The Trouble with His Lordship’s Trousers Read online

  Writing to her father directly and asking him about a law suit was impossible, so she had found. After attempting several drafts, she had given up, wasting her paper in the process. She knew her father would never discuss such a matter with his disappointing daughter and she did not know how to approach the subject either. Usually bold and to the point, seldom reluctant to express herself, Georgiana was at a loss when it came to her father. Sometimes it felt as if they were complete strangers. Any letters he had sent her over the last two and a half years consisted of a few formal inquiries into the general state of her health, how she progressed in her lessons, and whether or not she handled her allowance wisely.

  So, no, she mused— studying her pink toes where they peeked out of the bath water and rested against the edge of the tub— she could not expect her father to confide in her about his troubles any more than she could tell him she was falling in love with Commander Thrasher.

  Falling in love. What a dreadful expression.

  Good lord, she must pull herself together, before she made a complete and utter ass of herself in that man's presence. Yet again.

  But Georgiana had just rubbed her body dry and slipped into her nightgown, when she heard steps in the passage outside, which meant that Dead Harry was off on his travels again tonight.

  Considering the terrible realization that had hit her today, she ought to leave him to it and never lay a hand on his naked arm again.

  She could not, however, leave him alone out there, lost at sea.

  Grabbing her shawl and one candle, she opened her door and looked out. There he was, walking along with his shoulder against the wall, as if his eyes were closed. Again he was naked. How strange, she mused, that the sight had become familiar to her.

  But what if one of Lady Bramley's servants should see him? As the house filled with more people, there was always a greater chance that his secret would be exposed. Their secret. After all, he had inadvertently let her in on it.

  Hastily, Georgiana left her room, closed the door and hurried after him. Her breath pummeled the candle flame as she whispered his name and bade him stop.

  Harry turned. His eyes were open after all, but glazed, confused.

  Oh don't look at his body, you fool, she chided herself. It's not fair to look when he doesn't even know what he's doing, where he is, or who he is.

  But he knew her. A mischievous grin moved his lips. "My stowaway. You are still here."

  "Yes. You ought to be abed, sir. There are more people on our island now, and you might be seen."

  His eyes blinked and then their gaze sharpened, less puzzled now. Fiercer. "Why do you worry about Harry?" he murmured. "Why do you care?"

  "Why shouldn't I?" she replied impatiently. The way she felt about him was something that frustrated her because she'd always thought herself immune to this sort of attraction. She refused to become like her sister Maria, hiccupping and blushing pitifully over a man.

  And what would Commander Sir Henry Thrasher ever see in her when he was awake? Her host was not unkind to her. Especially considering the way her company had been forced upon him. She might have expected the fellow to be vastly more ill-tempered toward her than he had been. But he clearly saw her still as "The Wickedest Chit". He had even written it under his sketch of her face. Yes, the one he said was not meant to look like her at all.

  Well, Dead Harry, was different; he did see something in her. She simply did not know how she should feel about his attention. It was very physical and not at all gentlemanly.

  He took a step toward her and gripped her left wrist, his long fingers circling her pulse. The feral light was back in his eyes. "Harry wants to play," he said.

  "I cannot play with you, sir." The candle in her other hand trembled, the flame dancing fitfully.

  "Harry wants to play."

  Georgiana glanced around nervously, but the house was quiet and once again they might have been the only two souls in the world. Outside too was peaceful and calm tonight. She could hear her heart beat pounding in her ears. "Let go of my hand, sir."

  But he did not. Instead he raised it to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. She stretched out her fingers as if that might make him stop. He smiled and kissed her fingertips. Slowly, one by one, his eyes watching her face.

  "It is late," she gasped.

  "And we are all alone."

  "Sir—"

  "The name is Harry."

  "Yes, and—"

  "I have urges like any man and you are here with me on my island. My flesh and blood companion. My woman. My mate."

  He blew out that struggling flame in her other hand and tugged her up against his body.

  "I need you," he whispered urgently, lips brushing her cheek. "Stay with me."

  She dropped her candle as he kissed her hungrily, his arms holding her tightly, squeezing her as if he meant to crush the breath out of her lungs. Once again her shawl slipped from her shoulders and before Georgiana knew what was happening she was returning his kiss with equal fervor. Her fingers stroked his rough, unshaven cheek and then slid around his broad neck. She'd never touched a man's neck, never felt that pulse under his skin, wild and passionate. All of this was new to her. New territory to explore.

  "I want you, my mate," he whispered.

  And she wanted him too. But which side of Harry did she want?

  He was a beautiful man— physically— but there was so much more to him than that, if only he would let himself be rescued from his island, brought home, and put back together again.

  She knew then that it was all of him she wanted, not just one part. She was greedy. Always had been.

  But what came next? Marriage was out of the question for either of them. They had both made their feelings clear on that regard. She did not want a husband to rule over her, stand in her way and keep her trapped. To birth a child a year, see only half survive, and then die herself, to be replaced as if she was an old coat that wore out her use. To be remembered, like her mama, in a few sad words on a small, weather-beaten stone in the graveyard.

  Mercy Hathaway, devoted wife and beloved mother 1772- 1811.

