Lord Sebastian's Secret (The Duke's Sons #3)(53)

Georgina stopped him as he headed for the last rank of steps. “Over here,” she said. She pulled him into a recess blocked off by an ancient wooden screen. No one else was likely to come into the tower, but if someone did, they wouldn’t be seen. “We have to think what to do,” she said. Sebastian looked down at her, tall and broad shouldered and strong. Despite their difficulties, when she was alone with him, she felt that all would be well. “We need a plan.”

“Right.” He looked at her hopefully.

She waited, silently willing him to take charge. “You must have made all sorts of plans as a soldier.”

“Well.” He frowned. “The first step in a military campaign is to list troop strength.”

“Troop?”

“How many you can muster in the battle line.” Sebastian ticked off one finger. “We’ve got Mitra. He promised to help.”

“If we can find him a task he accepts,” Georgina amended.

Sebastian nodded. “Same goes for Randolph. He’ll do anything I ask. Though I don’t want to get him in trouble with a bishop.”

“What bishop?”

“Any bishop. He wants to be one himself, you know. Archbishop, even.” Sebastian shook his head. “It’s odd enough to see your little brother rigged up as a cleric. Can’t really picture him in the miter and robes.”

It was a startling picture, if beside the current point. “No.”

“At any rate, Randolph will stand by me. We can count on him.”

“Mama is on our side,” Georgina pointed out. “But she isn’t tactful or…subtle. She’s most likely to march right in and demand whatever she wants.”

“A blunt instrument,” said Sebastian, nodding. “We’ll put her down as infantry, the division you throw straight into the thick of the battle.”

Georgina had to laugh at the comparison. “A division likely to be distracted by a barking pug at a critical moment.”

“The dogs,” Sebastian mused. “They are distracting. To put it mildly. Perfect for diversionary tactics. Providing you can get them where you want them to go, of course.”

“Diversion from what?” Georgina asked.

“I don’t know. We’re in the early stages of this campaign. There’s Sykes; he’s up to anything. He once stole a whole crate of oranges from a French cook tent. It was heavily guarded, too.”

Georgina wondered how a valet could do this. She’d ask some other time. She hesitated, then said, “Hilda.”

They looked at each other. “I expect…no, I know that she’s not very good at following orders,” Sebastian replied. “She’d be the sort of trooper who goes haring off on his own and gets a lot of people killed. Well, not killed, in this case, but…you know what I mean.”

Georgina acknowledged the truth of this with a nod. “She’s daring, though. And highly motivated. She wants to us to be married, and she wants to make up for the prank she played.” Georgina weighed this against her memories of Hilda’s scrapes. “She does tend to improvise in the middle of things. You never know what she’d come up with.”

“We’ll hold her in reserve, as a last resort.”

“That’s probably best.”

“Anyone else?”

“Not that I can think of,” said Georgina. “I don’t think we can ask Emma. She’s too upset by the last misadventure to be involved.”

Sebastian nodded. “Not a group I’d choose, necessarily. More like what my brother James would call a motley crew. Perhaps some of the castle servants?”

“They’re trying very hard not to be caught in the middle of this. They naturally look to Mama for household orders, but they don’t want to anger Papa.”

“Neither do I,” protested Sebastian.

“Too late.” Georgina gave him a sympathetic smile.

“None of it was my fault!”

“It was not.” She took his hand.

He looked down at her lovely face, shadowed in the tower’s dimness, and saw everything he wanted in the depths of her eyes. “We are going to be married. Even if we have to elope after all.”

After a moment, Georgina nodded. It was a mournful thing to contemplate, but if the choice was forced on her, she wouldn’t be parted from Sebastian. “I’d rather not.”

“Of course. I’d never ask you. Unless there was no other way for us to be together.”

Something in that word, or in their locked gaze, ignited the atmosphere. Memories and hopes and pent-up desire drew them into each other’s arms. The kiss was heady and tender, familiar and new. They stole another, and another.

Georgina pressed close, reveling in the feel of his hands on her. She wanted to wrap herself around him and never let go.

A sound drifted down from above, as of a chair scraping on flagstones. Sebastian raised his head. “Mitra might come down.”

“Who cares about him?” Georgina muttered. But reality had come plodding back. “Papa will be looking for me,” she admitted. “He’s begun asking where I am every few minutes.”

With mutual reluctance, they moved apart.

“All will be well soon,” she said.

“We haven’t actually made a plan,” Sebastian pointed out.