Unraveling the Earl (26 page)

“You’ve only one thing I want.” Georgie’s voice was sinfully
soft, curling around him like warm molasses as her gaze dropped to the bulge in
his trousers. “And I needn’t marry you to get it.”

Henry nearly lost his place when she opened her legs,
gifting him with a view of her curls and a hint of her pink nether lips.
Arching her back as best she could with her wrists tethered to the bedpost, she
lifted her pretty little breasts in offering as she swept her tongue over her
lips, slow and languid.

He might have relented and released her in favor of tumbling
her onto the bed to bury his cock in her tight channel again had she not
overplayed her hand, peeking up and batting her lashes in a manner that, but a
few weeks ago, would have fooled him entirely.

“As tempting as I find your honeypot and your lovely
berries,” he teased, “you’ll not be leading me astray this time.”

Georgie let out a huff of exasperation, clamping her legs
together and allowing the seductive countenance to fall from her face. “Fine,
what are you offering?”

“It’s quite simple, actually,” he assured her with a grin.
“I will marry you and open every door you need to enter in order to find the
elusive Connie.”

“I don’t need you for that any longer,” she replied quickly.
“Your family will assist me.”

“Will they?” he asked. “Even after I tell them you are my
mistress?”

“Oh, Henry,” she trilled. “You are the sorriest liar I have
ever encountered.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“Watch and learn, darling.” She took a deep breath and
straightened her spine. “Terribly sorry to disappoint you, my lord, but I have
decided to give up my search. It has become far too bothersome forever running
after a lady who likely has no wish to be found.”

And damned if she didn’t appear completely sincere, what
with the way she held his gaze and injected just the right note of weariness
into her voice.

Henry was snagged by her words. “You know that Connie may
not wish to be found? That she might turn away and deny you?”

“To be sure, I’ve a contingency strategy already mapped
out.”

“What will you do?” he asked a split second before he
recognized the ploy. “Oh, no you don’t. You won’t lead me down one of your
twisted paths.”

Georgie harrumphed and settled back against the bedpost.

“Now, where was I?” he asked. “Ah, right. I’ve something you
want, two things in fact. Unfettered access to the
ton
and a cock
perpetually hard for you.”

“Me and every other lady who happens your way.”

And just like that, the path to her acquiescence spread out
before him, the way precisely mapped out, each turn clearly marked and the
final destination but a hop, skip and a jump away.

“I know I have garnered something of a reputation,” he
began, knowing it was time, past time he admitted his foibles, both to himself
and to the woman who would be his wife.

“One you have been only too happy to live up to,” she
replied with a huff of laughter.

“In the beginning,” he agreed. “I was just so surprised by
all of the attention and only too eager to take advantage. But eventually the
novelty wore off and it became a merry-go-round of sorts, one I could not hop
off.”

“I don’t understand.”

“One night nearly two years past a perfectly lovely lady
approached me at the end of a long night when I wanted only to find my bed.
Alone.”

“And you refused her?”

“I attempted to do just that,” he replied. “But she looked
so hurt, so surprised and offended.”

“You rogered her so as not to hurt her feelings?”

“Imagine if you will that you propositioned a man who was
renowned for his indiscriminate bed hopping,” Henry said. “And he refused you,
sent you on your way with no more than a polite farewell.”

“Why not make up a story, a tale of a previous engagement? A
duel at dawn you must prepare for lest you be killed? Your cousin the clergyman
who is about to enter a brothel and ruin his career? A sister eloping to Gretna
Green? A brother shanghaied aboard a pirate ship? Good lord, the list is
endless.”

“I haven’t your quick wit.”

“Nor my gift for dancing around the truth.”

“I would likely stutter and stammer and still wind up in a
gazebo with a lady whose name I do not remember.”

“Is that where she lured you?”

“As best I can recall.”

“You truly are a most foolish man.”

“Not so foolish that I cannot recognize the perfect solution
to my dilemma.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Marry me, Georgie. Marry me and save me.”

“Save you? I cannot even save myself.”

“Marry me, love and I will see you reunited with your
mother, no matter what it takes, I swear it.”

