Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous (Scandalous Seasons #3)(45)

The fall had broken his father’s neck.

“Oh, Geoffrey,” Abigail said ever so softly. She wrapped her arms about his waist and held him.

He stiffened at the feel of her in his arms, but then the lavender and lilac scent that clung to her, blended with the fragrant aroma of the buds in bloom all around them, moved him, far headier than any spirit. His arms came up around her and he accepted her silent support. Geoffrey rested his chin atop the satiny crown of her midnight black tresses.

He didn’t care they were a stones-throw away from being discovered, alone, unchaperoned in the Duke of Somerset’s formal gardens. He craved an absolution he’d thought impossible to achieve—until he’d taken her in his arms.

“All my plans of elopement,” he said, forcing himself to tell the rest of the whole sordid story, “were of course quashed. Emma, begged me to continue on to Gretna Greene. The schemer believed I’d wed her even in the immediate aftermath of my father’s death. I, of course, refused. At which point, she revealed the truth.” A harsh, humorless laugh spilled out of his lips.

“The truth?”

“She was carrying someone else’s child.” Time hadn’t lessened the shock of that revelation. His father had been correct; Geoffrey’s judgment had been flawed, and his father had paid the ultimate price. “It didn’t even matter the identity of her nameless lover. My father was dead and I may as well have killed him by my own hand. And all because I foolishly believed I loved her.”

“Whatever happened to her?”

Geoffrey shrugged a shoulder. “Her father sent her off to his country seat in the far flung corners of Northumberland.” Geoffrey had never seen her again, nor had he ever wanted to set sight upon the woman who’d deceived him.

“Oh, Geoffrey,” she whispered.

He shrugged.

Abigail leaned back and her eyes roved a path over his face. “It is not your fault.”

Geoffrey stiffened, and set her away from him. “Of course it is my fault,” he said, his tone harsher than intended. “If I’d honored my obligations and responsibilities, my father would be alive.”

“But you loved her.”

He held her gaze, and she must have seen something dark and primitive in his eyes for she looked away. “I did not love her. I loved the illusion she presented. My responsibility was always to find and wed a proper, respectable demure English miss.”

She froze, and it occurred to him he’d inadvertently offended her.

“And that is why…”

“You want to wed Beatrice,” she finished for him.

He nodded. Or, rather, that had been true at one point. He owed it as a kind of penance for his past transgressions, and yet, he was still a helpless sinner for he no longer could commit himself to wedding the young woman—even if it was to honor his father’s expectations of him.

“Because she is a proper, respectable, demure English miss,” Abigail said, her voice peculiarly hollow.

“Yes.”

Her hands came up and she folded them about herself, as if warding off a chill. She looked up toward the night sky, inhaling deep.

His eyes, of their own volition went to the rapid fall and rise of her chest. The generous swell of her breasts tempted, beckoned him to partake in the visual feast she represented. With her lush feminity, she was more captivating than Michelangelo’s rendering of the temptress Eve.

And he was the serpent at her feet, sinful, and wicked.

“Giving up your happiness will not rid you of the guilt you carry. Only you can find forgiveness in yourself, Geoffrey.”

He jerked at the unexpectedness of her words. His desire died a swift death.

“And you presume to know what would make me happy?” he asked, coldly. In that moment, he resented Abigail Stone for having turned him into the same, weak man he’d been once before.

She looked away from the night sky and met his gaze with a bold intensity. “I know it isn’t Beatrice.”

Geoffrey closed the distance between them in two long strides. “What kind of spell have you woven over me?” he asked, the words harsh and desperate to his own ears.

Abigail leaned up and kissed him.

His body stiffened at the brazenness of her touch, and then, God help him, he was as lost as Adam had been when he’d been offered that damning piece of fruit. Geoffrey took her in his arms and slanted his mouth over hers again and again. Punishing and pleading all as one.

She moaned, and he slipped his tongue inside to reacquaint himself with the moist cavern. She kissed him back with a wanton eagerness that set his body aflame. His flesh sprang hard against her belly, and he moved his hands over the exposed skin of her arms, lower, down the curve of her hip, until he cupped her buttocks in his hands. Geoffrey groaned, and urged her closer.

Abigail’s head fell back on a moan steeped in desperation. “Please, Geoffrey,” she pleaded.

He nipped at the skin of her neck and she cried out. “Yes!”

That word echoed around his mind like the blare of a pistol’s report. He jerked upright and set her away from him.

She swayed on her feet; her thick, sooty black lashes drifted open. “Geoffrey?”

His name served as a reminder. His obligation. His sins. His failings.

She stepped so close her body’s heat warmed him. “You came out here for a reason, Geoffrey. You set aside propriety and the threat of discovery for a reason.”