Page 7 of A Bet with a Duchess (The Gambling Dukes #1)

SEVEN

Georgiana

I sank heavily into the soft velvet of the armchair. “You cannot be serious.”

Lilah, as I knew she would, rolled her eyes. “You’re just overreacting, Georgiana.”

“Overreacting?”

“I knew she’d take it like this,” Markham said with a sigh as he adjusted his cufflinks. “We shouldn’t have told her.”

My heart froze. “What, like last time?”

He had the good grace to look a little uncomfortable as he rose to look in the mirror over the fireplace. “I didn’t mean it like—blast, Georgiana, you know what I mean.”

My fingertips had somehow tightened on the end of the arms of the chair I was sitting in, my nails deep into the velvet.

They hadn’t told me last time. Well, a week, but a week was a long time when your husband was trying to bed your best friend. Your prettier, more majestic, more put together best friend.

Lilah played with the diamond bracelet she had borrowed from me a year ago and never returned. “It’s just dinner, Georgiana.”

“And I am starving,” said Kineallen as he strode into the West Drawing Room, looking as calm and collected as he always did.

As I often wished I did.

I tried to take a deep breath. It was just dinner. Just dinner with Paul’s son, my stepson who had never liked me and who had always made sure that I knew it.

“I just cannot believe you are going to see him,” I said petulantly. The silk gown was pinched tightly around my breasts, flaring out to the floor in a rush of ruching. But I may as well clamber upstairs into my nightgown and get Cook to send me a tray to my bedchamber, if all my friends were leaving.

“Are you ready?” Markham said, looking slightly harassed. “Georgiana, is that predator still here?”

“Which one?” I said dryly, accepting the wine Lilah handed me wordlessly. “Oh, the journalist trying to ruin our family?”

“I just don’t like him lurking about,” Kineallen said with gritted teeth.

Markham shrugged. “It’s not like we don’t know what he’s doing here.”

“I wish you hadn’t invited him, Georgiana.”

I shrugged. “What’s done is done, Kineallen, and besides, he’ll be gone soon. Just a few days.”

A few days. My stomach tightened painfully at the thought. Why had I so easily become accustomed to Fynn’s presence in our country estate? Why was I expectant to see him every breakfast, trying to think up excuses to stay with him during the day, wishing I had not made such a point of him dining alone, aching for his touch as I went to bed…

“Well, we had better leave if we’re going to make it on time,” said Lilah, sighing heavily as she made a great deal of standing up. “If you can bear to let us go.”

I smiled ruefully.

The invitation was a slight, I knew it. That was, the lack of invitation.

Lilah had showed it to me as I had entered, gasping for a glass of wine and hoping to goodness I could keep my thoughts away from Fynn Monroe for more than a few minutes.

His Grace the Duke of Kineallen, His Grace the Duke of Markham, and Her Grace, the Dowager Duchess of Rotherwick are invited to dinner at Kenning Place .

My throat had closed up as I had read it. My name was prominent only in its absence.

The bastard.

“You’ll be all right, won’t you, Georgiana?” There was such a look of concern on Lilah’s face I knew she hadn’t entirely forgiven herself for what was in no way her fault.

I tried to smile. “All the food I want and none of you to judge me as I sing badly as I accompany myself on the pianoforte? Try and stop me.”

Kineallen kissed my forehead. “That’s the Georgiana we know. Don’t stay up.”

I watched them leave, the friends I depended on, the only people I could trust in the world. The door closed behind Markham, and I was left alone.

Sighing heavily didn’t make the situation any better.

Well, it was not as though I was surprised. There was a cruel streak in Paul’s son I had glimpsed when we had first wed, though I had attempted to persuade myself wasn’t there.

But then, the apple did not fall far from the tree. Paul had given me more than enough reasons to delight at his passing when he made those sickly overtures to my best friend.

But appearances had to be kept up, and his family had been loyal to The Gambling Dukes from the early days. Not that I liked it.

“Georgiana?”

I started, almost dropping my barely touched glass of wine.

Fynn was standing in the door. I hadn’t even heard it open.

“Hello,” I said like a complete fool, wishing to goodness I had any sense.

He was just a gentleman, I told myself. Just a gentleman who had the chiseled good looks of a Greek god and the heart and soul of a man who desired justice. Just a gentleman with broad shoulders which had pinned me down to a desk as his mouth worshipped me.

Just a gentleman.

“Alone?” Fynn said, leaning against the doorway. “That isn’t like you and your club.”

I tried to rally. “You hardly know us, Fynn.”

“I know you better than you think, Georgiana,” he said evenly.

He wasn’t dressed for dinner; at least, not in the way that I was. A crisp white shirt under a silk waistcoat gave him the perfect elegance of the evening with none of the fuss of what I was wearing.

For the first time in a long time, I felt overdressed.

“My friends are visiting a…an acquaintance,” I said quietly, fingering my jade pendant earbobs. Why did the man have to make me so…nervous?

I should never have permitted myself to ask about any romantic connections that he had left behind in London. Of course he was courting someone, just look at the man. He would have half of London eating out of his hand, I was sure.

“Without you?”

I smiled as best I could. “I don’t dine with stepsons—especially when I am pointedly not invited.”

“Ah.” Fynn nodded sagely, as though he was routinely betrayed on an annual basis. “I see. Well in that case, why don’t you dine with me? The study’s not so bad a place to eat.”

He met my gaze steadily, as though he wasn’t already tempting me with the sheer masculinity he exuded with every passing breath.

“Dine with you?” I repeated uncertainly.