In the days that followed, Henry took to telling himself
Georgie was on the verge of accepting his rather bumbling marriage proposal
before the doors to her bedchamber were tossed open with enough force to slam
the heavy wood against the wall and a mountain of a man with hands the size of
ale kegs charged to her rescue.

The Duke of Mountjoy possessed two qualities that forever
kept him milling about on the fringes of good society, always peering in like a
hungry boy with his face pressed to a bakery window, never invited to partake
of the sweets within no matter his ancient title and enormous wealth.

The first was a temper quick to fire and quicker still to
flicker out, a trait that baffled even his family and friends and left
strangers doubting his sanity.

The second was an utter disregard for decorum, decency and
deductive reasoning.

So it came as no surprise to Georgie when Killjoy barged
into her bedchamber with his fists raised and a roar reverberating around the
room. It mattered not at all that his cousin was naked but for her stockings,
nor that a peer of the realm was on his knees before her, offering up his heart
in a misguided attempt to save them both.

Henry, on the other hand, was taken entirely by surprise.

He’d barely scrambled to his feet before the red-haired
giant swung one meaty fist that would have connected with his jaw had he not
dodged left at the last moment. Off balance, he staggered back and tumbled onto
the settee, his fall cushioned by a mass of silk and lace and muslin.

“Killjoy!” Georgie jumped to her feet, momentarily
forgetting that she was trussed up like a Christmas goose as she lunged forward
only to be caught by her bonds and twirled around with enough force to wrench
her shoulder and send her hair flying around her to whip across her eyes.
“Leave Henry be!”

“Bloody cur!” Killjoy paid her no mind, instead advancing on
Henry as he rose to stand with his fists raised and a scrap of lace dangling
over one bare shoulder. “I don’t know whether to kill you or hack off your
bollocks!”

“Do not touch his bollocks!” Georgie spun around, shaking
her head to dislodge the tangled curls streaming over her eyes.

“Kill you, it is.” Killjoy swung with his right, the blow
glancing of Henry’s cheek as he ducked left and sidled around to the back of
the sofa.

“Hide behind a lass’ skirts, will you?” With no more effort
than he might have expended swatting a fly, the Duke of Mountjoy lifted the
delicate piece and tossed it aside.

Gowns went flying through the air as if shot from a canon,
one pale green dress drifting to the floor at Henry’s feet only to be trampled
beneath Killjoy’s muddy boots as he lashed out with his right fist.

Henry took a solid punch to the midsection that sent him
stumbling into her vanity. Wood splintered, bottles and jars clinked together,
toppled left and right, and rolled to the carpet as the spindly legged table crashed
into the wall. Lady Joy’s jewels flew about, one necklace of diamond and
sapphire gems smacking Henry’s arm.

“Stop it this instant,” Georgie screamed, pulling against
her bonds until the satin bit into her wrists. “You’ll kill him.”

“You said I could.” Killjoy followed Henry’s retreat across
the room, his barrel chest rising and falling at an alarming rate and his face
so red beneath his straggly beard it was a wonder he had blood left anywhere
else in his body.

“I said no such thing.”

“I heard you plain as day.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Your Grace.” Henry spoke for the
first time since the barbarian who was her beloved cousin had entered the room.

“You can’t hurt a fly, lad,” Killjoy taunted just before he
lunged.

The lad sidestepped and his grace’s massive shoulder plowed
into the wall with enough force to punch a hole through wallpaper and plaster
and drop a pretty little portrait of Loch Canon in spring onto his head.

With a muttered curse, her cousin sank to his knees.

“Stay down and I won’t be forced to do you further bodily
injury,” Henry suggested as pleasantly as if he’d recommended one particular
mix of tobacco over another.

“You can’t…do me a…lick of harm,” Killjoy wheezed, cradling
his arm against his chest.

“Seeing as how we are soon to be family,” Henry continued in
the same manner as he circled around the dropped man, carefully staying beyond
his reach, “it might be best if we sat down and discussed the situation like
gentlemen.”

Killjoy twisted about to lean against the wall, his long
legs splayed out before him and his arm held protectively against his chest.

For the first time since he’d stormed into her bedchamber,
Georgie was able to focus upon him, to take in his presence after more than a
year spent apart from him.

