Читать книгу A Daring Liaison - Gail Ranstrom - Страница 10

Georgiana slammed her bedroom door and leaned back against it as if she could hold her shame at bay. She’d sent Clara to her bed with a sweep of her hand. No more conversation tonight!

How could she have confided all her deepest fears? How could she have allowed him such liberties? How could she have cast caution and the lessons of the past to the wind?

Because it felt so good. So right.

She threw her reticule across the room and dropped her shawl where she stood. He’d bewitched her! That could be the only explanation. She’d never allowed liberties like that before, except with Gower—and that had been required because they’d been married. In bed. And he hadn’t made her feel the things that Charles Hunter had. Things that left her breathless and trembling. Craving more. She’d never suspected—never dreamed—there could be such delight. She collapsed on her bed, her knees unable to support her through the vivid memory of the unexpected passion he’d awakened in her.

Oh! And it was Charles Hunter who had taught her that. He must be laughing up his sleeve right this very minute. Or telling his friends how easily seduced she’d been. For the second time! Or plotting how he might avoid her in the future, now that he’d made a fool of her again.

Never again.

She stumbled to her dressing table and pulled the pins from her mussed hair, dropping them in a gilt pin dish. She needed to compose herself or she’d never sleep tonight. Not that she’d slept well at all since arriving in London.

She suspected she was losing her mind. Aside from the shocking incident with Mr. Hunter, there were other signs of madness. She hadn’t told him everything. In fact, she hadn’t told Mr. Renquist everything, either. They’d think she’d gone quite balmy. Perhaps they’d even think she was unhinged enough to have killed her husbands herself. She couldn’t risk that. She’d almost rather believe she was cursed than that those little things meant she’d gone insane.

There were dozens of them—those little things—her forgetfulness, the missing items she’d sworn she left here last fall, the things she’d brought with her from Kent that she could not find now, the vague uneasinesses, the prickle of hair on the back of her neck warning that she was being watched or followed.

She might have suspected one of the new servants, but the missing items were inconsequential, really, and of little value beyond sentiment. A tortoiseshell comb, a ribbon, a brass locket she’d gotten at a country fair. Oddly, when she’d made a fuss over a small golden ring with a tiny garnet that had gone missing, the household had been in an uproar until one of the servants found it in the garden. Georgiana couldn’t imagine how it had gotten there since she had no recollection of being in the garden.

Clara said she was too high strung, that her nerves were spent and her imagination had run away with her. Furthermore, Clara informed her, grief could make a person think and do very odd things.

Like allow Charles Hunter to …

No! She would not spend another moment thinking about that! Or about him. If she had any sense at all, she’d leave London immediately. But since she could not, she would face Mr. Hunter down. Offer him impudence for impudence.

She opened the drawer of her dressing table and removed the bottle of laudanum Aunt Caroline had kept on hand to help her sleep. She hadn’t used it before, but tonight, at least, it would help her forget the news from her solicitor and her wanton behavior with Mr. Hunter. She removed the cork and took a sip, ignoring the instructions to measure the dose carefully. She couldn’t possibly be any more reckless than she’d already been.

Marcus Wycliffe heaved a world-weary sigh as he and Sir Harry Richardson sat at the small table on either side of Charles. “We searched every hole and shadow near Covent Garden. No trace. And, of course, no one saw anything. All we can say for certain is that Mrs. Huffington did not fire the shot.”

“Aye?” Charles took a deep drink from his tankard. “Well, that does not eliminate the possibility that she had help.”

Wycliffe winced. “Are you backing out?”

Charles had had time to consider that option in the hour he’d been waiting for Wycliffe and Richardson to arrive. Anger and desire mingled into a heady brew every time he thought of Georgiana Huffington. Sense told him to walk away. Something dangerous and darker urged him to continue. His darker urges were always stronger. “I’ve already made a beginning. Mrs. Huffington is unaware of the Home Office’s interest in her. Our meeting went well.”

Wycliffe quirked an eyebrow at Charles. Even through the dim tavern light, the man could be intimidating. “Went well? How well?”

Charles had no intention of telling his superior that he’d left the woman in question still trembling from his touch. She might be his assignment, but he was still discreet enough to know that some things were none of the Home Office’s business.

Richardson, however, sat back in his chair and regarded Charles with a sly grin. “Details, man. We want the details.”

“Our conversation was quite enlightening. She is shrewd enough to know how she appears to the ton. She realizes that people are talking, and she has thought ahead to the necessity of finding a palatable answer to the mystery. She has even voiced a concern that she might be next—which is something I do not think we can rule out entirely after the shooting tonight.”