Page 22 of His Wicked Little Christmas

Now Georgie knew he was in London, but so did all the overeager mothers.

He was flooded with calling cards, invitations, requests for tea—but only silence from his girl.

He tossed his quill to the desk and sent ink splattering across his ledgers. Chauncey thought it daft, but Dex had chosen to rent rooms on St. James rather than stay in the Mayfair residence or the cottage in Richmond Park, both so much his father’s spaces Dex couldn’t embrace them, even if he’d been managing every aspect of their survival for years. For a few more days, conceivably for the last time, he wanted to sleep on a squeaky bed, conduct his research at a desk nicked from time, pace warped planks, and dispassionately record life from a grimy windowpane. Though his current view offered little beauty. No rolling hills, no verdant swathes of woodland stretching to the horizon. No scent of charred wood or turned earth or frost-coated pine needles.

His dilemma? He missed Derbyshire almost as much as he missed Georgie.

In a way, they’d become one in his mind, in his heart.

He’d walked the moors with her, the forbidding wind stealing across the desolate expanse capturing their breath and pinkening her cheeks. Two loves of his life intrinsically linked. It rose above the physical what he felt for her, above the emotional, as it did for the untamed land in the north.

So layered, his feelings, a mere man had no hope of explaining them.

He only knew itwas.

He pressed his hand to his heart, holding back the familiar ache. She didn’tneedhim. Her efforts in the past month had been her way of telling him this. Her marriage to Arthur had wrought significant damage, damage running soul-deep. It was up to Georgie to decide if the love of a geologist posing as a gentleman was sufficient to heal her wounds.

He could do no more, or not much, Dex determined, as he grabbed his hat and coat and rang for his carriage. It was time to shop for today’s gift. The last, because tomorrow was Twelfth Night.

Tomorrow, he would find out if Georgie was any readier to be a duchess than he was to be aduke.

Georgie missed him enough to go blind.

And for the past three days, he’d made every effort to increase her loneliness.

She stared at the parcel resting on the escritoire between a brass hair clip and Lady Anton’s creased calling card. The package was as attractive as the others Dex had sent, a rose-pink ribbon drawn about brown paper and sealed with crimson and gold wax.

The last gift, as their meeting at the museum was taking place tomorrow.

In nineteen hours, to be exact.

Georgiana lifted her gaze to the gilded mirror on the wall, bringing the wrapped box to her breast. She felt different. Did she look it? Was she forever changed? She pinched her cheek, swept her hand down her throat, which only brought to mind the memory of Dex’s teeth catching the tender skin beneath her ear and sucking as she moaned, craved,begged.

Raw yearning flooded her, weakening her knees until she had to brace a hand on the desk to steady herself.

Her need was potent.

When she’d never needed a man, never allowed herself the option. Never been presented the option. And now, for the first time, it had happened. When she was liberated. The word rang through her mind like the din of a church’s bell.

Liberated fromwhatexactly, her heart asked?

Since leaving Derbyshire, she’d been free of Dex’s wicked smile, tender touch, knowing glances. His intelligence, his humor, his fiery temper. His long leg thrown over hers in the shelter of their bed. His hot breath washing across her skin as he thrust inside her.

In the mirror, she watched her cheeks color in a way no amount of pinching brought.

She was enslaved, gladly welcoming the chains of love circling her.I need him. Above all else, above love, above reason, need was the critical piece.

The necessary piece, vital.

She only had to find the courage to tell him.

The click of the door startled her, and the box tumbled from her hand.

Lady Hildegard Templeton paused in the sitting room entrance, glanced at the pretty parcel lying on the faded Axminster rug, letting a furtive smile spill free. Aside from Dex, Hildy was Georgiana’s favorite person in the world, her dearest friend, her mentor of sorts. Daughter to an earl, at an incredibly young age, Hildy had found the fearlessness to rise above what society expected of a woman of her station. Georgiana greatly admired her. Hildy had studied alongside her brother’s tutors, eventually surpassing what they could teach her. She raced her phaeton through Hyde Park while wordlessly daring any man she met to tumble, such was her beauty and uniqueness. Called a bluestocking to her face and worse behind closed salon doors, she’d stunned thetonby refusing to marry, believing one wedded for love, an idea society mocked. Her mission with the Duchess Society was to ensure other women had the support to choose as she had or be educated regarding the business of matrimony if they did not.

Hildy closed the door and cocked a slim hip against it. “Another one? My, your darling duke is persistent.”

Georgiana went to her knee to retrieve the package. “The marquess is not my darling anything, Hildy.” Which might not be true after tomorrow. Her hand shook to imagine it.