“Show a leg, George. Your new in-laws will be returning home soon.”
Georgina cracked an eyelid to find James sitting on the side of the bed. Doing so had made her roll toward him in her sleep, so that her hips were pressed up against his thigh. But that didn’t alarm her nearly as much as his hand resting on her buttocks.
“How’d you get in here?” she demanded, wide awake.
“Walked in, of course. It was wise of Dobson to put you in my room.”
“Your room? I told him—”
“Yes, and he took you literally. After all, he didn’t hear me deny your status, and only Jeremy is doubting of it, not the whole family.”
“You mean he still is? You didn’t bother to try and convince him?”
“Didn’t see much point in it.”
Georgina sat up and turned away from him so he couldn’t see how that answer affected her. So now she knew. She wasn’t going to be here long enough for it to matter whether his son believed he’d married or not. James probably planned to put her on the first ship he could find sailing for America. Well and good, the sooner the better. She didn’t want to live in England anyway. And she certainly didn’t want to live with a man who merely shared a mutual attraction with her. That was fine for temporary, but not for permanent. For permanent she needed much, much more. And she wouldn’t cry, not this time. She’d done enough crying over this man. If he didn’t care, she wouldn’t either, and that’s all he was going to know…if it killed her.
James had no idea what conclusion she’d drawn from his remark, but then he was overlooking the fact that Georgina didn’t know his son. In his doubt, Jeremy was merely being loyal to James, since he was well aware of James’s sentiments towards marriage, and also that he had sworn never to marry. And James wasn’t ready to explain why he’d changed those sentiments, since that was also going to be doubted. So what was the point in letting his hardheaded son frustrate him over the matter, when time would tell?
“You’re absolutely right, James,” Georgina said, coming off the bed.
“I am?” His brow rose sharply. “Dare I ask what you’re agreeing with me about?”
“That there’s no point in convincing anyone about our…connection.”
He frowned as he watched her cross to the chair where he’d dumped a pile of clothes for her. “I was referring only to Jeremy,” he explained. “It won’t be necessary to convince anyone else.”
“But if it is, why bother? And I don’t see much point in my meeting the rest of your family, either.”
“You’ve let the lad give you cold feet, have you?”
“Certainly not,” she retorted, turning to glare at him for drawing that conclusion.
“Then what are you worried about? Unlike your family, mine will adore you. And you’ll get along famously with Roslynn. She’s only a few years older than you are, I believe.”
“Your sister-in-law Roslynn? The one who’s going to object to my staying here? And which brother does she happen to be married to?”
“Anthony, of course. This is his house.”
“You mean he’s married?”
“He put the shackle on just the day before I met you, as a matter of fact, and that’s about as long as his wedded bliss lasted. He was still at odds with his little Scottish bride when I left here. It’ll be interesting to see how the lad’s getting on with her now, though Jeremy assures me Tony’s no longer in the doghouse.”
“Sounds like a good place for you to be, though,” she said pointedly. “You could have told me all of this before we got here, James.”
He shrugged carelessly. “Didn’t think you’d be interested in my family. I’m certainly not interested in yours. Now what’s this?” he asked when he saw her chin go up just before she gave him her back again. “It’s no insult to you, love, that I can’t tolerate those barbarians you call brothers.”
“My brothers wouldn’t have behaved like barbarians if you hadn’t deliberately provoked them. I wonder how your family would react if I did the same thing.”
“I guarantee they won’t trounce you or cart you off to Tyburn Hill for hanging.”
“Probably not, but they wouldn’t like me. And they’d wonder if you hadn’t lost your mind, bringing me here.”
He chuckled as he came up behind her. “On the contrary, you darling girl. Do or say anything you like. You’ll find it won’t make the least bit of difference to your welcome.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve become a Malory through me.”
“Is that supposed to be significant?”
“I’m sure you’ll hear all about it soon enough, but you won’t if you don’t get dressed. Shall I help you?”
She slapped away the hand that reached around for the hem of her shirt. “I think I can manage myself, thank you. Whose clothes are these, anyway? Roslynn’s?”
“That would have been more convenient, but no. She’s a mite bigger than you just now, or so her maid assured me. So I sent round to Regan’s, who happens to be just your size.”