Killjoy looked precisely like the barbarian he was reputed
to be. His red hair, only slightly darker and tamer than her own, was a matted,
tangled mess reaching nearly to his broad shoulders. An unkempt beard hid his
chiseled cheeks and square chin, drifting in uneven tufts down over the thick
column of his neck. His eyes were sunken and shadowed beneath his heavy brow,
their color a deep purple that brought to mind a nasty bruise left untended.

His clothing was mud spattered and wrinkled, his black
jacket hanging open over a stained white shirt without benefit of a single
remaining button, the collar sagging down to reveal the wings of the inked
dragon flying over his heart. His gray buckskins were patched at the knees, his
boot heels worn down nearly to the soles.

In short he was his usual disreputable self, slovenly and
foxed, three sheets to the wind judging by the stench of whiskey that wafted
across the room.

“Help me up, lad.” Killjoy lifted one arm, his huge hand
palm up.

“No, Henry!”

Georgie’s warning came too late.

The earl who was a gentleman in all ways leaned down and
grasped the hand of the duke who’d never pretended to be any such thing.

Henry received a swift left cross that caught him square in
the eye as a reward for his courteous gesture.

He lurched back and nearly fell to his rump before gathering
himself and turning to face Georgie where she struggled against her bonds.

“Are you going to marry me?” he demanded, gingerly poking at
the swelling already cresting his cheekbone.

“You’ve not yet proposed to the lass?” Killjoy roared,
jumping to his feet.

“Are you?” Henry ignored the other man, his blue eyes
gleaming as he pinned Georgie in place. “Tell me now, Georgie. I have no wish
to pummel my future kinsman. But, as God is my witness, if you don’t intend to
marry me I will beat his grace to a bloody pulp.”

“That’s blackmail,” she accused, her gaze darting beyond his
shoulder.

Henry whipped around in time to block Killjoy’s wicked right
jab and follow up with one of his own that landed with deadly precision on the
duke’s injured shoulder and had him reeling around to crash into her desk.

Corsets and shifts tumbled to the floor and her cousin
tumbled right over them, his enormous hands scrabbling through slippery silk
and lace in an attempt to get up again.

“Yes or no?” Henry scooped his discarded shirt off the floor
and stormed over to her.

“Be reasonable,” she begged as Killjoy got to his feet and
shook his shaggy head.

Henry yanked his shirt over her head and down to cover her
to mid-thigh, leaving her arms trapped along her hip.

“Reasonable?” he repeated with a rusty chuckle. “Reasonable
went by the wayside six weeks ago. Yes or no?”

Killjoy crept across the room as silent as a mouse, no easy
feat for a man of his immense size, pulling back his arm in preparation to
deliver a wallop to his adversary’s unprotected back.

“At your back!”

The earl feinted left and the duke’s hand landed with a dull
thud on the bedpost at Georgie’s side, the wood creaking and shuddering at the
impact.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Killjoy roared as Henry gave him a
shove that sent him crashing into the drying rack beneath the open window.
Three pairs of stockings went sailing out into the summer sky.

“Serves you right,” Georgie hissed, lashing out with her
foot, missing her cousin’s thick thigh by mere inches.

“What’s it going to be, Georgie?” Henry growled. “You can
become the Countess of Hastings and have everyone in London falling all over
themselves to welcome you into their homes or you can become the cousin, twice
removed to the late and unlamented Duke of Mountjoy.”

“You won’t kill him,” she argued, wishing she could be
certain.

Henry had the look of a man pushed past the breaking point
and Killjoy was too drunk to properly protect himself. He would likely go
careening out the window the next time Henry dodged his fists.

“Bloody fool,” Killjoy muttered as he slowly rose to his
feet to stand swaying to and fro. “That’s no way to propose to the lass.”

“Stay out of this,” Georgie ordered.

“Yes or no?” Henry asked.

“Get on your knees and propose proper-like,” Killjoy
continued, staggering toward the couple poised at the foot of the bed. “I’ll
not be giving her into your lily-white hands unless you beg.”

“What do you think he was doing when you barged into my
bedchamber?” Georgie demanded.

“Ach, I haven’t been without a bit of muslin so long I’ve
forgotten what a man is about when he’s kneeling between a woman’s legs,”
Killjoy replied around raspy laughter. “And it ain’t proposing.”

