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“You don’t get to have a say in what I do,” Georgiana protested as she shrugged him off. “What are my parents going to do? Send me to my room like I am eight years old again? Lock me in my room like I am ten? Or send for you or my brothers so you can bully me into doing what you want me to do while you have the indecency and utter gall to call me selfish? Well, I won’t stop here. I am not going to stop here. This is your home, Will, not mine. Mind your own business. Now leave me alone. I was enjoying my swim until you came alone and ruined it. Now that you have succeeded in your goal and drained my life dry of even the mildest of enjoyment, you are free to toddle back to my parents and inform them of how wayward I am. Then you can all commiserate together. After all, I am nothing more than a selfish female who is too young and stupid to do anything for myself, aren’t I?”
The fact that he didn’t deny it made her want to slap him again. While he stared at her in shock, she took the opportunity to step around him and storm out of the woods. The silence she left in her wake should have been rewarding, but instead left her with a grief unlike no other. It was the first time in her life she had ever spoken to another person like that. It was also likely to be the very last time because the guilt that now weighed upon her was heavy. But, if she succumbed to it, Will would succeed in forcing her to change her plans, and she would be made to watch him marry Penelope Smedgrove.
“Georgiana, wait,” Will called. When she didn’t slow down or stop, he raced after her and grabbed her elbow to make her. “Just think about this for a moment. While I understand you are angry, you are in no different a position than any other young woman of your age who is unmarried and lives with her parents. It is what is expected of you that is all.”
“Well, I am sick of doing what is expected of me. I have done what is expected of me all of my life and what has it brought me? Nothing! That’s what it has brought me - nothing at all. You can get on your horse and trot off to wherever you decide to go whereas I cannot even step outside of the door without a leash on that hauls me back within the hour. As long as I sit upon a chair only a few feet from my mother listening to her endless ramblings about stupid things then that is fine. As soon as I take a breath for myself I am being selfish, but that is alright as long as you and Cecily can do what you want. How self-centred can you possibly be? How self-serving? How ungraciously arrogant? Well, I have no intention of spending the rest of my life like this so refuse to listen to anybody scold me - even you. Go home. Go about your business as you have every right to do. Go to your fiancé. I don’t care. Just leave me alone!”
Georgiana turned around and started to walk away when the faint echoes of her conversation with Theresa prompted her to reconsider. She instinctively slowed her pace while she considered the next several hours. They were already going to be difficult if Cecily was in a snit–did it matter all that much if she made them just a little worse?
Before she could talk herself out of it she looked over her shoulder, a little surprised to see Will standing where she had left him, staring at her. She spun on her heel and retraced her steps, but this time didn’t keep her distance. Instead, she walked straight up to him and stared him in the eye.
“Tell me what is going on,” he asked calmly. “Don’t lie to me, Georgiana. I won’t have you not being completely honest with me.”
“I am leaving,” she declared firmly. “And I won’t be back. There is just one thing I need to do before I go, though, just so you understand.”
“Understand what?” he asked in confusion. His answer came when Georgiana stepped forward and closed the distance between them.
Georgiana’s boldness was fuelled by her determination that for once, for this one last day at least, he needed to realise that she was no longer a little girl. She wanted to
experience, just once, what it was like to kiss him. Given that he refused to accept she was an adult in her own right, and probably never would, she knew that it was now or never. After all, she wasn’t likely to see him again. If he was angered by what she was about to do, then she didn’t have to face him. He was never going to be hers anyway.
Planting her hands firmly on either side of his face, she stood on tiptoe and kissed his startled lips. His swiftly indrawn breath was captured by her lips but she made no apology for it. Instead, she did what she had yearned to do for so long now, and leaned into his solid strength. What she hadn’t expected him to do was instinctively slide his arms around her waist and hold her against him. She could feel every ridge and hollow of his solid masculinity nudging against her every time he took a breath, and revelled in the glorious sensuality of it.
Georgiana had no idea what she was supposed to do now so she put every ounce of love she had for him in that one searing kiss. She was shocked. She was mortified but still brazenly unwilling to stop and apologise for what she did.
He, gentleman that he was, tried hard not to encourage her. It was wrong; so very wrong but also very, very, right. Something he had never expected to experience began to filter through his shock and, in spite of his best efforts not to, he allowed the barriers to fall and kissed her back. At first, he held her steady against him. Then, when the flames of desire began to engulf him, he tightened his embrace and returned the kiss with all of the raw need he felt. Her untutored movements made it quite clear she was inexperienced in the art of kissing, so he set about showing her what she should do.
She is a quick learner, damn it, he moaned as he struggled to hold on to his self-control.
“We need to stop,” he whispered when he found the strength to tear his lips away from hers. They didn’t go far, though, and peppered kisses down the side of her neck while he waited for her response.
Although she heard him, Georgiana remained undeterred and tugged his head back up to hers. She was thrilled when he came back to her willingly and returned her kisses with equal fervour.
How long they stood there for neither knew for definite. It was only the distant sound of horses’ hooves that caught Will’s attention that forced him to put some distance between them. Horrified at the possibility he might have ruined her reputation, Will swiftly thrust her away from him and turned his back.
“God in Heaven,” he growled as he ran a frustrated hand through his hair.
Georgiana stared at him in horror. Tears gathered on her lashes. His abrupt dismissal had been as effective as a slap in the face. It hurt no less. She stared at his back for several moments, oblivious to the carriage proceeding slowly down the lane toward them. When it became evident he wasn’t going to turn around she left.
Well, you wanted to kiss a stranger and walk away, a small voice warned her as she stumbled over the uneven field. You only have yourself to blame that you made such a fool of yourself.
Pride demanded that she square her shoulders with military sharpness, lift her chin in defiance, and march onward no matter what happened. What had happened was that she had made the biggest mistake of her life. Her lips tingled from the rough possession of his. Her body thrummed with unsatisfied need. She now realised just how stupid she had been to kiss him in the first place.
“I don’t just have him to forget I have the kiss now as well,” she whispered.
He couldn’t have made it any more obvious that he wasn’t interested in her if he had pushed her away and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand whilst screeching ‘yuck’. Still, while she walked, a part of her still listened, hoped, and even yearned, for him to call her back, but of course he didn’t. There was nothing but stoic silence behind her-for a few seconds at least.
“Georgiana.”
She was marching along the lane after the carriage when he finally caught up with her. Georgiana wanted to ignore him but stopped in spite of herself. She kept her back to him and waited. A part of her expected him to chastise her for being so wayward, or taking such liberties, or whatever. She expected some kind of set-down at least.
What she didn’t expect was for him to capture her wrist in a gentle but firm hold and tug her around until she faced him. When she eventually did find the strength to face him, this time it was she who was shocked when his arms slid around her and he hauled her against him once more. Meaningfully, he looked over the top of her head toward the carriage.
Georgiana watched the lumbering carriage disappear from sight with a sigh. She didn’t care who had seen them, or what rumours they had stirred up, but clearly Will was embarrassed to be seen with her.
Of course he is because he is engaged to be married to Penelope Smedgrove.
Shockingly, that thought still didn’t give her the strength to push him away. Neither did she prevent his lips from plundering hers once more. When she would have pulled away, one large hand cupped the back of her head and held her steady while he seared her with one extremely possessive kiss that left her shaken and weak at the knees.
