Page 3 of His Wicked Little Christmas
Dex shifted uncomfortably, gathering others had seen where his gaze had settled. “Come again?”
The baron cocked his head, a lank of flaxen hair falling across his brow. His pale eyes lit with excitement when he grasped Dex had no idea what he was talking about. “My sister went to her school before she married. Or joined her club or whatever. The Duchess Society, the countess calls it. I don’t know what she teaches because Emmaline had already attended day school or some such idiocy, but now Emma talks about a wife’s rights. As if they have any. Had her husband set up a trust before she’d sign the betrothal agreement. Can you believe it? But Patridge needed her dowry to save himself, so I guess that’s his mismanagement, ain’t it?”
“Indeed,” Dex murmured, examining this information from all sides like he would a fossil.
Ice Countess, he thought, glancing back at her. Georgiana’s head was bowed, perhaps to send the off-key musical notes over her head instead of into her ears. The nape of her neck was sleek, strands of hair escaping her chignon to curl delicately against her skin. She looked positively regal sitting there in the gilded light, the untouchable woman they imagined her to be. When the girl had been cunning, even lewd at times,intelligent to a fault, up for any challenge, any dare. Dirty hems and scraped knees and effervescent charm.
Nothing icy about her.
“I told Mother, don’t send Emma to a woman who’s vowed never to marry again herself. What’s the use in that? Got a crusader returned to us, so I was right. As men usually are.” The baron traced the toe of his patent shoe over a swirl in the Aubusson rug, a dance step with himself. “My betrothed, when I secure her, and I have my eye on a few lovely ladies, I do, because the walls are closing in on me, isn’t going near any Duchess Society. No sir. I’ll write that inmyagreement.”
Dex paused, holding back comment because this young buck knew little about life and evenlessabout women. Never marry again? Georgiana couldn’t be more than twenty-five to Dex’s thirty. Undoubtedly, she had an income from her marriage, possibly a dower residence, maybe even a townhouse in the city, so she didn’t have to remarry, he supposed.
But what about love, passion, children? The girl he’d known had wanted a family.
When Lady Buxton staggered into the salon carrying a massive tub of raisins soaked in brandy and asked who would not only light the dish but try to catch the flaming fruit between their teeth, Dex shoved off the wall with a frustrated oath. He’d seen the injuries resulting from this beguiling parlor trick before. “I’m done for the night. Happy Christmas,” he said to the baron whose name he couldn’t for the life of him recall and angled his way through the crowd, wondering why this many people wanted to spend their holiday in Derbyshire.
Wondering how he’d ended up in the same country manor as Georgiana Whitcomb.
A situation possessing dangerous potential.
Because the eager boy racing over moors and climbing towering oaks and sleeping in limestone caves was inside him, and young Dexter was tempting him, telling him to follow the inclination to halt in the salon’s doorway and stare at Anthony’s capricious sister until she, in turn, noticed him, a tried-and-true game they’d played before.
Which, after a hushed, pulsing trice, like a cord connected them and he’d given it a yank, she did.
He tipped his chin over his shoulder.Meet me outside.
Georgiana glanced at the glass in her hand, giving the crystal a firm squeeze. Then she looked back at him, her eyespreciselythe color of the lapis wedged deep in his trouser pocket.
An earl of ill repute took the flaming raisin challenge, inadvertently setting his coat on fire. Georgiana’s lips pressed as she tried not to laugh when the salon erupted in raucous shouts and absurdity. After a moment, with resignation he noted from across the room, she shrugged.Okay.
Dex nodded and backed into the hallway, feeling lighter than he had since coming home. Lighter than he had in years. That dangerous potential revolving like a top inside him.
Though he’d have liked to deny it, the anticipation of talking with Georgiana again sent a burst of exhilaration through him, warming him more than any whiskey could.
Chapter Two
“He commands, you follow,” Georgiana whispered and wiggled through the throng who’d rushed the blazing bowl of snapdragon, a drunken effort to stamp out the raisin that had set fire to not only the Earl of Piddington’s sleeve but Lord Buxton’s carpet.
Why, oh why, had she opted to attend this rowdy affair?
To further the Duchess Society’s reach, Georgiana proposed as she exited the salon. Yet, they only tutored five young ladies at one time, and the roster was booked through 1821.Try again, my dear. Georgiana turned in a measured circle in the hallway, wondering where Dex had gone. Then, she noticed a path of holly berries sprinkled on parquet pine, leading away from the manor’s grand staircase and into the bowels of the house. She released a hushed breath of laughter she couldn’t contain.Vexing man.
Following the berry trail down the deserted corridor, Georgiana revised her answer. She’d accepted the invitation after making the melancholic decision to lease a home for the holiday a mere fifteen-minute ride from the Derbyshire village where she’d grown up. A ten-minute journey from her family’s small estate, a house her cousin had inherited upon her father’s death and not once invited her to visit.
Derbyshire was no longer hers.
The manor she’d leased was lovely. And lonely.
She was a fool for trying to step into the past.
Here she was, disconcerting decision to return aside, following a mysterious route her childhood companion had laid out like their adventures of old. Which was horrifying and intoxicating. More intoxicating than horrifying, which said a lot about how she was constructed.
The berry trail ended at the last door on the right. Georgiana paused, heart tripping, breath suspended until she forced it out with an audible puff. Why was she following Dex as she would have ten years ago?
What in the world was she doing?
She was opening the door and stepping inside what looked to be a rarely-used study—that’s what. Allowing her vision to adjust to the meager moonbeams clawing through the dirty windowpanes. For a moment, she simply took it in. The gentle tick of a clock. A haunting blend of shadow and light. Furniture draped in cloth, the scent of dust and disuse, and on the lowest note, a new fragrance: man.