said quietly.

Noises, somewhere in the manor. That wasn’t surprising, there were four members of the club here, and goodness knew how many servants. Everywhere I went was clean, tidy, food prepared, drinks made, beds prepared—there must be near twenty of them, at least.

But the noise distracted me, just for a moment, and so the moment passed. The moment I had with Georgiana.

When my gaze returned to her, there was a look of strained disappointment clouding those blue eyes. Disappointment I wanted to kiss away, but knew I could not.

Georgiana slipped off the desk, smoothed her gown, and fixed her eyes on me. “How important is this bet to you?”

I swallowed. Restore my reputation as one of the best investigative journalists in the world? Prove to my editor that they was wrong to keep some of the best stories from me? Have the respect of Society in London? Prove to my idiot of a stepfather that he had been wrong to discount me, wrong to deal me out of the game when it came to my inheritance?

Gain all that…but lose Georgiana?

I pushed aside the thought, but it forced its way back, unrelenting, forbidding me from ignoring it. I didn’t have Georgiana, but by God, I wanted her.

Wanted not just her body, but her. Every conversation with her was like swimming underwater; everything was lighter, brighter, I felt held somehow in a way I never had before.

And whatever it was between us, whatever those kisses had meant, whatever warmth I had stirred in Georgiana, it would all be gone once I found whatever it was they were hiding. Once I published.

Georgiana tilted her head as she waited for my reply and my heart contracted. God, I wanted her.

“The bet?” I said quietly. “You know, I'm not sure anymore.”