Bound with Passion Read online

  Riptide Publishing

  PO Box 6652

  Hillsborough, NJ 08844

  www.riptidepublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All person(s) depicted on the cover are model(s) used for illustrative purposes only.

  Bound with Passion

  Copyright © 2015 by Megan Mulry

  Cover art: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

  Editor: Sarah Lyons

  Layout: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at [email protected].

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-314-8

  First edition

  July, 2015

  Also available in paperback:

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-315-5

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  Lady Georgiana Elizabeth Cambury has been a “wild romping girl” all her life: dressing in trousers, riding astride, and doing just fine, thank you very much. Her father’s exceedingly generous bequest—and her mother’s liberal views of the world—have ensured that Georgie will never be a slave to the barbarous institutions of marriage or motherhood. Or so she thinks.

  When she returns from five years in North Africa to boring Derbyshire for a brief, obligatory family visit, she finds herself in the midst of a legal snarl involving Mr. James Rushford and Lord Trevor Mayson—neighbors, lovers, and her two closest friends. Mayson’s father has declared that he must marry or forfeit his vast inheritance, so Georgie blithely offers to walk down the aisle, in name only. Problem solved.

  But try as she might, Georgie cannot ignore the passion that quickly blazes between all three of them. When her marriage of convenience turns into something much deeper, Georgie must decide if she is willing to give up the independence she has fought so hard to achieve—or if love is worth the ultimate surrender.

  At one moment we deplore our birth and state and aspire to an ascetic exaltation; the next we are overcome by the smell of some old garden path and weep to hear the thrushes sing.

  —Virginia Woolf, Orlando

  About Bound with Passion

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Author's Note

  Dear Reader

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Megan Mulry

  About the Author

  More like this

  September 1810

  Ajax, Southampton Harbor

  Georgie swayed in the bowels of the ship. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d slept in a proper bed. Not that it mattered—she was just grateful to have secured passage at all, for herself and for the two beautiful beasts with whom she shared her accommodations . . . such as they were. Her string hammock swung with the gentle currents of the harbor, just as Saladeen and Cyrus swung in their equestrian slings. The three of them were tired and filthy, and quite ready for this treacherous journey to be over.

  Rolling out of her hammock, Georgie stood as best she could in the awkwardly shaped hold.

  “We’re almost there, my dears. We disembark today.” She stroked Saladeen’s neck the way the horse loved, and watched the more aggressive Cyrus out of the corner of her eye. Georgie and the larger stallion had a very cautious peace. He knew he was being taken someplace cold and inhospitable, and he was not pleased about it. But he also knew Saladeen would be there, so . . . he moped along.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Cyrus. I’m just as unhappy about it as you are. At least you will be coddled and prized—a lifetime of sweet oats and green pastures await you. And the beautiful Bathsheba.”

  She turned to dismantle her hammock and do what few ablutions she could with the bucket of cold water that sloshed near her feet. Sweet oats and green pastures do not await me, she thought sadly. More like an army of people who would try to convince her that spending the rest of her life in rural Derbyshire would offer some Elysian Field of perpetual pleasure.

  No, thank you.

  Georgie splashed her face, not worrying too much about any residual dirt. After all, it helped make her look more like the young British lad she’d been posing as for the entire trip. Her clothes were simple, masculine, and well made. She’d found a tailor in Cairo who—after the requisite horror that she was a woman—agreed to make her a full kit of men’s clothing, including the stiff, unforgiving corset that flattened her troublesome breasts.

  Troublesome.

  She shook her head and began the familiar routine of defending herself to herself. She was quite fond of her breasts, actually, when occasion warranted acknowledging them—when strong or soft hands liberated them, caressed them, toyed with them. But for the most part, her life did not revolve around such occasions. Lady Georgiana Elizabeth Cambury lived her life at a full gallop, demanded that all doors be open to her, and none of that happened while reclining on a palanquin, having one’s nipples fondled.

  Putting an end to that fruitless line of thinking, Georgie continued packing her flannel and soap and other small items with military neatness, buckled up her leather bag, and took one last look at the two beautiful horses. “Now I have to leave you for a short while to deal with the captain and the customs officials. Don’t bite anyone, Cyrus.”

  He stared at her as if he didn’t understand. She leaned in and kissed Saladeen on his satiny nose. “Be good, handsome.” She patted each of them one more time for good measure.

  Then she turned out of the grimy stall where she’d spent the past three weeks, and with a masculine swagger she’d perfected over the past few years in Egypt and Syria, she strode up on deck and prepared to begin greasing the palms of everyone who was going to help her get the horses off the ship and on their way to Derbyshire.

