Snowy Night With a Stranger Read online

  She sipped her cognac, gave him a rather bleak look across the lip of the glass. “There it is, plain, unvarnished. It’s a not uncommon tale.”

  “And your mother’s sister took you in then?” Ned watched her face. He could sense her vulnerability beneath the seemingly calm and matter-of-fact exterior, and he began to have an inkling of the loneliness of her life.

  “Aunt Margaret,” Georgiana said. “She was good to me, educated me, sent me to a ladies’ academy in Bath to finish me off…it nearly did too,” she added with a rueful chuckle. “So prim and prissy, I thought I would suffocate. But then I had my first Season and was supposed to find myself a husband. Unfortunately,” she added mournfully, “I didn’t seem to take.”

  “You had no offers?” He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of such an idea. A young and lovely debutante with what he guessed would be a decent inheritance couldn’t possibly have passed her coming-out season without several eligible suitors.

  Goergiana’s laugh was sardonic. “Oh, plenty of them,” she said with a scornful gesture. “Fortune hunters, weak-chinned royalty, even, but no one I would consider going to the altar with.” She frowned again. “Of course, if I’d known Godfrey Belton was in my future, I might have compromised my principles somewhat.”

  Ned began to see how Georgiana’s particular way of looking at the world might have put off the more cautious members of London society. There was something wild, untamed about her, a certain carelessness of convention, which would not go down well with the sticklers who made the rules.

  “So your aunt died and you somehow found yourself up here?” he prompted when she seemed disinclined to continue.

  She shrugged again. “By some quirk of fate it turned out that I was the only member of the Dunston family left when the last earl died. The title has now died out, but the property came to me. My next of kin turns out to be a distant cousin on my mother’s side, Roger Selby, and according to the will, I own, or will own when I gain my majority, large swaths of land from the—”

  “Coast to the Pennines,” Ned interrupted, nodding slowly. So that was what Godfrey had meant. He had suspected something of the like, but hadn’t been certain.

  “Precisely.” Georgiana looked at him curiously. “How did you know?”

  “Just something Belton said.” Ned turned to the dresser to refill his glass. “Was it the will you were looking for last night?”

  “If I can’t get my hands on it, I might as well give up,” she said bitterly. “There’s no point getting out of this place without it.”

  Ned inclined his head in acknowledgment. “No indeed. And you, of course, are very busy acquiring the means of escape.” He looked at her with a half smile. “So tell me, Georgie, does Jacobs’s son accompany you on your reiver’s business?” He perched on the window seat, watching her closely over the rim of his goblet.

  “What do you mean?” She watched him in turn, sipping her own cognac.

  “Oh, come now, Georgie, you know exactly what I mean. And I would like my fob watch back. It has some significance for me above and beyond its financial value.”

  For some reason she found that she was neither shocked nor surprised at his knowledge. Ned Vasey wasn’t the kind of man to be easily deceived. “How did you find out?”

  “The pony in the stable…Jacobs said you had been out in the snow yesterday…I saw you deal with Belton in the Long Gallery and my own neck remembered that blow.” He shook his head ruefully. “My fault for not expecting an ambush, I suppose. But the weather was so dangerously foul, it didn’t occur to me to be wary.”

  “It was our last chance before the blizzard shut us in,” she said, as if it was the most logical explanation for a perfectly ordinary activity. “I don’t have much time, so I can’t waste opportunities.”

  He nodded. “Well, we shall talk more about those opportunities in a minute. But first…” He held out his hand. “My fob watch, if you please.”

  Georgie exhaled on a resigned breath and kicked aside the rug. She knelt, pushed aside the floorboards and took out the pouch. “Do you want your guineas too?”

  “No…no,” he said with an airy wave. “I’m happy to donate those to the cause. Just the fob watch will do.” He watched as she emptied the contents of the pouch on the bed.

  “There are several here,” she said doubtfully. “I don’t know which is yours.”

