Page 22 of Ladies in Hating (Belvoir’s Library Trilogy #3)

You have read this strange and terrific story, Margaret; and do you not feel your blood congeal with horror?

— from FRANKENSTEIN

“Out,” Georgiana said.

She wrapped her fingers very firmly around Cat’s elbow and began to drag her away from the body in the garden.

Dear sweet bloody hell. There was a body in the garden.

“Wait—wait.” Cat dug her heels into the ground.

Georgiana, who had the advantage of several inches of height and a steely core of terror and determination, pulled harder. “No. Time to go.”

“You are the most exasperating—should we not stay to find out who—”

“I know who it is,” Georgiana said.

“You—what?”

“I recognized him.” She had managed to maneuver Cat to the courtyard wall, roughly as far from the collapsed section as it was possible to be. She picked up Bacon and thrust his small, filthy body into Cat’s arms. “Hold this.”

Cat’s lush mouth arranged itself into a vexed sort of pout. “This may come as a shock to you, your ladyship, but I am not actually in your service.”

Georgiana ignored her. Cat could say whatever she wanted as long as she was safely ensconced on this side of the garden.

She identified the ivy-covered bench she’d noticed the last time she was in the courtyard and bent to the task of dragging it closer to the wall. It bumped heavily over the black-and-white patterned tiles, trailing vines like long, disembodied fingers.

She shoved the bench up against the wall and swiped sweaty hair out of her face, then looked over and met Cat’s flabbergasted gaze.

“What in heaven’s name—”

“We’re getting out,” Georgiana said again. “Now. Climb up on the bench.”

Cat shuffled Bacon about enough to cross her arms, a feat which did remarkable things to the décolletage visible above her bodice. “No,” she said. “Not until you tell me who the devil that was, at least. I am neither your servant nor a doll for you to move about at will.”

Georgiana blew out her breath. “I know you are not. I—”

What could she say?

I brought you into this courtyard. I introduced you to this garden. Had we been any closer to those rotted beams, we might have been killed as well. I let you stay here at Renwick House, and if you’d been injured because of me, I don’t know how I would survive it.

This is what happens to the people I care about. They get hurt.

But she couldn’t say any of that.

“I recognized the man,” she said instead. “The—body. He used to work at Belvoir’s as a porter, but Selina put him out when she discovered he had a habit of making unwanted advances toward the shyer nighttime maids.”

“At Belvoir’s,” Cat repeated. “In London?”

“Yes.”

“So what is he doing here ?”

“I have no idea.” Georgiana folded back her skirts and stepped up onto the bench. “But he cannot enlighten us at this juncture.”

Cat still had Bacon in her arms and a look of terrifying impetuosity on her face. “Perhaps he can, at that.” Her mouth twisted down, considering. “Perhaps I can search the body—”

“Catriona.” The name slipped from between Georgiana’s lips before she could stop it. Her voice sounded—not like herself. Raw. Almost desperate.

Cat froze in the act of turning back the way they’d come. She looked up, her thick dark lashes casting shadows on her cheeks.

“Don’t,” Georgiana said. It was difficult to force the words out. The plea. “Please come with me. This man barred the doors to keep us inside—and he may not have been working alone. Someone else could be after us. We cannot remain.”

How long had he been lurking at Renwick House? Was this the explanation for the sounds she’d heard in the night? The reason for Bacon’s strange warning barks?

Cat bit her bottom lip, hesitated an interminable moment, and then nodded. “All right. I’ll go with you.”

Relief caught Georgiana hard enough that it felt like a blow. Her knees went a trifle weak, and to cover her wobble, she put out a hand to Cat. “Come up on the bench. I’ll help you over the wall.”

For once, Cat listened. She passed Bacon to Georgiana, hiked up her skirts high enough to reveal her half boots and a flash of torn stocking, and came to stand beside Georgiana on the bench.

She reached out one hand and pressed it to the vine-covered wall.

“I want to come back,” she said, “with a magistrate. I want to see what we can find out about that fellow.”

“Cat—”

“And we’ll need to collect our things.” Her lips were white with dust, and this close Georgiana could see the way her hair curled in tiny ringlets beneath her ears.

“ You may be able to leave your traveling wardrobe behind, but I’ve only the two shifts.

I’ll need to fetch the other or else do without. ”

It took Georgiana a moment to realize that Cat was teasing her. That she was… smiling.

They were imprisoned in a house that seemed to be killing people, possibly hunted by some unknown persons, and currently alone with a corpse. And still somehow Cat’s devastating mouth was tipped at the corners, one long catastrophic curve.

Georgiana wanted to fall into it. She could have lingered there forever, lost in the maze of that bewitching smile.

She steeled herself against the desire, against the warm sweetness of Cat’s body close to her own. “Yes,” she said, “all right. We can come back with the magistrate. Let me help you ascend.”

Cat let her. She pulled her skirts up even higher, knotting them above her knees while Georgiana sturdily averted her gaze and pretended to consider the mechanics of wall climbing.

She had perused the expanse of golden brick for several long moments when she paused and blinked to clear her vision.

One of the bricks had been shoved outward, just enough to make a convenient step for their boots.

What the devil—

Georgiana rubbed her hand across her eyes. She was certain the stones had not been offset before. She’d been looking at the wall for the last several minutes, and the stretch above the bench had been smooth and flush and—

She shook her head. No. She must have missed it, somehow. That was the only possible explanation. She had plaster dust in her eyes, and there were roses obscuring the sandstone, and bricks did not move on their own.

“What’s wrong?” Cat asked. Her mouth was close to Georgiana’s ear, and Georgiana tried to not leap off the bench in fright and mixed-up desire.

“Nothing,” she said hastily. “Put your foot there. I’ll help you over.”