  By midday, they were on dry land—or rather, seeing as she was back in dreary England, moist land was more the truth. She hired a carriage and two men to accompany her north. While she rode Cyrus and led Saladeen, they drove the carriage with her trunks and all of the additional saddlery and equipment she had bought as a present for Trevor. At least the prom
ise of spending time with James and Trevor was one glimmer of sunshine in what felt like an otherwise gloomy errand.

  For as far back as Georgie could recall, she had loved Trevor Mayson. Not romantic love, of course—she’d decided at the age of seven that she would never do something as stupid and self-defeating as fall in love. And Trevor had decided . . . or rather, it hadn’t been a decision at all, had it? It was simply a wonderful fact: Trevor loved James Rushford. The two of them had been attached to each other since university, and Georgie had enjoyed getting to know James better in the intervening years—or as much as she could in her perpetual absence. She knew Trevor loved him, and that was enough for her to love him as well.

  As her little caravan made its way north, the air turned surprisingly restorative, despite the thick, cool, humidity of it. Georgie gradually let Cyrus have his way, and she enjoyed the prick of cool autumn wind as it swished past her cheeks. Occasionally, she’d loosen her neckcloth, welcoming the cool air against her skin, and let him ride harder. She’d taken to tying Saladeen to the carriage after lunch, warning the two coachmen that she’d cut off their bollocks if anything happened to the prized stallion.

  Along the way, they bedded down in Sutton Scotney, Newbury, and Oxford, staying well out of the town centers so Georgie wouldn’t run the risk of seeing any familiar faces. She had plotted an overland trip that would take them about twenty miles a day, getting them to Derbyshire by the middle of September. She’d thought of sending her mother and Nora another letter once she landed in Southampton, but it would arrive only a few days before she herself did, so she didn’t see the point. She had managed to dash off a quick note to Trevor and James to say she’d landed.

  As the days passed, the horses became accustomed to the lush greens and autumn ochres that were so foreign to their native Arabia, while Georgie feared she would never become accustomed to England again.

  The idea of her native land tortured her. Yes, of course, she felt filial responsibilities, love even, but the closer she got to Derbyshire, the more she missed the Levant. The freedoms she’d enjoyed in the Middle East were impossible here—both in terms of her outward appearance and simply speaking her mind. Everything in England was prescribed; everyone was meddlesome and opinionated and irksome.

  She gave Cyrus a spurring kick and he quickened his pace—at least she was going to enjoy riding astride for a day or two more. As soon as they reached Castle Donington, Lady Georgiana Cambury would be required to make her appearance. Until then, Georgie prevailed.

  On the ninth night after they’d set off from Southampton, Castle Donington rose up in the distance, a fine spread and one that held fond memories from her childhood. Georgie had released her pair of employees that afternoon, sending them back to Southampton, planning to hire two more local men in the morning. That evening, young master George checked into the Lion and Lamb—chosen primarily for its immaculate stables—and informed the innkeeper that his cousin, Lady Georgiana, would be arriving at some point, but George was not certain when. The proprietor hadn’t seemed to care much one way or another. As usual, once money changed hands, that was the end of it.

  She’d decided to spend the next two nights and days at the Lion and Lamb, shedding George and becoming Lady Georgiana. Shedding was quite the right word, she thought, like peeling off a second skin. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but it made her think of a cobra she’d seen in the desert marketplace, as it slowly rubbed its nose and slid out of the glaucous wrapper that had served its purpose and must now be left behind.

  But Georgie never really left it behind.

  The supposedly masculine way she felt and acted when she was dressed as George—confident, outspoken, resilient—was part of her now, neither masculine nor feminine. In fact, she bristled at the idea that men should arbitrarily have those excellent qualities under their sole purview. And she was not alone in that view.

  She had become friends with an older English woman in Cairo and had finally confided to her about her alter ego, George. Sibylla Tickenham had laughed and laughed, and had then reached for the shelf and opened a collection of drawings that showed a young Sibylla in traditional Bedouin attire. Traditional Bedouin male attire.

  They’d spoken late into the night and on many occasions after, about the freedom and risk, the danger and the pleasure of appearing in public as a man. Sibylla said she believed the masculine and the feminine coexisted inside everyone, but the extent to which one cultivated their varied natures was up to them.

  “I believe you are a perfect Janus like me, dear Georgie, swinging like a pendulum from extreme to extreme, and loving both.”

  At the time, Georgie had been reclining on a pile of ornately brocaded pillows at Sibylla’s feet, her head resting casually on the older woman’s lap. She’d taken a sip of Sibylla’s brandy and thought about that. “I do love both.”

