Hopeless Heart

Simeon glared at her. “But you haven’t finished your meal yet.”

Indeed she hadn’t. The delicious dessert she had started to enjoy now sat heavily within her stomach and made her feel a little sick.

“I am quite full, thank you,” she replied. “I suddenly have a headache starting to form and need to go to my room. Thank you for a wonderful evening.”

She hurried away from the table leaving him glaring after her, his face puce with fury. Given how often he tended to pop up unannounced, Georgiana hurried up the stairs, afraid that he intended to follow her. Her heart pounded and her hands shook as she tried to unlock the door to her room. She cursed beneath her breath as she fumbled with the key and dropped it. She scooped it off the floor and then tried again, desperate to get inside the safety of her room. It was then that her worst nightmare became reality.

“Let me help you with that,” Simeon murmured smoothly, directly into her ear.

The warm rush of his breath against her ear made her shudder in disgust. She was hot and cold at the same time and quite terrified.

“How dare you follow me to my room?” she hissed, hiding behind false bravado. She glanced around the deserted hallway. “It is highly inappropriate of you to be here. Go away.”

She snatched her key out of his hand, slammed it into the lock and turned it only to be forced to stop when she found Simeon blocking the doorway.

“Don’t be like that, Georgiana,” he murmured snidely.

Georgiana froze. “Please move,” she demanded, wishing that someone would appear to make him.

“But this is what you want. I mean, you hurried out of the dining room and made it clear you intended to go to bed.” The calculation was back in his eye as he looked at her. He wasn’t looking at her with interest, he was assessing how much she was likely to protest if he pushed her.

“It wasn’t an invitation,” she snapped.

“Why did you dine with me then?” he challenged.

“I was going to dine alone until you foisted yourself upon me,” she argued. “I thought you were being kind. Whether I dined with you or not is irrelevant, though, isn’t it? Accepting your invitation to dine with you does not give you the right to assume anything beyond us sharing a meal together. It is highly inappropriate of you to be here like this and pester me in this way.”

“But it was highly inappropriate of you to drive my curricle and race around the countryside with me but that didn’t bother you at the time.” His voice turned cynical.

Somewhat deflated, Georgiana hesitated. “That was different.”

“Why?” Simeon demanded. “You are wild, Georgiana. You like to challenge authority.”

“I do no such thing,” she protested refusing to give this man an inch.

“I am afraid that you do. After all, you flouted propriety to parade around in front of the gossips and didn’t care then what anybody believed. Here, we are all alone. Why, you have no acquaintance with a single person in this hotel – apart from me.”

“She knows me,” Will menacingly from his position further down the hallway.

Georgiana gasped and stared at him in surprise which quickly turned to a huge sense of relief. Everything would be alright now. Simeon would not pose any more of a threat to her with Will nearby. To her dismay, she was quickly proven wrong.

“Good evening,” Will drawled as he forced himself to saunter casually past them. He nodded pleasantly to a glaring Simeon, and purposely took his time unlocking and opening his door, but he didn’t stop to help her as he knew she wanted him to. It was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life, but if it made Georgiana stop to consider her foolishness then he was prepared to scare her. Aware that they were watching him, he opened the door and walked into his room without looking back. Once inside, he didn’t latch the door, he stood perfectly still and listened to their conversation in the hallway instead.

Georgiana stared at Will’s closed door in disbelief. How could he simply abandon her to deal with Simeon alone? Did he not see what was happening? Thankfully, her disbelief was swiftly replaced with anger.

“Oh, get out of my way,” Georgiana snapped, pushing hard at Simeon’s shoulder. She slammed the door behind her open, stormed into her room, and tried to close it only to have the door ricochet back at her.

“What are you doing?” she cried glaring down at Simeon’s foot blocking it from closing.

“I intend to show you that I don’t play games,” Simeon replied. He surged forward using his body as a physical force to push her backward and into the room.

Georgiana stumbled against the wall, horrified at just how easily he pushed her around. Before she had the chance to order him to leave, he slammed his lips hard onto hers. Rather than the tender caress of Will’s lips, Simeon’s embrace was almost cruel. He obviously didn’t care if she enjoyed it or not. He was making it clear that she mattered not.

Determined not to surrender, she placed her hands on his chest and tried her hardest to push him away. He moved, but not enough to step back. Instead, he grabbed her wrists in a painful hold and held them tightly above her head. All the time, his wet lips plundered hers with increasing force until she had no choice but to open her lips to gasp for air as she tried desperately to twist her head to one side to avoid him. When that didn’t work, she realised a different tactic was needed.

She had watched her brothers wrestle on many an occasion in her youth. The only time she had known them both to be banned from going out to play for a week was a result of the time when Arthur had been accidentally kneed in the groin. Georgiana tried to position herself to do just that but managed to wriggle free enough to twist her head around and stop him kissing her.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” she snarled. “Get out of this room–now.”