Page 45 of The Virgin Who Humbled Lord Haslemere
After all, she’d done the samething herself.
But she’d been wrong about him, just as nearly everyone else in London was. Lord Haslemere wasn’t frivolous, nor was he dim-witted, or vain. Reckless? Yes, at least on occasion. No man with any sense of self-preservation provoked Daniel Brixton. Careless? Of himself, perhaps, but not of his sister or his nephew, and not of his friend Lord Darlington.
Not even ofher, though he hardly knew her, and would be justified in thinking of her more as his foe than his friend.
But one thing was certain. Lord Haslemere was no fool, and Georgiana didn’t doubt he’d have Lady Archer right where he wanted her within moments of crossingher threshold.
There was a certain brilliance to the way he handled people. He knew how to read them, how to see what they tried to hide. It wasn’t the sort of brilliance Georgiana had ever admired—at least, not until this afternoon, when she’d watched him draw one confession after another from Lady Wylde, as easily as if he were pulling fish out of a pond on theend of a hook.
Perhaps it hadn’t been wise of her to spend so much time locked away with her numbers, avoiding people as she did. The trouble was, people were complicated. Unpredictable. One never knew what they would do, when they’d lash out, or the numerous different ways they’d find to hurt you—
“We’re here. Welcome to Lady Archer’s notorious faro bank, Georgiana.”
The carriage rolled to a stop, and Georgiana peered out the window. They’d arrived in St. James’s Street and stopped outside an elegant townhouse of cream-colored brick, with a pair of soaring columns flanking the entrance. Light poured from the large bow windows on the ground and first floors, and Georgiana could see scores of fashionably attired guests moving behind the glass.
A shaft of light splashed onto the street, illuminating her face, and Georgiana instinctively drew back to a darkened corner of the carriage. A spray of gooseflesh rose on her neck, and a shiver wracked her body.
All at once, she felt cold down to her bones.
“Are you chilled? Here, take this.” Lord Haslemere took up the wrap that had slipped from her shoulders and tucked it back around her before hopping from the carriage to the pavement and holding out his hand to assisther to alight.
Georgiana shrank away from him, deeper into the safety ofthe carriage.
She didn’t want to go in there. The fine people inside would take one look at her and know at once she wasn’t meant to be there, that she wasn’t like them, and they’d stare at her, and snicker behind their fans, and there’d be nowhere for her to go, nowhere to hide.
Lord Haslemere let out an impatient sigh. “The sooner we go in, Georgiana, the sooner we can come back out again.”
Georgiana tried to make herself reach for his hand, but instead she found her cold fingers gripping the sleeve of his coat. She pressed the fingers of her other hand hard against her lips and closed her eyes, dreading the moment when he’d demand to know what the matter was. She’d have to tell him, and he’d laugh at her…
“Georgiana?” He stuck his head back inside the carriage. “Are you coming?”
“I-I think I’ve made a mistake, my lord. I-I can’t go in there. I don’t know how to…I beg your pardon, but I just…I can’t go in there.”
She didn’t realize she’d made a small, choked sound until the carriage tilted under Lord Haslemere’s weight. The next thing she knew he was beside her on the bench, his long, warm fingers wrapped around hers.
* * * *
He didn’t mean to touch her. Her hand was in his before he realized he’d moved, and words were falling from his lips before he realized he’d opened his mouth.
So strange that, somehow, he knew just how to speak to her, where to touch her. Every word, every movement was somehow exactly the right one, flowing from him like water in a stream cascading over smooth, damp rocks, or wisps of cottony clouds across a clear, blue sky.
“Perhaps you’re right, and we have made a mistake coming here. Let’s considerit, shall we?”
She didn’t answer him, but her fingers curled around his.
He glanced out the window at Lady Archer’s townhouse, and tried to see it as Georgiana must. “Grand, isn’t it? Far too bright, of course. Every time I attend one of Lady Archer’s faro parties, I always end up with a headache from the glare.”
She peeked over his shoulder to the townhouse on the other side of the carriage window, then asked hesitantly, “How…why isit so bright?”
“There are pier glasses crammed onto every available bit of wall. Thetondoes like to admire itself, you know, but unfortunately it throws the light about until you feel as if you’ve stumbled into the sun itself.”
Benedict waited. Georgiana remained silent, but he knew she was listening. “The marble in the entryway is the ugliest I’ve ever seen. Black, with blotches of beige, done in a trompe l’oeil. Lady Archer has the worst taste imaginable.”
Still nothing from Georgiana, but her eyes—wide, and very green this time—were fixed on him. Benedict went on, hardly knowing what he said. Just bits of nonsense he’d picked up here and there—but all of it was meant to show Georgiana there was nothing inside that townhouse that could hurt her.
“As for the faro, there will be a great number of green baize tables, a great scattering of cards, and a great many fashionable ladies with towering feathers in their hair and too much rouge ontheir cheeks.”
“Rouge?” Sudden color flooded into Georgiana’s face. “Lady Wylde was, ah…she was wearing rougethis morning.”