  Sibylla had nodded her encouragement, and made Georgie believe—or begin to believe—that Janus heads were in fact perfect, that being open to all things in every direction was a sign of vitality and strength, not a sign of duplicity or ambivalence.

  Now that she was back in England, loving both—in herself and others—seemed a preposterous, distant dream, something misty and forbidden that she could only do in a faraway land where her family and connections were all severed. One more reason to sigh and hope for the shortest trip possible, after she’d delivered Cyrus and Saladeen to Trevor. And one more reason to get completely slewed in the meantime.

  So, that first night at the Lion and Lamb in Donington, Georgie sat in her room and got summarily drunk. Without making a big stink in the bar downstairs, she simply drank alone and let the alcohol do its job. She wallowed in a bit of self-pity during the first few glasses. Then she laughed at herself—her wealthy, independent, spoiled self—during the next few glasses. Then she ordered a large tub to be delivered and sat staring at the steaming water for a few moments after the male servants had left with their empty buckets and their laughter.

  That was another thing she was going to miss while she was all trussed up in lace and fripperies here in England. When she was George, other men—from haughty valets and rumbustious stable boys to enigmatic pashas—were accessible to her in an utterly nonsexual way. Well, in a sexual way too, on occasion, but it was the easy pedestrian camaraderie that was the most enjoyable. They would make rude jokes and laugh and speak inappropriately around each other, around her. Around her when she was George Camden, that is.

  No one dared speak inappropriately around Lady Georgiana Cambury—no one dared do much of anything interesting around Lady Georgiana Cambury, heiress, sister of the Marquess of Camburton, daughter of Lady Vanessa Montagu Cambury.

  After tossing back a fifth glass of Scotch, she set the crystal decanter down and began to untie her neckcloth. She removed her small amber pin and set it next to the liquor. She pulled off her close-fitting jacket, and then bent to remove her boots. Her buckskins came off next, then her stockings. She pulled her shirt over her head and let it float to the floor with the rest of the clothing she wouldn’t be wearing again until she returned to Egypt.

  Then she began unlacing the intricate corset-vest she’d designed with the tailor. It was similar to a woman’s stays, but she’d designed it so it went over her shoulders like a skintight, sleeveless waistcoat. While it flattened her breasts, giving her the masculine appearance that let her be George, it also gave her back support while riding.

  When her breasts were finally free, she arched her back, contemplating the unfamiliar weight of them, then slid into the hot water. The silky heat enveloped her and helped facilitate the mental and physical transition from lad to lady. While she lingered in the tub, she tried to envision herself perhaps enjoying the next few weeks as the jaunty Lady Georgiana. She sank deeper into the water and smiled, reminding herself that hot baths and silky undergarments were hardly trials to be endured.

  An hour or so later she was languishing under the covers, in a light cotton night ra
il, slipping her feet around the clean sheets that covered the feather bed. For a brief moment, she missed the dank confines of the shipboard stable and the nearness of Cyrus and Saladeen, but quickly let go of her perverse sentimentality, burrowed deeper into the luxury of freshly laundered linen, and fell asleep.

  The next morning she woke to a spectacularly sunny day, as if the weather were eager to provide a fresh start on this, her first day as Lady Georgiana. She narrowed her eyes against the brightness—that fifth Scotch might have been a mistake—then let the curtain fall back into place. She drank as much water as she could stomach, then opened her trunks filled with pantaloons and chemises and ribbons and gowns and riding habits. She opted for a dark blue velvet habit and a hat that would cover most of her short hair. By comparison, her female corset was softer, looser, and emphasized her breasts, and although it was supportive, it was far less constricting. She liked constricting, damn it.

  When she was ready to go downstairs, she took a long look at herself in the mirror. Her face needed powder—she was far too dark by British standards of femininity—but otherwise she looked, well, rather pretty. She smiled at her reflection, grabbed a parasol, and tried to enjoy the swishing fabric around her legs and the luxury of so many layers cosseting her.

  As she began to make her way down the stairs, she realized she was quite out of practice when it came to moving with all that skirted fabric. The silk velvet was everywhere, and there was so much of it. She nearly tripped on the last step and had to steady herself before continuing into the parlor where luncheon was being served. As she was turning in to that room, she heard a familiar deep voice coming from the front hall behind her.

  “She should have arrived by now. Are you certain? Lady Georgiana Cambury?”

  She wheeled around and was unable to repress a squeal of delight. “Trevor!”

  He glanced in her direction and his face bloomed with pleasure on seeing her. “There you are!” He turned with a lordly look of disappointment to the innkeeper. “She is right there and she is quite obviously the most beautiful creature this side of the Channel. How you could have missed her arrival, I cannot understand.”