  Besides, she was getting ahead of herself. He might be eccentric, but he was not mad enough to look at her with a view to marriage. At that moment, to Dead Harry, she was a potential plaything. He wanted nothing more complicated than that.

  As their lips parted, he groaned softly. "Come play with me, Stowaway. You have a fee to pay for the safe passage I gave you on my vessel."

  "If we are shipwrecked, sir, it does not seem to have been a very safe passage."

  "Impudent, as well as insubordinate, eh?" She saw a flash of white teeth as he grinned down at her. "I was warned. 'Tis lucky for you I have no other woman on my island." He raised a hand to her face and his fingertips tenderly grazed her cheek. She caught her breath, that touch as intimate as if he had caressed under her nightgown.

  Suddenly she felt a little conceited. It was his fault, she decided. The intense way he looked at her, made her feel special, cosseted. Even beautiful for the first time in her life. Dead Harry, the castaway, did not see her as a foolish girl who talked too much and left chaos in her wake. He saw her as a woman of value. A desirable woman, a fact made very clear by the way his naked body reacted to her.

  Commander Sir Henry Thrasher might be able to hide such things from her, just as he locked his study door and jealously guarded his automatons from her "prying". But Dead Harry— his other side— had nothing to hide behind, not even clothes.

  Harry answers to none. He lives on his own island by his own rules.

  She ran a fingertip over the prickles on his cheek. "I am lucky to be the only woman on your island."

  "Yes," he said with a sigh. "I have no other choice for my mate, do I? Therefore you'll have to do." He sounded more like the Commander then, more like his daylight self.

  Georgiana withdrew her finger and frowned. "You would not be playing a trick upon me, would you, sir?"

  His strong arm d
id not release her. If anything the muscles tightened, as if he thought she might try to escape his embrace. "Trick? What trick?"

  She sighed. "I believe you would choose me, even if there were other women here." Why not be bold in this matter, as she would be in any other? Seize her opportunity for adventure. "Because we are both rebels, Harry, trying to be happy, as we want to be, not as the rest of society wants us to be. Because I understand you and I don't want you to change. I only want you to be whole again."

  He appeared to think about this for a moment and then said, "You must be mad, like me."

  "Indeed," she replied with a sigh.

  It was madness. She should never have left her bedchamber on that first evening; should never have continued these nighttime walks with a naked man and tempted fate. But there they were.

  Dead Harry and the Wickedest Chit tangled up together.

  Before she came to Woodbyne Abbey, she imagined she could manage anything, get herself out of any trouble, fix anything. After all, she had experience.

  But now she knew differently.

  Georgiana knew differently now about many things.

  She was powerless to resist when Harry swept her off her feet and carried her over his shoulder like a roll of carpet, even though she had always promised herself that she would never let a man take control of her. It was happening, and there was absolutely nothing she wanted to do about it.

  He carried her along the dark corridor, his shoulder skimming the wall again, guiding his steps.

  "Harry," she whispered, her eyes closed as she dangled in the dark, entrusting herself to him entirely. I am mad. Madly in love.

  But not mad enough to say it out loud.

  Her sister would be proud of her, she mused, for finally learning to hold her tongue and keep some of her thoughts inside.

  He stopped at a door, kicked it open and took her inside.

  Too late now to come to her senses. Emma Chance would despair of her, but Melinda Goodheart would excitedly want to know every detail of her ruination. Later she would write them a letter and try to explain what had become of her in this house. She must, because the three of them had pledged to always share their adventures.

  However, while she fully expected to find herself tossed onto a bed, she was, instead, set down on her feet.

  "Here we will play," he said, pointing to a board made of scrap wood, marked by lines scratched into it, and with a few shells and pebbles scattered across the surface. "Be seated, woman. You can be the shells, and I shall be the stones. I have waited a long time to find somebody to play with me. It is not so much fun playing alone."

  This was what he meant by playing? She wanted to laugh and was not sure whether it was out of relief, or something else. She had expected wrestling, at the very least. Suddenly she realized he was staring heatedly at the front of her nightgown, where her wet hair dripped over her shoulder and made a blossoming transparent patch over one breast. Quickly she covered it with one hand and then his gaze swept upward to her face.

  "We can converse while we play, if you would like to," he added. "Usually I play alone, but now I have you for company. Worry not. I shall teach you how to play my game, woman."

  His room was not large and it was sparsely furnished, but warmed by a roaring fire, in front of which several blankets and furs were laid out. This, it seemed, was where he slept, for the bed had been stripped of linens and pillows.

  Her host gestured again for her to sit by the fire. He handed her the shawl he must have rescued from the floor. "You are cold?" he demanded, sounding cross about it.

  "No. I'm much too hot in here," she said. The temperature in his room was almost tropical.

  "Then take off your gown." He grinned, standing tall and proud, his hands making a sweeping gesture down his body. "I, as you see, prefer to be as my creator intended." The rough line of a scar that traveled from his left side, under his arm, and ended just below his ribs was clearly visible tonight. There were other marks too— souvenirs of battle, she supposed.

  It reminded her of how many times he'd escaped death, how lucky she was that he still lived. She might never have known him.