Georgina turned in his arms and shoved him back. “Regan? Ah, yes, the one who prefers to call you a ‘connoisseur of women’ rather than a reprehensible rake.”
“D’you never forget anything?” he said on a sigh, which she totally ignored.
“And here I thought at the time that Regan was a male friend of yours.” And then she surprised him by jabbing a finger in his chest and demanding with a good deal of heat, “So who is she? A mistress you left behind? If you’ve borrowed clothes from a mistress for me, James Malory, so help me I’ll—
His laughter cut her off. “I hate to interrupt such a splendid display of jealousy, George, but Regan’s my beloved niece.”
There was but a moment’s blank expression before she cringed. “Your niece?”
“She’ll be amused to hear you thought otherwise.”
“Well, for God’s sake, don’t tell her!” she said, aghast. “It was a perfectly natural mistake, considering you’re a confessed reprobate.”
“Now I resent that, indeed I do,” he replied in one of his drier tones. “There’s a world of difference between a rake and a reprobate, dear girl. And your perfectly natural mistake wasn’t so natural, since I haven’t kept a mistress for years.”
“What did you call Jeremy’s lie? A clanker?”
“Very amusing, George, but it happens to be true. I’ve always preferred variety. And mistresses can be quite tedious in their demands. I’d have made an exception for you, however.”
“Should I be flattered? I’m not.”
“You were my lover on the Maiden Anne. Where’s the bloody difference?”
“And now I’m your wife, if you’ll pardon that ghastly word. Where’s the difference?”
She’d hoped to annoy him with the comparison, but instead he grinned at her. “You’re getting very good at this, George.”
“At what?” Suspiciously.
“Disagreeing with me. There aren’t many who dare, you know.”
She gave an unladylike snort. “If that’s supposed to be more flattery, your score is zero.”
“Well, if we’re keeping score, how will this one rate? I want you.”
He drew her up against him as he said it, so she could feel with her body that he wasn’t speaking in a general sense, but about the present moment. He was aroused, and whenever James was aroused, his whole body seduced, hips grinding against loins, chest tantalizing nipples to hard points, touch seeking only the sensitive, and mouth stealing any protest. What protest? Georgina was lost the moment she felt his need.
In her surrender, she could tease, albeit a bit breathlessly. “What about the in-laws I’m supposed to meet?”
“Devil them,” James said, his own breathing already labored. “This is more important.”
His thigh thrust between hers, and his hands clasped her buttocks to drag her up the surface of it. She moaned at the friction, her arms wrapping about his neck, her legs about his waist, her head thrown back so his mouth could sear her throat. There was no more thought for teasing or anything beyond the moment and their burgeoning passion.
And into this heated scene walked Anthony Malory. “Thought the youngun was only bamming me, but I see he wasn’t.”
James’s head came up, and his growl was indicative of a very frustrated annoyance. “Blister it, Tony, your timing is bloody rotten!”
Georgina slid slowly back to the floor, though her footing was none too steady. It took her about that long to realize they’d been intruded upon by one of the in-laws. Fortunately, James’s arms were still about her for support, but they couldn’t prevent the mortified flush that was fast staining her cheeks.
She remembered Anthony from that night in the tavern when he’d mistaken Mac for someone else, remembered thinking he was the most handsome blue-eyed devil she’d ever seen—until she noticed James. But Anthony was still incredibly good-looking. And she hadn’t been being only spiteful earlier when she’d told James that his son looked more like Anthony. Jeremy was in fact a younger image of Anthony, even to the cobalt-blue eyes and coal-black hair. She had to wonder if James really was sure that Jeremy was his. And she had to wonder what Anthony must think of her in the brief glance he gave her.
Put a patch over her eye and she’d look like a pirate just now in James’s flowing white shirt, which he’d managed to unlace exceedingly low, his wide belt, cut down to her size, which she was wearing over the shirt because it was so blasted big, and her own tight breeches. And she was barefooted and bare-calved. She’d done no more than take off her shoes and stockings before she’d dropped onto the bed earlier to seethe and had fallen asleep instead.
Oh, she was mortified all right to be found looking like this, and in such an intimate position, but at least this time it wasn’t her fault. She had been behind closed doors, doing what she had every right to do. Anthony should be the one embarrassed for just walking in without warning, but he didn’t look the least bit embarrassed. He looked merely annoyed.