Henry clamped his jaw so tight a muscle jumped along the
sharp angle. His eyes took on a merciless glint and his nostril flared as his
chest rose and fell before he became perfectly still.

“You’ll come to rue this day,” she promised.

“Is that yes?”

“You cannot kill my cousin,” she warned.

“Say the words, Georgie.”

“Fine,” she huffed. “I’ll marry you.”

Henry pressed a quick, hard to kiss to her lips before
turning to face the Duke of Mountjoy.

“Have you any objections to the match, Your Grace?” he
asked, politeness personified.

“Ach, you don’t know George if you think you’ll get her to
the altar just because she says so,” Killjoy replied with a grin that showed a
row of teeth startlingly white against his red beard and ruddy complexion.
“She’ll leave you wilting in the heat of the church and claim she forgot what
day the wedding was to be held.”

“I will not!”

“She’ll go off on a journey and say she only left so as to
snatch forty winks,” Killjoy continued, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Don’t waste your time searching for her unless you’ve a hankering to see Timbuktu
or Constantinople.”

“He’s going to lead with his left,” Georgie warned a split
second before Killjoy set his actions to her words.

Henry planted his feet and took the punch to his gut with
little more than a grunt before cuffing the duke beneath his chin and following
up with a quick jab to his solar plexus.

“Stop this nonsense, Killjoy,” Georgie cried. “I said I’d
marry the man.”

“You pack a wallop,” Killjoy grunted, ignoring her words.
“For an Englishman.”

“Feel free to pummel his grace to within an inch of his
life,” Georgie invited, as she climbed onto the bed, curled her legs to the
side and leaned against the tall post, settling in for what promised to be a
drawn-out bout.

The men circled the room, bobbing and weaving, and landing
the occasional punch that sent one or the other careening into walls, chairs,
and the settee that Killjoy tossed about twice more.

And all the while Killjoy offered up bits of advice as to
how best to handle his spoiled and stubborn cousin.

“You’ll never get the truth out of her if a lie better suits
her purposes,” he said as he ducked Henry’s fist only to take the next blow on
the chin.

“A promise she’ll keep but anything less she’ll ignore and
do just as she pleases.” Killjoy offered up that little bit of nonsense while
backing Henry into a corner.

“She don’t know loyalty from vengeance, but she’ll have your
back either way,” the duke said as the earl jabbed his way back into the center
of the carpet.

“I’ve already deduced as much,” Henry replied as her cousin
swung his arm in a clumsy arc, missing Henry’s head by a good six inches and
falling to his hands and knees in a pile of ruffles and lace.

“Give me a hand up before I bleed out on George’s frilly
whatnots.”

Henry ignored Killjoy’s words, proving that he’d either
taken her warning to heart, a first that, or learned from his past mistakes.

“Be sure her fingers aren’t crossed behind her back,” her
cousin suggested as he staggered to his feet with blood oozing from the corner
of his mouth and trailing through his raggedy beard. “Else you’ve as good as
given her an out.”

Henry shot a glance her way and Killjoy’s fist connected
with his jaw.

“Don’t take your eyes off him, you dolt!” Georgie screamed.

“Were your fingers crossed behind your back?” Henry
demanded, reeling backward from the blow.

“How pray tell would I get my fingers behind my back,” she
asked, neatly dancing around the question as she uncrossed her fingers at her
hip and fluttered them beneath his billowing shirt.

“Well now, seeing as we’ve settled that.” Killjoy brushed
one hand over his mouth and down his shirt, leaving a bloody smear that only
added to his seedy appearance. “Will you join me for a whiskey, your lordship?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Henry answered with a nod.

“Not until you free me,” Georgie reminded him.

“Best to leave the lass where she is while we iron out the
hows and whens of the thing,” Killjoy suggested. “Else you’ll come back and
find her gone off to Timbuktu.”

Henry tilted his head and studied her, his good eye going
all soft and tender and his lips lifting in a smile more lopsided than usual.

“You wouldn’t,” she whispered.

“I’ve no desire to see Timbuktu just now,” the Earl of
Hastings replied with a laugh before he turned on his heel and followed the
Duke of Mountjoy from her bedchamber.