First Comes Scandal (Rokesbys #4)(21)

Almost to the point of bewilderment.

She was certainly pretty—he’d never have said otherwise if asked—but he’d also never really looked at her beyond her just being … her.

She was Georgiana Bridgerton, and she had blue eyes like her mother and gingery hair like no one else in her family. And that was the extent of what he’d noticed.

Wait. No. Her teeth were straight. He supposed he’d noticed that. She was of average height. He hadn’t really noticed that, but if someone had asked him how tall she was, he could have made a reasonably decent estimation.

But then they had joked about exploding babies and she’d done that little twist with her hand. His gaze had fixed inexplicably on her wrist.

Her wrist.

He had been laughing, and looking at her, and she’d done that thing … A curve, a flip, a sweeping gesture—whatever it was that women did with tiny movements that spoke volumes and seemed to envelop them in a fine mist of Pretty. It was an innocent enough move, clearly executed with no coy forethought, simply done to punctuate her dry humor.

Simple, innocent.

And if his father had not suggested they marry, Nicholas was sure he’d never have looked at the inside of Georgie’s wrist, much less noticed it.

But then he’d moved his gaze from her wrist to her face.

And he’d thought about kissing her.

Georgie.

Georgie.

He couldn’t kiss Georgie. It would be like kissing his sister.

“Sister? No,” he said to the nighttime air. He was sitting by his open bedchamber window, staring up at stars he could not see.

It was a cloudy night. The air was turbulent.

Georgie was not his sister. Of that he was certain. The rest of it, though …

Thinking about exploding babies felt a whole lot safer than thinking about Georgie’s wrist. Or to be more precise, thinking about laughing about the ludicrousness of exploding babies felt safer than thinking about turning Georgie’s wrist upward and pressing his lips to it.

Could he kiss her? He twisted one of his own hands palm up—or rather, fist up; he wasn’t feeling terribly relaxed—and stared down at the inside of his own wrist.

Yes. Of course he could. But did he want to?

He looked into the night. Could he spend day after day and year after year with her? At her table, in her bed? Nothing in the stillness of the night assured him that this was anything but an impossible question, and yet again he felt the acuteness of time. Not of the seconds ticking but the hours, the days that led to her more permanent ruin.

He could not tarry much longer. His father spoke of Georgie’s ghoulish schedule, of the husband she needed to find if he did not step forward for the position. But Nicholas, too, had a calendar he must keep. Even if he set out for Scotland the very next day, he’d have been away nearly a month. A month of classes, of missed exams. By his estimation, he could stay in Kent only a few days more—maybe a week—before he would fall too hopelessly behind to make up the material.

He needed to make a decision.

He looked at his bed. He could not picture her there.

Not yet, the night seemed to whisper.

Her profile and lips and her wrist—it all flashed in his brain. But when he tried to hold on to them, to keep these images still and in focus, it was the laughter he felt.

With his gaze still on the bed he couldn’t picture her in he murmured, “I just don’t know.”

A breeze cooled his skin and he shivered.

Yes, you do.

He stood, giving his back to the night. It was time for bed.

Remarkably, he slept.

BY MORNING HE had accepted his fate.

Which sounded a lot more dramatic than it actually was. But given the events of the past twenty-four hours, he rather thought he’d earned a touch of self-serving hyperbole.

He’d borrowed his brother’s valet for a good shave, made himself eat a hearty breakfast, and sent a footman to the stables with a request to ready a horse. He would go to Aubrey Hall, find Georgiana, and ask her to be his wife.

It wasn’t his fault that Georgie had found herself in such dire straits. But it wasn’t her fault, either, and he honestly wasn’t sure he could look at his own face in the mirror knowing he’d abandoned her to an uncertain future.

It was actually rather simple: He had the means to make things right. He could save her. Wasn’t that what he’d devoted his life to? Saving people? Surely such benevolence ought to start at home. Or in this case, at the rather stately home three miles down the road.

When he reached Aubrey Hall, however, he was informed by one of the footmen that Georgiana was not in; she had taken her nephews out for a walk. Anthony and Benedict Bridgerton did not strike Nicholas as the most romantic of props for a proposal of marriage, but then again, this would not be a particularly romantic proposal.

He could try, he supposed, but she’d see through that in a heartbeat. She knew he didn’t love her. And her circumstances being what they were, she’d know exactly why he was proposing.

No one seemed to know exactly where Georgie and the boys had gone off to, but the lake seemed the most obvious spot. The bank was wide and only slightly sloped, perfect for an adult who wished to sit comfortably on a blanket while keeping an eye on two boys running about like berserker knights. The gentle incline also meant it was almost impossible to fall in.

Or if not impossible, then at least highly unlikely. Nothing was impossible when young children were determined to get wet, but if one wanted to actually dunk one’s head beneath the surface, it required some forethought.