  “Oh, what an unregenerate thief you are,” Ned declared, getting to his feet. “Let me retrieve my own property.” He came over to the bed and looked down at the hoard, a glinting, gleaming pile.

  “This is mine.” He took his own watch and dropped it into his pocket. “Thank you.” He cupped her face between his palms and kissed her, and as he did so he realized that he had come to her tonight for this, not for his fob watch, not for the story of her life. Just this.

  Her mouth was at first soft and pliant against his, and then fierce and hungry as her arms came around his neck.

  Georgiana was lost in a strange crimson world of urgency. Her body seemed to be one pulse of desire, a sensation so new and yet somehow so familiar that she could only think it was bred in the bone. This was the way a body was supposed to react to the sheer physical wonder of another. Her hands ran down his back, kneaded his buttocks, her loins pressed against his growing hardness. She felt his breath hot on her cheek as his lips whispered a kiss tracing the contours of her face, moving down to the pulse in her throat. Her head fell back in submission as he moved his mouth to her ear, his tongue moist and insistent, his teeth nibbling her earlobe. He pushed the peignoir off her shoulders and her nipples peaked hard and dark against the flimsy white silk of her nightgown.

  He stood back for a second, looking at her, her flushed cheeks, her glowing eyes, the soft swell of her breasts showing above the lace-edged neckline of her gown. He looked at her, touched her eyelids with a fingertip, asking a question, even though he knew the answer. And she answered him by swiftly unfastening the little pearl buttons at the neck of her nightgown, opening it to reveal her breasts.

  He bent his head and kissed them, lifting them free of their silk containment, running his tongue in a moist caress over their firm roundness before kissing the erect nipples, grazing them lightly in turn with his teeth, and his hands slid over her shoulders beneath the silk, smoothing down her narrow back, reaching her bottom, pulling her urgently against him.

  She leaned back against his hands, her upper back curving as she looked up at him, her eyes filled with passion, her lips slightly parted, the pulse in her throat beating wildly. “I want this,” she said softly. “Please, Ned. I need this.”

  He nodded slowly. “I need it too.” His fingers moved deftly over the last of the buttons, sliding the nightgown away from her so that she stood naked before him. He knelt and kissed her breasts, her belly, slid a hand between her thighs, waiting for her resistance, but her legs parted slightly for him and he moved a finger in a light caress, touching her core, feeling her center grow moist, opening to his gentle exploration.

  She had her hands on his shoulders, her head thrown back, as the exquisite sensation built. It was like nothing Georgie had ever experienced, and yet it felt as if it was the most natural sensation in the world, as if she had been waiting for it her whole life long. And when the warmth flooded her, she leaned over, resting her weight on his shoulders, her lips parted with breathless delight.

  Ned lifted her and carried her to the bed. He was filled now with his own need. He laid her down on the cover-let, and swiftly pulled off his own clothes, conscious of her eyes on him as his body was revealed piece by piece. Naked, he straddled her, and immediately she reached for his engorged penis, stroking it with a curious wonder in her eyes as her fingers explored its contours, the corded pulsing veins, the absolute proof of his need for her.

  He reached for a cushion, pushing it beneath her hips, elevating her slightly. He touched her again, feeling her open and ready for him, and with a swift movement of his hips drove into h
er. She bit back a cry of pain at the first tearing sensation and he slowed, his eyes anxious, but immediately she smiled up at him, touched his mouth with her fingertips. “Don’t stop.”

  He bent and kissed her mouth as he moved more slowly within her, feeling her tightness ease around him. He had expected her to be a virgin and she was, but she was no frightened maiden. Georgiana was ready for this moment and prepared to give herself up to it. She felt the pleasure building within her with a kind of wonder, savoring every sensation, relishing the tight spiral that grew ever tighter until she thought she couldn’t bear it any longer. Tears stood out in her eyes as she gazed up at him and his own eyes were filled with their own wonder. He leaned back as he continued to move inside her and with a light brush of his fingers touched her core. The coil burst apart, her body convulsed, and she heard herself cry out before he silenced her with his mouth, withdrawing from her body as his own climax pulsed.

