Bound with Passion Page 8

  “Yes, Georgie,” James asked. “Where would you like to get married?”

  She stared at him and that mischievous smile played around her lips. “Is Mr. Tattersall still doing his October yearling sales at Hyde Park Corner? The timing would be quite convenient to have the wedding in London in early November.”

  “Now you are willfully trying to vex me.” Vanessa looked as though she wanted to stamp her foot in frustration, but propriety made her refrain. “Horse sales? It’s your wedding, darling!”

  Georgie reached for James’s forearm as she turned to face Trevor and rested her other hand on his sleeve. He felt a bolt—almost a charge of electricity—when the three of them were connected. He noticed that Trevor started as well. Georgie was not oblivious. “What do you say, Trevor? Will you make an honest woman of me in front of all the tonnish snobs in Mayfair?”

  “Oh, don’t say it like that,” Vanessa complained. “You make it sound positively ghastly. It will be splendid. Don’t you think, Nora?”

  Nora was smiling at Georgie. “Yes. I think it might very well be splendid.”

  Then Nora turned her gaze to James, and with the slightest nod, he thought perhaps she grasped the whole complex range of possibilities the marriage might offer. And approved. Another hat for Nora, thought James. She looked like she knew very well what he and Trevor had in mind as far as Lady Georgiana Cambury was concerned. And Nora was pleased.

  Vanessa couldn’t contain her enthusiasm. “I’ve saved the dress I wore when I married your father, in anticipation of just such a day. It’s been safely preserved upstairs all these years. Just waiting for you.” Her voice quavered.

  Uh-oh.

  James felt Georgie’s fingers digging into his forearm. Do not cry, Vanessa. Do not cry.

  Sure enough, slow tears started to roll down her face. Even though Georgie had only been staying at Mayfield House for the past week or so, James already knew how she despised this sort of blubbering display of emotion. She’d practically eviscerated a chambermaid for getting weepy about killing a spider. “Weak women infuriate me,” she’d said at the time.

  James patted her hand now and quietly whispered. “Give her a hug, Georgie. It’s just a role, remember?”

  She turned to look at him, probably wondering how he’d known she’d been thinking that very thing as she entered the grand castle that night. He lifted his chin. I see you, Lady Georgiana, he thought, I see right to the frantic, prancing, yearling heart of you.

  She released her hold on both men and took the few steps toward her mother. “It will be quite lovely, Mother. I’m sure you will make everything perfect.”

  Hugging her back, Vanessa took a few more gasps, then patted at her cheeks with a linen handkerchief she’d extracted from some invisible pocket. “Well, this is a big day for news.” She took a deep breath. “Shall we go in to dinner?”

  “Yes, love, let’s do that,” Nora said, taking Vanessa’s shaking hand in hers. “We’ll ask Swanson to open a few bottles of M. Moët’s finest, shall we?”

  “Yes, yes. That’s a wonderful idea. And we must remember to order many bottles for the wedding breakfast in London. There will be much to plan, and we will start tomorrow afternoon, shall we, with the planning, Georgie? And Anna will be a wonderful help as well. And there will be the guest list and the linens and the menu, of course, and the . . .” Vanessa kept talking, and Nora looked over her shoulder and winked at Georgie as she led her mother out of the room.

  “So, you just decided to blurt it out then? No warning?” Trevor asked Georgie, hanging back as everyone preceded them in to dinner.

  She quirked her lips and rolled her eyes. “I didn’t see the point in beating about the bush. She’s reacted exactly as I suspected she would. Utterly selfish.”

  “Oh, Georgie, do stop it.” James was surprised his voice came out sounding as strident as it did. But he didn’t apologize.

  “I beg your pardon, Rushford?”

  He took a quick breath and shook his head. “She’s your mother, for goodness’ sake, and every time she behaves in a remotely loving or maternal manner, you act as if she’s tied you to a stake and lit you on fire. It really must stop.”

  She turned to Trevor to see if he would defend her, but he shook his head slowly. “James is right, Georgie. She loves you like a puppy loves the butcher. Let her have her moment, all right?”