Cat shoved the toe of her boot into the little gap where the brick had been, and Georgiana gripped her elbow and handed her up the rest of the way. Cat paused at the summit, one leg swung over each side and her hands fastened to the top of the wall in a white-knuckled grip.

“You can climb down if you like,” Georgiana said. “I’m tall enough to follow on my own, I think.” She would have to lean over and hand Bacon down, but that seemed relatively feasible.

“I’m sorry.” Cat’s voice was hoarse, and Georgiana tipped her head back in surprise to look at Cat’s face. “I don’t… believe I can.”

“You can’t climb down the other side? Just swing your leg over and…” She trailed off. Cat’s skin, normally gold even in the watery sunlight of December, had gone ashen. Her lips were bloodless and pressed together in a thin line.

She looked terrified. Georgiana had never seen her so—not when Graves had vanished or a timber had fallen down immediately beside them or bats had burst out from behind a bone-carved door.

“I believe I shall remain here.” Cat squeezed her eyes closed. “It’s pleasant. Breezy.”

“There is no breeze.”

“Perhaps that sound I’m hearing is all my blood rushing toward my toes.”

“Good Lord,” Georgiana said, and shoved the tip of her boot into the place where a brick definitely had not departed from the wall of its own accord.

“Stay here, Bacon darling, I’ll return in a moment.

” She folded her skirt and chemise neatly up to her hips and launched her free leg over the wall to straddle it, a mirror image of Cat’s own position.

She hastily smoothed her skirts back down to cover her exposed stockings and wondered at her motivations as she did so.

Cat’s eyes were still closed, for heaven’s sake, and also she’d very recently had her hands all over Georgiana’s backside.

“You and Bacon can go on without me,” Cat said. Her whole body was trembling slightly, and though her tone was light, her voice rasped at the edges. “Perhaps you might return some day with a ladder?”

Georgiana peered over the other side of the barrier. The ground, in truth, did look rather farther down once one was perched atop the wall.

She had not imagined, when she’d handed Cat up to surmount the wall, that Cat had no head for heights. There was something so invulnerable about Cat—her fierceness, her determination, all that irrepressible fire. It felt strange, just now, to think that she, Georgiana, was the steady one.

To believe, for just a moment, that Cat needed her.

She leaned forward and hooked her arm around Cat’s, interlocking their elbows. “There,” she murmured. “I have you. Open your eyes.”

“I believe they’re fixed this way.”

“Catriona Rose Lacey. Open your eyes.”

Cat’s lashes fluttered up, and her eyes—dark, bottomless, achingly familiar—fixed on Georgiana’s face. She closed her teeth over her bottom lip as if to hold in a gasp.

“Swing your leg over to the other side,” Georgiana said, low and firm. “I’ll lower you the rest of the way down.”

“I can’t do that. You’ll topple down with me.”

“I shan’t.”

“You’ll fall,” Cat said hoarsely. “I don’t want you to fall.”

“I won’t.” Georgiana hesitated on her next words, and then forced them out. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” Cat’s voice was almost soundless.

“Go on, then. Neither of us is going to fall.”

Cat relinquished her grip on the bricks and did as she was bade. Very slowly, as though her muscles had locked into place, she brought herself over to the other side of the wall.

Just as slowly, Georgiana leaned with her, and helped her inch her way down.

It was not long before their arms unwound, before Cat’s toes touched the ground and she breathed out a little unsteady sound of relief. Georgiana tried to let her go, but Cat caught hold of her arm, and Georgiana had to steady herself atop the wall.

“Wait,” Cat said, “wait.”

“I have to get Bacon—I’ll pass him over to you.”

“No, I know, I—”

They were talking over each other, and Cat’s fingers slid down to twine with Georgiana’s. “Wait,” she said again. “Wait for me a moment.”

Georgiana waited.

Color had come rushing back into Cat’s face. Her lower lip was redder than the top from where she’d bit down hard. Her eyes were soft. Earnest. No teasing now.

“I wanted to say something,” she said, and then she brought Georgiana’s fingers to her cheek. “I trust you.” She turned her face into Georgiana’s hand, pressing her mouth to Georgiana’s open palm.

Desire moved hot and jagged in Georgiana’s veins, the dregs of her fear and the days of yearning like liquor in her blood. Cat’s lips tickled her palm, and her breath was a warm flutter against Georgiana’s skin.

“Thank you,” Cat said very softly. “You are clever and kind and brave as the devil, and I—” She swallowed. “I see you.”

Georgiana couldn’t breathe. She felt hot all over—longing and the sick burn of shame both alive in her at once.

Brave.

God, what a word. She could scarcely remember the last time she had not been afraid. If Cat thought she saw courage when she looked at Georgiana, Georgiana did not know how she’d managed to trick Cat into believing it.

She wanted to pull Cat into her arms. She wanted to rub her thumb across Cat’s lower lip.

And she wanted to run. Had she not promised herself that she would stay away from Cat? Was it not patently obvious by now that Cat was far safer without Georgiana? For God’s sake, the house might have come down atop her, simply because Georgiana had brought her out to the garden.

Georgiana licked her lips and pulled her hand away from Cat’s cheek. “Stay here. I’m going to fetch Bacon.” She lowered herself back down into the Renwick courtyard, where the roses hung thick upon the walls.

She knew she was a coward. And now Cat would know it too.

She was afraid that she might injure Cat—that Cat would be harmed by Georgiana’s presence in her life. But it was not only that. She feared how much she wanted. She was afraid that when Cat looked at her, she could see everything Georgiana had tried so hard to keep hidden.

Tenderness. Hunger. Need like a thicket of thorns.

“I have Bacon,” she said quietly, and moved back to the bench. She did not look down at Cat, because she could not bear to see if Cat looked hurt. “I’ll hand him over. And then we’ll go to the magistrate.”