  He fell on the bed beside her, sliding a hand beneath her to roll her into his embrace, and they lay in silence as their breathing slowed, and the glorious languor of fulfillment slowly faded.

  “I wish it could have lasted forever,” Georgiana murmured after a long time.

  Ned laughed softly. “The tragedy of the human condition, my dear girl. Exquisite delight that lasts but a moment.”

  Georgiana rolled sideways and propped herself on an elbow, running a hand over his chest. “However, there is one advantage,” she murmured with a smile. “There’s no limit to the number of times one can enjoy such ephemeral pleasure.”

  “Up to a point,” Ned said, taking her hand and kissing her fingertips, tasting the salt of her skin. “A certain amount of recuperation is necessary, however.”

  Georgiana chuckled, and sprang from the bed with enviable energy. “I’ll stoke the fire and reheat the milk,” she declared. “I’m in the mood for it now.”

  Ned said nothing, for the moment too distracted by the entrancing view presented as she bent to set the saucepan on the hob. After a minute he shook his head as if to bring himself back to reality. “I must leave you now, before the house begins to stir.”

  “But we have to make plans,” she said, looking over her shoulder at him as she knelt before the fire to tend the pan. “We have to get out of this house. Or at least I do, sooner rather than later.”

  Ned gestured to the window. “Nature seems intent on making that rather difficult for you.”

  “Not if one uses one’s imagination,” she declared. “Escaping from the house doesn’t necessarily mean going out into the blizzard.” She sat back on her heels, still looking over her shoulder at him with a quizzical expression.

  Ned raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

  “Well, you could always come with me, but it seems to me that if we disappear together certain conclusions will be drawn,” she said slowly, dipping a fingertip in the contents of the saucepan to see if it was warm enough.

  “Certainly,” he agreed. “And they won’t be pleasant ones.”

  She shrugged. “That’s of little matter. Nothing could be worse than now, but I have a better idea anyway. I shall disappear. I’m sure Selby will set up some kind of hue and cry, but they won’t be able to go far in this. And while they’re running around in circles, I shall be snug and warm, watching them.”

  “Ah.” Ned nodded his comprehension as he rose from the bed. He crossed the room naked, aware of her intent scrutiny as he poured cognac into his glass. His body began to stir again under the devouring green gaze. He forced himself to concentrate on the matter in hand. “So, where are you going to hide?”

  “In the attics,” Georgie said, reluctantly returning her attention to the saucepan. She poured milk into a cup, then swiveled around on her knees to face him. She sounded rather smug as she cupped her hands around the cup. “Right under their noses. I’ve been planning it for a while. Jacobs will take care of me until I can actually get away…. Could you put some cognac in this?” She held out her cup.

  Ned brought the decanter over and added a measure of cognac to the milk. He stood looking down at her thoughtfully. “And where do I come in?”

  “Ah, well, you see, that’s the beauty of it. I haven’t been able to count on a partner in crime, if you see what I mean, but now that you’re here, that makes everything much simpler.”

  She maneuvered herself into a sitting position on the rug, her back to the fire’s warmth. “I’m guessing that one of the first things Selby will do when he knows I’ve disappeared will be to check the will. And it seems to me that you could perhaps manage to be around when he does—see where he keeps it. He and Godfrey are bound to panic when I’m gone, and they won’t think you have anything to do with it. You’re just someone Selby’s trying to rob anyway, and he’s not going to give up too easily while you’re under his roof.” She took a deep gulp of her fortified milk.

  “So you find the will while I’m hidden away and they’re all running around like chickens without heads, and then as soon as the roads are clear enough, we make our escape, take the will to a solicitor in Alnwick, get it proved and safely deposited, and all I have to do is stay out of the way until after my birthday.” She beamed up at him with an air of complete satisfaction.

  To say Ned was bemused by this sweeping description of his part in Georgiana’s plot would be an understatement. “I’m to steal the will?” he queried.