It wasn’t a ridiculous suggestion. Really, it made sense. We were the only two left in the manor, save the servants who would eat in their own dining hall.

And it was Thursday. Just one more day, one full day, and Fynn would be gone—and his temptation with him. I wouldn’t have to endure the sensation that I was at any moment going to melt into him and lose all control.

Why not indulge, just a little?

“I have a better idea,” I said, more boldly than I felt. “Why don’t you dine with me?”

I saw with pleasure I had surprised him.

“What, in the fancy dining room?”

Rising, my silk gown settled into folds and I saw Fynn’s eyes widen, his pupils dilate, a muscle in his jaw tighten.

Power rushed through me. God, it was glorious to be desired again. To know that what I offered wasn’t as impressive as Lilah, no, I wasn’t blind, but was still something.

“Come on,” I said lightly.

There was something indulgently authoritative about turning my back on the most handsome man I had ever met—and best kisser too—and walking away from him.

I entered our dining room and heard, rather than saw, Fynn’s gasp.

“Heavens.”

It was rather impressive, though I thought so myself. Kineallen wanted something more elegant, true, but I and Lilah argued that there was nothing more refined than a soft blue

And so we had given our architect and decorator carte blanche, and they had delivered. A sweeping table that curved through the room lying on the marbled floor, sections of black and white marble laid out in an intricate geometric pattern that was matched by the inlaid wood on the ceiling. Elegant silver painted lines ran down the length of the walls with gorgeous classical sculptures along the sides, the cutlery on the table gold gilt. Ostentatious.

“You eat here? Every night?” Fynn said as he closed the door behind him.

I turned and gave him what I hoped was a smile without any of the concern of his presence showing. “It’s just a dining room.”

He laughed. “You’ve been rich too long.”

“And you were born into money,” I pointed out, taking a seat at the head of the table. Well, why not?

Fynn sat beside me, his presence far too close for my liking but it would be churlish to ask him to move. Besides, his hand rested gently on the smooth wood. Close to mine.

My heart quickened. Would I be so foolish, or clever, I did not know, to take it again?

“Georgiana, I?—”

“Food,” I said hurriedly, rising from my seat and rang the bell near the fireplace.

That was close. Fynn had leaned toward me, as though he could no longer prevent himself from taking the kiss I was silently forbidding him, and I knew that if he did…well.

I would not be responsible for my actions.

We ate in silence. The food was good, I suppose; Cook was always marvelous, there was a reason we had brought her with us from London.

But the four courses disappeared far faster than I could imagine, faster than ever I had remembered. I knew I ate, the plates disappeared before me—our staff were wonderful, sometimes you could almost forget they were there—and Fynn and I said not a word.

His continued presence so close to me, however, was starting to become torture. Sweet torture, a pressure I needed to release, an itch I had to scratch.

“Anything else, Lady Cartice?”

I smiled. “That will be all, thank you. No need to clear the plates, I’ll ring when we’re done.”

Our butler Harris nodded and slipped out of the room.

Fynn looked at his plate, currently empty, and the plethora of cheeses, grapes, figs, pretzels along the board between us. “I don’t think I can eat another bite.”

“Oh, really?” I said boldly.

Hardly knowing what had possessed me to do it, I reached forward and plucked a grape from the vine, slipping it between my lips far slower than I would normally do.

I watched with a growing sense of power and pleasure as Fynn’s eyes rested on my lips, now slick with the grape juice. He swallowed, his hands flexing as though he wished to move forward and take mine.

Take me.

“Oh, I want to eat,” he said lightly. “I just don’t want this.”

My stomach twisted painfully. And there I was, thinking that I was being seductive. “Oh. Well, there are plenty of other things in the kitchens, I suppose. What do you want to eat?”

Fynn lifted his gaze, sharp and possessive. “You.”

I had reached for another grape while I spoke but dropped it as he replied.

“You.”

The grape bounced off the table and rolled onto the floor but I ignored it. How could I not, when all my attention was enwrapt on the man beside me?

“You, Georgiana, you,” Fynn said quietly, but in a voice full of danger and desire. “You. God, you’re tantalizingly close, like the apple in the garden, and as much as I want to reach out and pluck you, taste you?—”

I moaned slightly. I couldn’t help it.

“—damn, and you want it too, that’s the worst of it,” Fynn groaned, pushing his plate away. “How long do we have to pretend we don’t want each other?”

I swallowed. “Just a few more days, I think.”

His gaze was fiery as it met mine and every inch of my skin tingled with anticipation.

We couldn’t. We shouldn’t.

“There would be nothing as sweet as tasting you, Georgiana,” Fynn said in a low voice, and heat pooled between my legs at the very thought. “I would bet on that.”

“We already have a bet,” I said, voice hoarse, trying not to think of all the ways this man could pleasure me. “A bet you’re about to lose.”

“The deck was stacked against me the moment before I knew it.”

My heart was thundering, my lips tingling in the ache for him, and I knew if he asked for me, or more, if he just took me, I wouldn’t stop him.

I wanted to be taken by Fynn Monroe.

“Stacked against you?” I repeated, mind only half thinking of the conversation at hand as the other half pictured his hands on me, his mouth on my lips, my neck, my collarbone, lower—“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” said Fynn, “the moment I saw you. Sitting there, in a gown that matched your eyes, you knew to stack the deck, knew to tease me and tempt me, always?—”

“I'm the one in charge here,” I said with a teasing smile. “I have to?—”

“Do you?” He interrupted me not with rudeness but with a moan. “Do you have to, Georgiana? Have to tempt me, have to taste so sweet then forbid me another taste?”