Lord Sebastian's Secret (The Duke's Sons #3)(8)

The searing kiss was interrupted by distant yapping. Sebastian raised his head. “Are the dogs liable to join us?”

She didn’t blame him for the lack of enthusiasm in his tone. She got on well enough with her mother’s dogs, but they were often ill-mannered with strangers. She listened. “They’re not out,” she said. “They have their own garden. Mama doesn’t let them run free. If they come to this part of the grounds, she’s always with them. She’s afraid a fox might get them—the young ones anyway. Drustan killed a fox once.”

“Drustan?” Sebastian echoed.

“It’s a Celtic name. Mama is…much taken with Celtic legends. Papa leans to the Anglo-Saxon.”

“I…see.”

“You get used to it. After a while,” Georgina said. Except for this new start with Mr. Mitra. She hadn’t gotten used to that. It truly seemed a step too far.

Sebastian resumed his exceedingly pleasant attentions. Georgina gave herself up to the delights of desire. Neither of them noticed a stir in the needles of a nearby evergreen. A branch was gently depressed, and two pairs of green eyes peered through the opening thus created. “He’ll have to marry her if he keeps on like that,” Emma whispered. “There’ll be no crying off.”

“Why would he?” murmured Hilda.

“The dogs, Papa’s odd new start,” said her sister. “But he won’t.”

The two girls watched for a while, fascinated, absorbing a thorough lesson in the art of kissing. Then a giggle escaped Emma. It was a small sound, but Sebastian raised his head at once. “Who’s there?” he asked.

Georgina stiffened and stepped away from him.

“It’s just us,” said Hilda from the shelter of the shrubbery. “You don’t have to stop on our account.”

“You promised not to spy,” declared Georgina. Her sisters knew every cranny of the castle and grounds, and used them. She’d known their curiosity and personal investment in her marriage were going to cause awkwardness, and she’d lectured them on the need for some privacy.

Emma and Hilda slipped from the screening foliage onto the gravel path. “We were out for a walk,” replied Emma. “We didn’t know you were here until we…”

“Sneaked through the bushes to find us?” finished Georgina.

“We weren’t sneaking.” Hilda paused, then added, “Not till right at the end.”

Her youngest sister was honest, Georgina thought, if incorrigible.

“Anyway, when we come to live with you, I expect we’ll see you kissing all the time,” said Hilda. “So it doesn’t matter. Indeed, we should become accustomed to it.”

“Come to live with us?” Sebastian said.

He looked startled. Beyond that, Georgina couldn’t tell. She resisted an impulse to march over and box Hilda’s ears. She’d told them that nothing could be settled, or even discussed, until after the wedding.

Georgina sighed. She did feel sorry for her sisters. She certainly hadn’t forgotten how lonely it was here at Stane, and how eager she’d been to get out into the world. It was also clear that her parents’ peculiarities were growing more intense with age. They hadn’t been so distracted when she was younger. She’d told Emma and Hilda that she would help them, and she would. But they’d taken this as a positive promise to add them to her household as soon as she had one, ignoring the fact that she couldn’t do that without Mama and Papa’s permission. And consulting Sebastian, of course. Principally that.

He was looking at her. Certainly she would never have brought this up on the first day of his visit. Heavens, he’d only been here a few hours, though it seemed longer. “Go on with your walk,” she told her sisters. “Or…don’t you still have lessons? Where is Joanna?”

“We only have to be in the schoolroom in the morning,” said Hilda.

“She’s gathering botanical specimens,” said Emma at the same moment.

As if on cue, a female voice was heard, calling the sisters’ names. “She is?” asked Georgina.

Hilda held up a rather wilted sprig of leaves. “We all are.”

Emma, empty-handed, looked around, then quickly broke off a bit of evergreen.

Georgina gave them both a look. “Over here, Joanna!” she called. Unless she handed her sisters over to their governess, they’d tag along wherever she and Sebastian went.

A few moments later, the sturdy figure of Joanna Byngham came striding down the path toward them, a basket full of plant specimens over her arm. Georgina greeted her with relief. Joanna’s broad-shouldered, plain-featured presence had been a mainstay of the Stane household since she’d joined it fourteen years before. She could talk history with the marquess to his heart’s content and help in his research. She shared a love of dogs with Georgina’s mother. And she’d made the castle schoolroom a fascinating place, for Georgina at least. Joanna had a way of bringing subjects to life, throwing herself into each new course of study with the gusto of an explorer discovering new lands. They’d delved into them together, and Georgina knew that Joanna had been sad when she left her tutelage.

The newcomer came to a stop before them and looked out from under the edge of her broad-brimmed straw hat. “There you are,” she said to Emma and Hilda. She appeared more resigned than surprised at their defection, which was probably common. Georgina was aware that her younger sisters showed little interest in their books. Perhaps they simply pretended not to care for education as a way to irritate Papa. They certainly weren’t stupid. “Sebastian, this is Miss Byngham,” she said. “Joanna, Lord Sebastian Gresham.”