A Daring Liaison. Gail Ranstrom

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СКАЧАТЬ her arrival. Aunt Caroline had always tended to such matters. The house had needed airing, the linens washing, the furniture dusting and the floors polishing. But now she was ready for her stay, no matter how long. The only room they hadn’t opened was Aunt Caroline’s. She was not quite ready for that yet.

      How odd, she thought as she turned to the four-poster bed and removed her apron. She and Aunt Caroline had talked endlessly about everything in the world, but they’d never talked about this—about the small details of her aunt’s final wishes.

      The threat of tears burned the backs of her eyes and she blinked rapidly to hold them at bay—she had promised herself that she was done with them. She’d cried oceans of tears in the past seven years, but her deepest sorrow was for Aunt Caroline.

      She removed her lace cap, tossed it on her dressing table and pulled the pins from her tidy bun. The weight of her hair tumbled down her back and she ran her fingers through it to remove any remaining hairpins as her maid bustled in.

      “Ready for bed, madam?”

      “Yes, Clara. I think we are all exhausted. Please tell everyone to sleep late.”

      The plump woman smiled. “Aye, madam. Won’t have to tell them twice, I vow.”

      Georgiana laughed. Sleeping late was a treat Aunt Caroline had always offered after an unusually long day of work. “If you will just help me with my stays, I shall do the rest myself.” She undid her tapes, lifted her work dress over her head and turned her back to the maid.

      Clara went to work loosening the laces of her corset until it fell away, leaving Georgiana only in her chemise. “Aye, madam. I think we’re all settled in, like. Everyone is excited to be back in town. Why, even Mr. Hathaway has a spring in his step.”

      Her staid butler? Imagining Hathaway excited about anything was nearly impossible.

      “Cook and me think he has a sweetheart.” Clara giggled. “He was sad to leave last fall and he perked up the minute we got here.”

      And now he was going out at night to buy blacking. Georgiana smiled. She wondered if she’d have to hire a new upstairs maid soon. She hoped Hathaway’s sweetheart was not a cook, because Mrs. Brady was truly gifted in the kitchen.

      Clara picked up the brush but Georgiana took it from her and sat at the dressing table. “Go on to bed, Clara. I’ll finish up. And mind you, lie abed in the morning.”

      Clara bobbed a curtsy and practically ran for the door before Georgiana could retract the offer. She began to pull her brush through her hair and then set it aside to open her little jewelry case.

      Silly to look again, she knew. It hadn’t been there yesterday and wouldn’t have magically appeared today. But she’d have sworn she’d left the little opal ring here last fall. Aunt Caroline had given it to her on her sixteenth birthday and it was precious to her. Even more precious now that Auntie was gone.

      She closed her jewelry case with a sigh and turned to the letters on her tray. She broke the unfamiliar seal on the first one—not from her solicitor but from Grace Hawthorne. She and her husband, a diplomat, were hosting a reception for the American ambassador tomorrow evening and requested her attendance—a very proper and sedate way to reenter society after her most recent mourning. She would send her acceptance in the morning.

      The next letter was, indeed, from her solicitor. He would see her Friday morning and hinted that he had news for her. Whatever it was, she could not be surprised. She and her aunt had shared every detail of their lives. Well, every detail but for those in her will.

      Georgiana went to her escritoire and opened her appointment book. She scratched the Hawthorne reception tomorrow night and her appointment with the solicitor the day after into the book, then blew the candles out, dimming the bedroom to the indistinct glow of the fireplace.

      After she shed her chemise and donned her nightgown, she went back to her window to open it to the soft breeze. A movement in the shadows across the street set her heart to racing. The overwhelming sensation of being watched sent a shiver though her and she rubbed her arms to banish the sudden gooseflesh that rose there. Someone walking over her grave, her aunt used to say. The edge of the curtain drifted back into place as she backed away from the window. Had it been her imagination or a foreshadowing of things to come?

      Charles shifted in the darkness. He hadn’t meant to let the sight of Mrs. Huffington in the window draw him closer to the light, but he’d forgotten himself in his study of her. She was so bloody beautiful that he could well understand men getting lost in those soulful green eyes and proposing in the face of almost certain death.

      But was she a victim or a villainess? That was the question Wycliffe wanted answered. And he needed to know if she’d been the cause of Adam Booth’s death and his wound. He rubbed his shoulder absently, the muscles still stiff from the injury.

      Georgiana Huffington’s entire future depended upon what he uncovered. And, as heart-stopping as she was, he could not afford to allow his baser instincts to interfere. He’d never compromised an assignment before, and he wouldn’t start now. Seduce her, perhaps, but be drawn in by her supposed innocence? Never. He knew better.

      Ah, but anticipation of tomorrow night at the Hawthorne reception made him smile to himself. Mrs. Huffington’s dismay should be quite amusing when she realized he would not be so easy to avoid as he’d been years ago.

      A cold shiver worked its way up his spine. Someone walking over his grave? He glanced around and strained to hear any sound, no matter how faint. Damn Gibbons and his cutthroats. Charles hadn’t been able to relax for months, but this was different. His every instinct warned him danger was in the wind. Breathlessly, he waited. Moments passed before he breathed again. A falling leaf? A stray cat?

      Only stillness. And oppressive atmosphere.

      He turned away, grateful that Thackery’s was nearby. He’d find his friends and indulge in a bit of gaming. Perhaps a bit of female companionship.

      Charles paid his respects to Adam Hawthorne and his honored guest, the American Ambassador Richard Rush, and moved away. The press of guests at his back waiting for introductions relieved him of the responsibility of making polite conversation.

      He was pleased to find there was an orchestra. Dances, he had found, were quite convenient to get a lady alone for a private word. All he needed was the lady. He waited in the foyer to watch the wide entry door. Sooner or later, Mrs. Georgiana Huffington would come through it, and the game would begin.

      Charles’s anticipation rose with each passing moment. The memory of her standing in the window in a nearly transparent nightgown, her hair falling around her in a golden aura, was enough to keep him standing there for hours. How would that glorious mass feel slipping between his fingers? What lay beneath that alluring nightgown he’d glimpsed? Did she still kiss like a wild angel?

      He straightened as his sister and Mrs. Huffington came through the door, followed by his brother-in-law, Lord Ethan Travis. He hovered until they had been presented to the ambassador and then followed them into the music room.

      Mrs. Huffington was elegant in a soft gray satin that draped to reveal her excellent figure. Rather than drab, as it might have been on any other woman, the sheen of soft gray became her, nicely setting off her delicate coloring and hair. Was the gown a remnant from her previous half mourning? Her hair had been contained in a graceful coronet from which a few curls were left to dangle and caress her long, graceful neck.

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