Peter reached out and took her hands in his. They felt small and delicate in his grip, and he felt a surge of protectiveness.
“Georgie, you must know we have to marry.”
She shook her head decisively. “I don’t think we do. No one knows who I am but you. I can leave tomorrow, and you can put it about that I returned to Oxford. Or went back home. Or whatever lie you want to come up with.”
A slight surge of panic hit his gut. He never imagined she might say no. “But where will you go?”
She cast her eyes down, and he felt her hands tremble. He gave them a little reassuring squeeze and she looked up again, face set.
“I do have a position waiting for me in Bath, but it’s none of your concern, Lord Peter. I am not your responsibility.”
Despite her defiant words, her hands still rested in his, and that gave him a little hope.
“It is very much my concern,” he said. “It is my duty as a gentleman and a clergyman to assist those who are in trouble.”
She frowned and started to tug her hands away, and he realized he needed to take a new tack. A more truthful one. He took a deep breath.
“Besides… I have become quite fond of you.”
“You have?” She glared at him suspiciously, and he bit back a grin. Her fierce expression was quite adorable. “Even though I have lied to you from the moment we met?”
“Of course I have. We’ve been good friends, haven’t we? Long strolls across the countryside, reading together by the fire, discussing what news has come from London.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
He squeezed her hands a little, his thumbs caressing the backs. “We could have that all the time, but without fear of scandal. If we were husband and wife, we could go on just as we are.”
“But wouldn’t you want to…?”
The blush that warmed her cheeks to a rosy brown was contagious, because he felt it rise in his own cheeks. The full implication of what he was asking was terrifying yet exciting, like standing at the edge of a cliff before diving off.
“Er… yes,” he said, forcing his answer through a throat that was suddenly thick with desire. “Yes, I would want… to. To have a full marriage, with all that means. Would that be all right with you?”
“I… I suppose so.”
Without quite meaning to, he leaned even closer to her, and she tilted her face up to his.
“Do you really think it’s for the best if we marry? I can still accept the position in Bath and we can avoid the scandal entirely. I don’t wish for you to do anything you don’t want to.”
She looked up at him in the firelight, her dark eyes wide and vulnerable, and Peter found himself sliding even closer, his arm slipping naturally around her waist. Her hands came up and hovered indecisively for a moment before settling on his forearms, her fingers nervously kneading at the wool of his coat like a cat as she gazed up at him. Up close, he could smell the tang of her herbal soap, underlaid with her own natural scent. He had to resist an urge to place his nose against her downy neck and breathe her in.
One little kiss couldn’t hurt, a new voice in his head whispered.Just one, to reassure her.
“Georgie.” Strangely, he needed to clear his throat. “Georgie, may I kiss you?”
She blushed again and bent her head, but did not move away.
Then she looked up. And nodded.
Almost without his volition, his head dipped down and he brushed his lips against hers.
He meant it to be a reassuring kiss. The kind of kiss he might have given one of his sisters, or nieces. But her breath puffed against his as she sighed, and he pressed a little harder, letting their lips slide together with a delicious friction that traveled down his spine to his toes… and other parts. Her hands tightened on his forearms and he pulled her closer, kissing her again. And again.
And again.
He knew he should pull back and put a decorous distance between them, but she leaned against him so eagerly, her bodyso warm and soft, it was hard to let her go. This was nearly as new to him as it was to her, and the knowledge that she was to be his wife, that they could embrace like this whenever they were alone together, helped him better understand the young couples who sheepishly appeared in his study to ask for their banns to be called earlier than they had planned.
He pulled away, and her eyes fluttered open.
