‘Georgianna?’ Jeffrey looked nonplussed by his sister’s sharpness towards their guardian.
Zachary, on the other hand, found himself highly entertained. ‘The history between your sister and me necessarily means that we are still working on acquiring an acceptable politeness between the two of us, Jeffrey,’ he excused to the younger man, even as he stepped forward to take Georgianna’s gloved hand in his, his own gaze meeting her glittering violet one as he raised that hand to his lips. ‘You are looking exceptionally lovely this evening, Georgianna,’ he drawled as he straightened before slowly relinquishing her hand.
She did indeed look very beautiful, the darkness of her hair fashionably styled so as to conceal the scar at her temple. Her fashionable gown was the same violet colour as her eyes, with a swathe of lace artfully fashioned across the top of her bosom, so concealing the scar Zachary knew she also bore there.
‘I am sure there is no need for false politeness between the two of us in the privacy of your home, Hawksmere,’ she dismissed offhandedly as she moved away, at the same time reminding Zachary, at least, that he had not felt the need for this same politeness the last time she had been in his home. ‘Jeffrey cannot help but be aware of the reason for our strained relationship.’
Zachary raised dark brows. ‘I had hoped we had come to a different understanding of each other since your return?’
Those violet coloured eyes flashed darkly. ‘Only in as much as I believe that we have come to an acceptance of our hearty dislike of each other.’
‘Georgianna!’
‘Do not be alarmed, Jeffrey.’ Once again Zachary soothed his younger ward’s shock at his sister’s rudeness. ‘Georgianna and I understand each other perfectly. Do we not, Georgianna?’ The hardness of his tone was a warning for her to temper her anger and dislike of him. Her behaviour was not only alarming her brother, but also implied that they knew each other far better than their previously known acquaintance might imply.
Which they obviously did.
Zachary had thought of Georgianna often these past two weeks, whilst he was away in France. More often than he might have wished, if truth be known, and not just because of his dealings with Rousseau.
Georgianna had only been a prisoner in his home for a matter of thirty-six hours, but they had been intensely intimate hours. Hours, when Zachary came to know Georgianna rather better than he had ever known any woman. Hours, when he had come to admire her, for her spirit and determination. Hours, when he had come to like, even appreciate, her outspokenness and the way that she refused to be cowed by anything he did or said to her. Hours, when he had come to desire her more than any woman of his acquaintance.
As he desired her still, Zachary acknowledged as he studied her through narrowed lids.
Georgianna appeared less strained than she had been two weeks ago, the lines smoothed from her forehead and beside her eyes and mouth, and there was a becoming colour in the smoothness of her cheeks and full, pouting lips. But she still looked too slender in that violet-coloured gown. Perhaps more so, her unadorned neck and throat appearing delicately vulnerable, as did the slenderness of her arms.
And Zachary’s desire to possess all that loveliness was almost painful.
Damn it, it was painful.
His body throbbed with desire for her even more after their two weeks apart.
‘Yes, Hawksmere, I believe we do indeed understand each other. Perfectly.’ She lifted her chin in challenge.
Zachary very much doubted that Georgianna’s understanding of that statement was the same as his own. Because, without the strictures Jeffrey’s presence necessarily put on his behaviour, Zachary very much doubted he would be able to control the desire he now felt to make love to Georgianna again.
And not just physically. He ached to possess all of her. Her spirit. Determination. Her outspokenness. Along with her often sarcastic sense of humour, the latter more often than not at his own expense.
Georgianna had shown him this evening, with just a few brief words, that she disliked him as much now as she ever had.
Which was no doubt a fitting punishment for his having proposed marriage to her so shabbily the previous year. And Zachary knew he had again treated her abominably when she returned from France so unexpectedly.
Was it any wonder that she now disliked him so intensely?
Or that he, having thought about her so much, remembering over and over again making love to her, touching her, kissing her, bringing her to completion, desired her more now than he had two weeks ago?
‘Are you ill, Hawksmere?’ she now taunted mockingly. ‘You have gone exceedingly quiet for someone who I believed always had an answer for everything.’
‘I say, Georgianna…’ cautioned Jeffrey.
Zachary held his hand up to prevent Jeffrey from continuing to chastise his sister on his behalf. ‘I do not believe I as yet have the answer to you, dearest Georgianna,’ he assured softly.
Georgianna felt the burn of colour in her cheeks, knowing she had brought Hawksmere’s taunt upon herself by her challenging and rude behaviour. Except she could not seem to behave in any other way when in his company, her hackles rising, defences instantly up, as she verbally attacked him. Before she was attacked herself?
Maybe so, but she certainly did not appreciate his sarcasm in addressing her as ‘dearest Georgianna’, when they both knew she was here on sufferance only. Because it would have appeared odd to Jeffrey if his sister had not been included in the dinner invitation from their guardian. A guardianship, in regard to herself, that Georgianna had no doubt Zachary found tiresome, to say the least.
‘It is a woman’s prerogative to remain something of a mystery to a gentleman, is it not?’ she dismissed airily, very aware that this man knew her far better than any other, physically as well as emotionally.
Challenging Zachary the moment the two of them met again had been Georgianna’s only way of dealing with those memories of their previous intimacy, her only defence against the rush of emotions and the memories, whic