  Georgie’s nostrils flared. “Do you not care that she completely ignored the fact that you two are already quite happily together? Does she imagine your intimacy will simply disappear so she can serve champagne in Mayfair?”

  James smiled quickly so only Trevor could see, then let his face return to complete seriousness when Georgie turned to face him. “For someone who has traveled to the farthest corners of the globe, you seem to have a very limited imagination, Lady Georgiana.” James extended his arm again, indicating he was formally offering to escort her into the dining room.

  She shook her head and looked utterly exasperated, but she rested one hand upon his forearm and the other upon Trevor’s. That’s better, thought James. The three of them started walking toward the hall.

  “And how do you find me unimaginative, James?”

  “Obviously, Trevor and I have no intention of limiting our intimacy with one another, and your mother is too much of a lady to even refer to it. Perhaps she suspects you will be a wife to both of us?”

  Georgie stumbled at the edge of the carpet, but it hardly mattered because her feet barely touched the floor. Trevor’s solid strength secured her on one side, while James’s wiry intensity held her on the other. She was not a wisp of a woman, so the effect was rather intoxicating, to be as a feather between these two powerful men.

  Try as she might to convince herself it might all be a bit of bawdy fun, Georgie was forced to admit the possibility that James was not joking. In fact, his voice sounded as if he had never been more serious in his life. She looked at Trevor, realizing too late that the past few times she had done so—looked to him for a bit of calm in the storm—he had sided with James.

  Well, sided was probably too strong a word, but he certainly hadn’t leapt unquestioningly to her defense as she’d always remembered him doing in their childhood. She no longer felt like he was an unhesitating ally; the thought both scared and excited her. If James was implying that they were interested in having a real marriage—all three of them—well, Georgie was . . . beyond her ken.

  Had Trevor lied when he said that the marriage only needed to take place on paper to fulfill the terms of his father’s wishes? Trevor had never told a lie in his life. It made no sense he would start now. Was she lying to herself when she said that was all she wanted?

  Regardless of what the two men—or her fiery lusting—had in mind, Georgie had no plans to stay in England, much less embark on some sort of deep and meaningful emotional relationship with her childhood friend and his lover. It wasn’t as if the idea of some playful bedroom antics hadn’t crossed her mind—she was the first to admit that the idea of being with both of them had made her feel all manner of heated desire that very day—but the deep and meaningful parts of the equation made those desires cool immediately.

  And there was no doubt James and Trevor tended to go in for deep and meaningful; it was there in the intensity that shone from Trevor’s eyes, and the conviction that gave James’s lips that strong, sensual turn.

  “It really is only a marriage on paper, isn’t it, Trevor?” she pressed. “There are no additional stipulations from your father?”

  “Georgie.” Trevor’s voice was particularly tender; he held her forearm more tightly, attempting to stay her progress. “Please know that I would never lie to you or try to lure you into a situation that I thought would upset you.” They were getting closer and closer to the dining room entrance, and she knew that now was not the best time to badger them, but she couldn’t let this situation linger.

  “I know you would never lie, Trevor, but I just need you to know—to ac
cept—that there will never be anything between us—never anything like that, I mean.” She lifted her chin toward Pia and Farleigh and Sebastian as they entered the dining room ahead of them. “Just think about it. She was an innocent convent girl, plucked from obscurity, grateful for the smallest opportunities life has afforded her.” Georgie knew she was belittling Pia quite abominably—and Farleigh and Sebastian were hardly small opportunities—but she was warming to her theme, and the appalled reception she appeared to be getting from James and Trevor was what she wanted, after all, wasn’t it? She forged ahead, feeling as if she were—quite responsibly—hammering every last nail into the coffin of their silly, unrealistic fantasy about James and Trevor and Georgie cobbling together some sort of real relationship . . . whatever that meant. “To put it plainly, I can never in a million years picture myself as a dutiful wife or doting mama here in Derbyshire.” She hadn’t intended for the words to sting quite as much as they appeared to; Trevor seemed genuinely heartbroken. She added a hint of levity to her voice. “Oh, don’t look like that, darling. Let us go in to dinner with my mother and the rest of the company, and then we will go home and the three of us can speak plainly about what the future could hold. Something light and carefree—a dalliance, perhaps.”