  “It wouldn’t be stealing since it belongs to me and you’re acting on my behalf,” she declared. “Anyway, I didn’t think you’d be squeamish about it, not after what Selby’s trying to do to you.”

  “Well, you see, I haven’t had the advantage of your previous experiences,” he said apologetically. “I’ve never actually stolen anything before…or, for that matter, spied on anyone.”

  “Well, it’s easy enough,” Georgie declared with an airy wave. “And it won’t be anywhere near as difficult as ambushing travelers. You’ll find yourself quite capable once you put your mind to it.”

  “You reassure me,” he said dryly. He glanced around for his clothes. This didn’t seem to be a conversation to be conducted in a state of nature. He pulled on his britches and shirt, and felt instantly more in control. “And once you’ve made your escape and deposited the will safely, where do you intend hiding until you attain your majority?”

  “That’s why I have my ill-gotten gains, of course,” she said. “They’ll pay for some kind of transport and lodging as far away from here as I can manage. And once the business is over, then I shall return to London my own woman, as it were.” And free to love whom I choose. But this last she kept to herself. It still seemed too soon to be making declarations of that sort, even as she longed to do so.

  Ned nodded. It seemed to him highly likely that this unlikely young woman would succeed in doing exactly as she planned. He would suggest his own alterations to the plan at a more appropriate moment.

  “So, will you do it?” she asked with sudden urgency, and the confidence in her eyes was diminished slightly by a hint of her earlier vulnerability.

  “Yes, my dear girl, I will do it,” he stated. “Assuming that I can, and that that thug Belton doesn’t do away with me in a dark corridor.”

  “I don’t think Godfrey would resort to murder,” Georgie said doubtfully.

  “He’s not averse to thuggery,” Ned pointed out. “I wouldn’t put anything past him once he’s lost you as his prize.”

  “No, perhaps not.” She frowned into her cup. “You’ll just have to be extra vigilant. I’m sure you’re a match for him…. I could ask Jacobs’s son, Colin, to give you a few lessons in unarmed combat, if you’d like. Although, of course,” she added with a little frown, “you have killed a man already once.”

  Ned burst into laughter, forgetting for a moment his compromising position at dead of night in the sleeping house. He stifled his amusement hastily. “Thank you for the vote of confidence,” he said somewhat unsteadily. “I think I can handle Belton.”

  “Yes, I’m su
re you can,” Georgie said. She uncurled herself from the floor and came over to him. “And you will visit me in my attic hideaway whenever you can.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss him.

  Her mouth was sweet with a lingering residue of milk and brandy, and her fire-warmed skin had the scent of woodsmoke mingling with rosewater and lavender. He held the slight frame against him, running his hands over the shape of her, committing it to memory. Then reluctantly he raised his head and stepped away from her. “Are you going now?”

  She shook her head. “I must talk to Jacobs first. But come with me now and I’ll show it to you so you’ll know where to come.” She dropped her discarded nightgown over her head and shrugged into the peignoir, looking around the floor for the satin slippers she had been wearing. She found one in a corner, the other halfway under the bed.

  “How did they get all the way over there, I wonder,” she murmured with a mischievous grin as she slipped them on her feet. “Bring the candle.” She reached for his hand. “Come.” She put a finger to her lips and led him from the room.

  She took him up a dark and unpainted stairway hidden behind a door at the end of the passage. Ned held the candle aloft, casting their shadows long on the grimy walls and the steep and curving flight of stairs. At the head she opened a door that should have creaked but opened instead on well-oiled hinges.

  Inside was a cavernous space filled with the bulky shapes of old furniture shrouded in dust sheets.

  “Through here.” Georgiana led the way with confident steps through the obstacle course toward the back of the space. She pushed aside a chest with her hip, and a narrow door was revealed. This too opened on oiled hinges to reveal a small round chamber with a dormer window opaque with snow. A narrow cot piled high with quilts, a charcoal brazier unlit but clearly in working order, a table and chair, two oil lamps and a deep armchair completed its simple furnishings.