  "Yes. I mean, no. Thank you. I'll keep my nightgown, if it's all the same to you."

  "Are you certain? We do not need clothes to play my game."

  "I can see that." She looked at him, squinting so as not to let her eyes stray too far.

  "Or to converse. Women like to converse a vast deal, I know."

  But if he sat cross-legged before her on the blankets, Georgiana knew she absolutely could not "converse" sensibly with him in that state. She handed him her shawl. "Please...put this...around...that."

  But he rested his knuckles on his hips and glared. "Why? I am not ashamed."

  And he had absolutely no reason to be, she thought wryly.

  "Why do you fuss, woman? You are my mate. There is nothing here with which you will not soon be familiar. You may as well befriend it now."

  Oh, Good Lord. "Humor me, Harry, if you will, and just tie this around yourself. Otherwise I cannot stay and will have to go back to my room."

  That appeared to confuse him, but when she tossed her shawl across the short distance, he caught it instinctively. She demonstrated with her own hands how he should wrap and tie it, and after a moment he finally complied.

  Thank goodness. She could breathe again and look at him without having to see parts he would, in the daylight, keep respectably out of her sight. Really, Georgiana assured herself, she did it for the Commander's modesty, as much as for her own sake.

  Alas, in his cross-legged pose, that shawl did not do quite as good a service as she had hoped. It was, at least, a little better than before. For now it was the best she could do.

  "Now pay attention, my mate," he said. "I will teach you my game and we will play." He looked up. "Why do you smile?"

  She shrugged and shook her head. How could she explain the strangeness of all this...and what she had expected when he first carried her to his room? What she had thought he meant by "playing".

  "You have been alone on your island a long time," she said gently.

  His chest heaved with a great sigh. "Yes. But now you are here. So pay attention and I will teach you my game."

  Georgiana nodded and lowered herself to the furs. Lady Bramley would say a guest should comply with her host's wishes, would she not?

  Earnestly she tried to concentrate as he taught her this game he had invented of shells and pebbles, but a naked man— even one with a shawl tied around his groin— was powerfully distracting. He didn't seem to realize this fact. Adamant that she learn the rules of his game, he chastised her firmly if he thought her attention wandered. But just when she thought she understood the rules, he changed them. She might have been annoyed, if it was anyone else but him. How could she be annoyed with Harry? This time alone with him, when he was talkative and wanted her company, felt like a priceless treasure accidentally put into her hands for safe-keeping.

  He won, of course, since he made the game rules up as he went along. Not that she minded at all. In fact, it was the only game she had ever enjoyed losing and she knew she was in danger of letting the winner take all.

  And then what? Tomorrow he would not even remember this.

  "Now to bed," he said suddenly, pushing the wooden board aside.

  Recovering quickly, Georgiana stood. "Yes, Harry," she said. "Me to mine and you to yours." She was much too hot in that room and needed air to clear her mind, before she made a mistake they might both regret. Thank goodness for his game of shells and pebbles, she mused. It had stopped her from leaping in with both feet and letting her passion for adventure carry her away.

  "But you must stay with me," he said crossly.

  "I cannot stay with you tonight, Harry. It would not be wise." A Reckless Dare was one thing she had never turned her back upon before, but she was not a "dizzy girl" any longer. She knew the consequences she would face if she gave in to her desires now. It wou
ld not be fair to either of them, especially while this half of him was still lost at sea. "Goodnight, Harry."

  "You defy me?"

  "I must. If I gave you my heart tonight, tomorrow you might break it by not remembering."

  "Your heart?"

  "I would never give the rest of myself without giving that too."

  He looked at her with his head on one side, eyes narrowed. Finally he took her hand and kissed it, showing that Dead Harry did know something of manners after all. "Goodnight then, if we must...Georgiana."

  And he also knew her name.

  She studied his face, wishing she was a better artist and able to capture it more accurately than she had in her sketch. But was such a complex man ever to be captured?

  It was, by no means, easy to leave his room and close the door behind her, to walk slowly back to her own chamber with the air cooling her over-heated skin as she came back to reality. Back to sleep or to awake? As he had said, sometimes it was hard to know which was which.

  That night her dreams carried her to a strange tropical paradise, where she enjoyed the sensation of his hands on her body. Their firm caress following the curve from hip to bosom, and then his lips following the same path. She dreamed of warm air, humidity making her perspire in a manner that would cause one of Lady Bramley's stern reprimands. She even felt sand beneath her, in her hair and under her fingernails. Exotic birds called out from the twisty branches of the mangroves, where they perched watching. She could hear the rush and sizzle of waves lazily lapping at the shore.

  There with Harry she was happy as she had never been, in a way she had never thought possible for herself.

  He raised his hand and she pressed her palm to his. How much larger he was than she. Against the sun their hands made a dark ink blot, and when he spread their fingers, rich, buttery rays dripped down her arm, tickling her skin.

  It all seemed very real, every sense fully enthralled.

  When he enfolded her in his arms she was absorbed by him; she became another part of Harry. She might lose herself completely in the process, but at that moment she was too blissfully relaxed to care.