  She kept a flirtatious smile plastered on her face, but when he looked down at her, dear lord, something hot and thick rolled through her. He was so damnably handsome, so profoundly serious, and the pressure of him on one side and the heat of James on the other—probably watching with great interest—made her flush with undeniable desire. Unfortunately, it was a desire that held none of the carefree lightness she’d blithely offered, but instead promised something dark and terrifying that made her want to throw herself into Trevor’s arms and never loosen her hold on his strong shoulders. It was something that would certainly be her undoing. It was a desire she promptly tamped.

  She shook it off further by removing her arms from the two men at her side and crossing the dining room with a fake smile for everyone in the room.

  The meal progressed with surprising enjoyment—as long as she avoided making eye contact with Trevor or James. Nora had obviously done the seating and had put Georgie between Sebastian and Farleigh. Both men were exceedingly charming and shared her interests in horseflesh and falconry.

  Over the years of her self-imposed exile, Georgie had fallen into the habit of dividing the world into several types. When it came to dinner companions, for example, there were those who saw a shared meal as something to be endured until they could return to the comfort and familiarity of their own home and their own habits. Georgie found this type could be either tediously boring or quite jovial when encouraged to speak about their own interests.

  And then there were those who sought only to escape the unhappiness of their home life—an unhappy marriage, a houseful of spoiled children—and sharing a meal with them made Georgie feel like she was spending a few hours with a soldier on furlough. This could be a cause for great celebration, slipping the noose as it were, or it could devolve into a sad recitation of endless regrets.

  Georgie wasn’t sure she could have sustained a difficult conversation this evening, her mind still reeling after what had just transpired with Trevor and James. Blessedly, Sebastian and Farleigh exhibited nary a hint of boredom or regret. They both appeared to have an abiding ease and satisfaction when they spoke of their domestic arrangements, and they also showed a delightful curiosity about what went on in the world outside the perimeter of their homeish interests.

  Sebastian was clearly the more experienced equestrian, his time in Spain having been spent almost entirely on horseback. Now that it looked as though he was going to remain in England for some time rather than going to the Americas as he had originally planned, Sebastian explained he was keenly interested in building up his own stable. Georgie invited him over to Mayfield to look at the two Arabian horses she had transported back to England.

  “I would be delighted,” he replied.

  “I’ve spent most of my time at Mayfield House over the past week soothing those two precious animals, helping them adjust to the new climate and their new surroundings.”

  “So they’re skittish, then?” Sebastian asked.

  “No, I wouldn’t say that precisely. I think of them as I would any displaced royalty: they appear to be quite put out by their new arrangements, but not really in any position to do much about it except complain.”

  Sebastian laughed at the comparison. “I know just what you mean. I considered bringing my stallion from Madrid, but he wouldn’t have traveled well. He enjoys being the prince of the stables on my family farm, and if I put him in some cold mews behind Grosvenor Square, I suspect he would simply refuse to eat.”

  “Precisely.” She liked this man very much. Her love of horses was not a pastime, it was a passion, and when she met others who treated it with a similar all-encompassing respect, she felt like she was meeting a friend for life. “I acquired two splendid stallions named Cyrus and Saladeen. Trevor has a prize mare named Bathsheba, and instructed me to buy him the best bloodstock I could find while I was in the desert those past two years with the Bedouins.”

  “Two years?” Farleigh asked with a shiver. “Were there any creature comforts?”

  She turned to look at him. “Well, I suppose that depends on the creature.”

  “Touché.” Farleigh gave a slow grin, and Sebastian laughed.

  “Yes, Leigh,” Sebastian taunted. “You, therefore, would be very uncomfortable.”

