Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous (Scandalous Seasons #3)(10)

Geoffrey punched Carmichael. The sharp jab to the older man’s fleshy cheeks knocked him to his knees. The lecherous bastard pressed a hand to his nose to staunch the blood flow. From around his hand, Carmichael glared up at Geoffrey. “What did you do that for?” he whined. “She wanted it. Led me out here—”

Geoffrey punched him in the nose and this time, the old reprobate’s eyes slid to the back of his head and he fell into a heap at Geoffrey’s feet.

Geoffrey stared down at his clenched, bloodied fists, and counted to ten. Except the insidious, loathsome remembrance of Carmichael’s sausage-like fingers upon the lady’s skin, twisted around his mind. He took a step toward Carmichael.

“Don’t,” she murmured, as if she’d anticipated Geoffrey’s intentions.

He looked back to the young woman. Several strands of her hair hung in long, wispy waves like a midnight waterfall about her shoulders and down her back. Geoffrey was certain he’d never seen a woman of greater beauty.

Also certain that in his twenty nine, three hundred and seventy-three, nearly seventy-four days, he’d never descended into this crazed, half-mad state.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, his voice gruff to his own ears. He closed the distance between them, and fell to a knee beside her.

A hand fluttered about the bodice of her gown, and he averted his gaze as she righted the material.

The air left Geoffrey on a hiss. “By God, I’ll kill him.”

“I’m all right,” she said with a shocking steadiness to her voice.

Any other lady would have descended into hysterics following such an attack.

Geoffrey brushed the back of his knuckles along her cheek. “Are you certain?”

“He didn’t…” She wet her lips. “That is, he didn’t…” She colored. “I’m fine,” was all she said.

Geoffrey reached inside the front of his evening coat and withdrew his monogrammed kerchief. “Here. Allow me.” He touched the fabric to the corner of her lip.

She winced and his gut clenched at having caused her pain. “My apologies.” He handed the cloth off to her, mourning the loss of contact between them.

“I know we’ve not been properly introduced but after your timely intervention, I imagine we’ve moved beyond rigid politeness. My name is Abigail. Abigail Stone.”

It was an unfamiliar name. An American name.

Somehow wildly exotic in its simplicity.

He wondered what this American woman was doing in London.

Geoffrey sketched a short bow. “Geoffrey Winters, Viscount Redbrooke.”

“Geoffrey,” she said, the word rolled off her tongue as though she tasted the feel of it upon her lips.

“Lord Redbrooke,” he corrected. “It’s not proper for us to refer to one another by our Christian names.” Even if there’d never been a sound more right than his name upon her lips.

His admonition must have roused whatever sense of misguided guilt she had over Lord Carmichael’s attack. Her gaze shifted to the ground. “I cannot stay out here but,” she spread her arms wide. “I cannot return like this.”

Unbidden, his stare fell to her décolletage, previously exposed by Carmichael’s assault. He balled his hands into fists to keep from bloodying the bastard all over again.

However, with the exception of her still-torn hem from their earlier encounter in Lord Hughes’s ballroom and those glorious wisps of hair about her shoulders, she appeared largely un-mussed.

She shook her head back and forth. “My cousin will call him out. I’ll have caused a scandal. My mother will again be disappointed.”

Geoffrey resisted the urge to inquire as to what she’d done to have earned her mother’s displeasure. It would be the height of impropriety to delve into the young lady’s personal affairs. “Here,” he said, gentling his tone. He worked to arrange her long, silken strands back into a semblance of something her maid had attempted with the glorious crown of wavy, black locks. He studied his efforts.

“Do I look presentable?” The question merged hopefulness with resignation.

Geoffrey’s eyes traveled along the high lines of her cheek-bones, to the intriguing birthmark just at the corner of her lip. Glorious. Magnificent.

Instead, he said, “You’ll do.”

“I should go,” she said quietly.

“Yes.”

They both should.

And yet, they both remained rooted to the spot, gazes locked.

Something strong, and powerful, a masculine hunger brewed inside him, until he wanted to toss aside his proprietary responsibilities and his commitment to strict decorum and make her his. As if a man possessed, Geoffrey’s hand came up of its own volition to stroke the silken curve of her cheek.

Geoffrey didn’t recognize the savage beast who’d taken down Lord Carmichael with his bare fists, and now longed to carry off this American stranger, take her someplace far away, where they’d both be sheltered from Society’s rigid expectations.

She leaned into his touch. “Dionysus,” she whispered.

His breathing settled into a smooth, steady cadence.

She looked up at him, her face bathed in moonlight; the full orb reflected in the irises of her eyes and placed her palm in his. “You saved me,” she breathed. Then, Abigail guided their joined hands upward, leveling them at the stars glinting above.