“It’s good to see you, too, brother,” he said in reply to James’s heated statement. “But not your little wench there. You’ve got about two minutes to dispose of the chit before the wife comes up to welcome you home.”
“George isn’t going anywhere, but you can take yourself out of here.”
“You’re foxed, is that it? Can’t remember that this ain’t a bachelor residence anymore?”
“There’s nothing wrong with my memory, old boy, and there’s no need to hide George. She’s—”
“Now we’re done for,” Anthony interrupted in vexation as they heard someone coming down the hall. “Stick her under the bed or something…Well, don’t just stand there!” and he reached for Georgina himself.
“Touch her, lad,” James warned softly, “and you’ll end up stretched out on the floor yourself.”
“Well, I like that,” Anthony replied huffily, but he backed off. “Fine. Then you talk your way out of this. But if I end up having a row with Roslynn over it, I’ll bloody well take it out of your hide, see if I don’t.”
“Anthony,” James said simply. “Shut up.”
He did just that. Leaning back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest, he waited for the fireworks to start. He’d barely spared Georgina more than a cursory glance. Now he watched the open doorway, waiting for his wife to appear.
By this time, Georgina was expecting a veritable dragon to enter the room. Anyone who could cause that tall, physically perfect man to worry that she might be upset with him had to be very formidable indeed. But Roslynn Malory didn’t look intimidating when she came through the door, offering James a blinding smile, which she passed on to Georgina. She was a stunningly beautiful woman, not much taller than Georgina, not much older, and, by the looks of it, not much more pregnant than Georgina was.
“Jeremy just stopped me on the stairs to tell me you’ve gotten married, James. Is this true?”
“Married?” Anthony’s interest perked up.
“I thought you said you hadn’t convinced Jeremy,” Georgina said to James.
“I didn’t. The dear boy is being tediously loyal where he thinks it will count. Notice he didn’t tell Tony the same thing. Because he still doesn’t believe it himself.”
“Married?” Anthony said again, and got no more notice than before.
Roslynn asked. “What doesn’t Jeremy believe?”
“That George here is my viscountess.”
“Clever of you to find another name for it, James,” Georgina said. “But that one I object to, so find another. You won’t be sticking any English titles on me.”
“Too late, love. The title came with the name.”
“Married?” Anthony shouted this time, and finally got James’s attention. “That’s doing it up a bit much, isn’t it, just to get out of a scolding?”
And before James could comment one way or the other, Roslynn asked her husband, “Who in their right mind would try to scold him?”
“You would, sweetheart.”
Roslynn chuckled, a deep, husky sound that had Georgina blinking in surprise to hear it. “I seriously doubt that, Anthony, but why don’t you tell me why you think I would.”
Anthony waved a hand in Georgina’s general direction, not even deigning to look at her. “Because he’s come home with…with his latest…well, with her.”
And that was just a little bit too much for Georgina to tolerate without her temper rising. “I’m not a ‘her,’ you pompous ass,” she said quietly, but with a good deal of bristling animosity in her expression. “I’m an American, and, for the moment, a Malory.”
“Well, bully for you, sweetheart,” Anthony came back sneeringly. “But then you’d say anything he told you to say, wouldn’t you?”
At that, Georgina turned on James and poked him in the ribs. “It won’t be necessary to convince anyone else? Isn’t that what you said?”
“Now, George,” James said placatingly. “This is nothing to lose your temper over.”
“I don’t have a temper!” she yelled at him. “And I don’t have a marriage either, as far as your family’s concerned. So I guess that means you’ll be finding yourself another room, won’t you?”
It was the wrong thing to threaten him with, when his body had yet to completely cool down from what they’d been doing before they were so rudely interrupted. “Like bloody hell I will. You want him convinced? I’ll show you just how easy my baby brother is to convince.” And he started toward Anthony with fists clenched.
Alarmed at this sudden turn, Roslynn quickly stepped in front of James, who looked as if he might just tear her husband limb from limb if he reached him. “Och now, there’ll be no fighting in my home. Why have you let him rile you, man? You ken how he is.”
