Page 30 of Mistletoe and Christmas Kisses
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.
She was going to answer the dare, cross to the scoundrel who sat sprawled on the floor, back wedged against a threadbare sofa, long legs crossed at the ankle, two glasses, a decanter, and a flickering taper beside him. As if this was planned. As if they still knew each other. When she got closer and was able to see Dex’s eyes, the color undetermined in the subdued light, she was stunned to feel her soul soaring free of her body.
His gaze, obscure at best, shouldn’t have the power to turn her inside out.
Not after all this time.
He stared up at her, his delight sending tiny grooves from his eyes that hadn’t been there before. “Hello, Georgie.”
“Dex,” she returned without a quiver, settling beside him with as much dignity as she could manage, her stomach clenching because no one had called her Georgie inyears. She only sat because his smile was real. If he’d pulled a fake Munro on her, she would’ve been out of the house like a shot and back to her sorrowful manor, shimmering promise surrounding the night or not.
He nudged a glass her way with his pinkie, his aroma washing over her with the movement. Whiskey and leather and some variety of mint. He’d always smelled better than fresh biscuits, better than anything to her mind. She lifted the tumbler to her lips, her fingers trembling but not enough for him to notice. “How did you organize a private party so quickly? I’m honored.”
“I raided a vacant morning room two doors down. Swiped the candle and the refreshments. I don’t think they’ll find us.” He tipped his head to stare at the ceiling. “God, I hope not.”
“You mean,” she whispered against the crystal rim, “you don’t find the effort to secure a flaming raisin between your teeth to be the height of amusement?”
His gaze found hers, a gradual study as potent as the brush of his finger across her skin. “Tell me something. Why the name?”
She took a slow sip, the brandy blazing a path down her throat.Oh. He’d heard about the society. Of course. Gossip grew like wildflowers at events such as these. “Because everyone wants to secure a duke, don’t you know? Once you’re Markham, you will.” Her laugh was stunted, dry as kindling. “The Countess Society doesn’t have the same appeal, I’m afraid. Though I’m rightly qualified.”
He shifted his legs, and she tried not to notice how long they were, how his sleek black trousers clung to his muscular thighs, his lean hips. The man was built, had always been built, like a thoroughbred. “I meant the nickname, Georgie.”
She swiveled around on her bottom to face him, irritation a swift tide through her veins. Blast and bother, if she showed a sliver of ankle to Dexter Munro, it was nothing he hadn’t seen before. “Oh, that isrich. Do you know why I’m presumed to be made of ice? Because I’m financially independent and unwilling to enter into another marital agreement? No, it’s mytransparencyabout my situation that frightens them. I have freedom, finally, and I’ve made no bones about the fact I chose freedom over any other arrangement. I walk the streets alone. I ride my mount through Hyde Park as cracking fast as I like. Many women in my situation feel this way; they simply don’t admit it. Or act on their liberty. It shakes the entire foundation of society. What if, they ask, we are happierwithout?”
Dex laughed, a musical sound that lit her up like one of those raisins and turned his glass in a tight circle on the floor, making a crude design in the dust. “What about passion to go with this grand liberty? A reasonable alternative for a widow of independent means to consider.”
Georgiana huffed an incredulous breath through her nose and pressed her back like a ruler against the sofa. “A lover to melt the Ice Countess, you mean? You disappoint me, Dex. As if this hasn’t been proposed in a hundred different ways since Arthur’s death three years ago.”
“By whom?” Dex asked with a brutal edge.
“Oh, don’t get your hackles up, playing big brother. Although Anthony would thank you for it.” She tapped her glass to his, took an insolent drink. “What I want from life is what I have. The Duchess Society and my modest circle of friends. The dilapidated dower house in Sussex where I will retire when my funds reach a level inconsistent with maintaining a middling life in London. The ability to make my own choices, good or bad, which may include tumbling off my mount during a wild ride through Hyde Park. Who knows? What I don’t want is another husband. My entire life has been dictated by a man’sneeds, their mismanagement. I’m finally free to mismanage my own life, thank you very much.”
Dex’s head fell back, his hands going into a loose fold over his belly. “I never thought of you as a sister, Georgie.”
The trilling notes of the pianoforte paraded down the hallway and slid under the crack in the door, blending with the whisper of their breaths. She’d never thought of him as a brother, so they were even.
“You’re a matchmaker then?” he finally asked.
She rolled her head to find his eyes as green as the holly trimming the house and fixed on her. It was as good a time as any to admit she would always find him attractive, always experience a tug in her stomach—and a profound twist to her heart—when he was near. One had to accept what one could not change. A life lesson she’d embraced. “I educate those being forced into a situation conceivably not of their choosing. Atrueeducation. Many women I work with have never read a legal agreement, never managed finances or a household. In certain instances, I’ve arranged introductions. Call it matchmaking if you will, with suitable men who don’t have vile reputations or addictions their wives would have to account for. My investigator researches every one of them, A to Z. My young ladies don’t need me to teach them how to sew a straight stitch or organize a proper dinner party, although those pointless lessons are on the program to soothe anxious mothers.” She looked to the moonlight streaking in the window, to the glimmers of dust sparking the air, to him. “It’s what I do because I must. I teach things I wish I’d been taught.”
Dex brought his hand to the bridge of his nose and squeezed, a gesture he’d employed when he had a problem he couldn’t solve. “Winterbourne wasn’t a good choice. With Anthony gone, I should have stepped in. I knew more about the man than your father likely did, things whispered over a gaming hell table. I should have talked to him.”
“You were off with anthracite and basalt, and I, well, I made the right decision.” She turned away, so she didn’t have to look in his eyes during this speech. “I didn’t love him. He was seventy, his life almost over, as harsh as that sounds. Arthur solved my family’s financial problems without a murmur of complaint. It was a transaction. I lived mostly apart from him once he noted how often I voiced my opinions, consigned to the charming though worn dower house in Sussex I mentioned. There’ve been worse arrangements. He purchased a pretty vase then found he had nowhere to display it. And later, he didn’t even like the vase anymore.”
“Georgie…”
She shook off his pacifying plea. “I was happy being tucked away, out of sight. Honestly, I was. My independent spirit was distasteful, and I wasn’t willing to relinquish it.”
She felt a tickle, turned as Dex slipped a strand of hair behind her ear. “This discussion isn’t making me desirous for marriage,” he said.