  “And you, Sebastian?” They were all on a first-name basis already. Nora was eager to have Anna and all of her group on the most intimate terms with Archie and Georgie, to foster the sense of family that had been missing for so long in Anna’s life.

  “I’ve been known to rough it,” Sebastian answered.

  “Really? I find that surprising.” Georgie took a sip of her wine. She blessed her mother for that at least; Vanessa always kept the best vintages on hand and loved to share them.

  “As Anna likes to say, I clean up well.” Sebastian smiled again, and it was almost like looking into the sun. He was incredibly virile, exuding a pulsing masculinity, and he had a sense of humor about himself that made him that much more appealing.

  The three of them continued to speak over the six-course meal. Sebastian was thrilled and delighted to hear the details of her voyages and the colorful adventures she had enjoyed. While regaling him with one particularly ribald tale about a sheikh whose wife claimed he was no longer up to the responsibilities of his office, Georgie caught sight of Trevor’s eyes on her.

  It was one thing to receive the attention of a new suitor—she knew how to flirt with men (and women) in nearly every culture she’d encountered—but it was something else entirely to discover it in someone for whom she had a deep and abiding friendship. Her heart missed a few beats, then returned to a steady, if thudding, pace. She forced herself to turn her attention back to her dinner companion.

  Sebastian continued, “I believe Mayson and I will be riding out tomorrow, along with the Duke and Duchess of Mandeville.” He was holding the stem of his wineglass and leaning back casually in the Sheraton chair next to Georgie. She admired the way he held his body—the way he touched things and listened carefully, the way he looked at people and processed the world around him. She shook her head slightly, trying to shake off those strange new feelings about Trevor and James, and to remember she was at a family supper in the castle where she’d grown up, and not in some sensual salon in Cairo.

  “Oh, you shall all have a lovely ride, I suspect. I’m sorry I cannot join you. Alas, I will be spending the afternoon with my mother, Nora, and Anna, making early plans for the wedding.”

  Sebastian looked slightly insulted on his wife’s behalf. “I would be happy to switch places with you, if you’d prefer. I welcome any opportunity to spend time with my wife.” He lifted his glass in a small salute. When he took a sip, Georgie had the impression that Sebastian’s wine
—and everything else about his life—was exactly as he wished it to be.

  When Trevor saw Georgie flushed and animated under the attentive gaze of two strong men, he wanted to dive at her across the table. Never in a million years, she’d said. Never.

  He was barely able to keep his concentration on Pia’s words as she spoke about her family’s plans to return to London in a few days and her desire to study with one of the painters from the Royal Academy.

  “Don’t you think, Mayson?”

  “I do beg your forgiveness, Duchess, but my mind is terribly distracted this evening.”

  “I can see that,” she answered with a complicit smile. “Your fiancée is quite distracting.”

  He looked at Pia more closely. “You sound like someone who knows what it is to be distracted.”

  “I do indeed.” Her eyes slipped toward Anna de Montizon. “The three people I love most in the world are sitting at this table, and I have an abiding peace whenever the four of us are together in one room. But before . . . ” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head slightly. “Before we knew our way through the thicket of our emotions, it was quite . . . distracting.”

  Trevor smiled. “How did you manage it?”

  She took a deep, satisfied breath and shrugged. “I never thought I was the managing sort; I always imagined Anna in that role. She’s very . . . practical.”

  Anna was speaking to James about the latest news from Spain, sounding frustrated and angry that her country was still being torn apart by France and England with no end to the destruction in sight.

  “I can imagine,” Trevor agreed.

  “I’m not sure you can,” Pia said with certain respect. “She has a very persuasive side. In fact, I think it might run in the family.” She glanced quickly at Georgie, then back at Trevor. “Did you know their fathers, the Cambury brothers?”

  “I was young and inattentive when the Marquess of Camburton and his brother died in 1789. I only remember it from Georgie and Archie’s perspective. They had an enviable freedom. I know that sounds quite awful, and I’m ashamed to confess it, but as they were mourning the loss of their father, I was jealous of their independence. My parents were of a rather smothering nature.”