And Anthony said, a bit more diplomatically, “You are pulling our collective leg here aren’t you, old man?”
“If you’d use your head instead of your arse to think with, you’d know this is one subject I would never joke about,” came James’s scathing reply.
Anthony straightened slowly, coming away from the wall. Georgina, watching him, could have said to the very second when he finally believed James, his expression turned so comical in his amazement. It still took about five more seconds before he burst out, “Good God, you actually did it, didn’t you?” and he promptly started laughing, so hard he had to hold on to the wall for support.
“Bloody hell,” James swore under his breath.
Roslynn sent Georgina an apologetic smile, but to James, who was staring at Anthony in disgust, she said, “You should have expected this. I’ve heard you ribbed him unmercifully when he married me.”
“Not because he married you, my dear, but because he couldn’t find his way over the wall you set down in the center of the marriage bed.”
Roslynn pinkened with the reminder of how long it had taken for her to forgive Anthony for his supposed infidelity. Anthony started to sober, for that was a subject he didn’t find amusing now, any more than he had then. But into the pause following James’s vexing remark, Georgina let them all know she was none too amused herself. In fact, she’d briefly contemplated putting on one of her shoes just so she could kick both Malory men.
Instead, she said, “Now, there’s a problem you just might be facing yourself, James Malory.”
And that sent Anthony off with a new peal of laughter, and turned James’s scowl on his wife.
“Blister it, George, you can see he’s convinced.”
“What he is, is convulsed with hilarity, and I’d like to know just what is so funny about your having married me?”
“Damnation, it’s nothing to do with you! It’s that I’ve married at all!”
“Then why don’t you tell him it wasn’t your idea, that my brothers—”
“George—!”
“—forced you?”
Having failed in his effort to stop her, James closed his eyes in anticipation of what that little gem was going to produce by way of reactions. It was too much to hope Anthony might not have heard her.
“Forced?” Anthony said incredulously, pausing only long enough to wipe moisture from his eyes. “Well, now, that makes more sense, indeed it does. Should have said so right off, old boy.” But he’d held back too long to say that much. “Forced?” he choked out once more before bursting into laughter again, even harder than before.
Very quietly, James told Roslynn, “Either drag him out of here or he’s not going to be much use to you for several months…possibly a whole bloody year.”
“Now, James,” she tried to placate him and keep the grin off her own lips while doing it. “You have to admit it’s rather farfetched that you could be forced…” His darker glower turned her attention to her husband instead. “Anthony, do stop. It’s not that funny.”
“Devil…it…ain’t,” he gasped out. “How many, James? Three? Four?” When James just scowled at him, he looked to Georgina for the answer.
She was also scowling at him, but said, “If you’re asking how many brothers I have, there were five at last count.”
“Thank God!” Anthony gave a mock sigh between chuckles. “Thought you were slipping there for a moment, brother. Now you’ve got my complete sympathy.”
“Like hell I do,” James snarled, and started toward Anthony again.
But Roslynn intervened once more, this time grabbing her husband’s arm. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?” she admonished, pulling him toward the door.
“I’ve hardly begun,” he protested, but a glance back at James made him amend, “You’re right, sweetheart, indeed you are. And didn’t you tell Jason we’d pay him a visit while he’s in town? By God, I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward so to seeing the elders, or had such interesting news to tell ’em.”
Anthony was barely out the door before it was slammed behind him, but that only started his laughter again, particularly when he heard the muffled string of oaths from the other side.
Roslynn gave him an exasperated look. “You really shouldn’t have done that.”
“I know.” Anthony grinned.
“He might not forgive you.”
“I know.” His grin widened measurably.
She clicked her tongue. “You’re not the least bit repentant, are you?”
“Not one bloody bit.” He chuckled. “But damn me, I forgot to congratulate him.”
She jerked him back sharply. “Don’t you dare! I happen to like your head on your shoulders.”
In an abrupt change of interest, he cornered her up against the wall there in the hallway. “Do you?”
“Anthony, stop!” She laughed, trying only halfheartedly to avoid his lips. “You’re incorrigible.”
“I’m in love,” he countered huskily. “And men in love usually are incorrigible.”
She gasped as he nipped her ear. “Well, when you put it that way…our room is just down the hall.”