Lord Sebastian's Secret (The Duke's Sons #3)(84)

“Then you will come?”

“I’ve never wanted anything more in my life. But if we were caught?” He wouldn’t expose her to embarrassment or censure.

“It will be late. If you’re found out of your room, you can say you were upset by the ritual.”

“Perhaps I shall be.”

“Then I can soothe you.”

The images this evoked nearly drove him mad. “If you’re sure.”

“Perfectly.”

He leaned forward and sealed their pact with a kiss. Georgina threw her arms around him, and in an instant they were standing, pressed together, clinging to each other. The kiss went on and on. Sebastian didn’t see how he could wait for the night. Every inch of him burned with need. How would he get through the hours until he could slake it?

He didn’t hear the footsteps on the stairs until Mr. Mitra was upon them. The Indian gentleman’s feet appeared at the top curve of the stone stair. Then his legs and the hem of his tunic. Nearly groaning aloud, Sebastian stepped back. Gently but inexorably, he pushed Georgina down into her chair.

Mitra’s hands and chest and head emerged. He paused to give them a smile and nod. “Pardon the interruption. I must go inside for a few moments.” He started down the next turn of the stair, his feet and legs disappearing once again.

The sound of yapping floated through the narrow windows.

Mitra hesitated, listening.

The sound grew louder. The dogs were clearly approaching.

Mitra sighed, head bowed, shoulders slumped. “I am most sorry to ask it, but would you consider walking with me, Lord Sebastian?”

“I’ll go,” said Georgina, rising. “Mama will be wondering where I am.”

Her cheeks were flushed, her green eyes bright. Looking at her, Sebastian didn’t care about the ritual any longer, or indeed about anything else. Let the evening be as strange as anyone could imagine. Let it be humiliating. Let the rest of them think him an oaf. Georgina didn’t, and that was all that mattered.

She loved him, he thought. She believed in him and respected him. Somehow that eased the years of worry about being discovered, the shame about his limitations. It was a revelation. He hadn’t understood until now how much could be changed by one extraordinary woman’s belief in him. “We’ll all go,” he said, elation bubbling in his tone. “The pugs shan’t trouble you today, Mr. Mitra.”

The older man accepted this buoyant assurance with raised brows. He said nothing, however, merely giving them one of his characteristic bows. And the three of them descended together into the late-afternoon sunshine.

As she returned the key ring to her mother’s desk on the way down to dinner a bit later, Georgina felt, without knowing it, precisely the same as her beloved. Whatever awkwardness the ritual might bring, it didn’t matter. She could anticipate what came after. And then after that. Her life lay before her, a delightful prospect. The only difficulty was impatience for it to begin.





Nineteen


It was an odd-looking group that convened in the room where this had all begun under the influence of Mr. Mitra’s drumming, Georgina thought. They’d looked even stranger around the dining table in the selection of red garments salvaged from the attic trunks. Her father wore knee breeches and a brocade coat with wide skirts, both a rich scarlet. Lace foamed around his neck and wrists, and he kept fidgeting with it in delight.

Joanna had improvised a flowing robe from what Georgina suspected had once been draperies. She looked like nothing ever seen before within the castle walls. Hilda’s deep-red gown had a tight bodice that came to a point at the waist and sweeping skirts that dragged on the floor all around her.

The Gresham brothers couldn’t be less than handsome, but they looked uncomfortable—Sebastian in a crimson tunic over dark trousers and Randolph in a ruby velvet cloak. They’d made Randolph wear the bulky thing through dinner. And then Hilda had said he looked a bit like a Roman cardinal in it. Randolph had been eyeing his reflection in one of the mirrors ever since, seemingly torn between fascination and concern. Edgar, the last-minute addition, had been allowed to get away with just a red waistcoat.

Georgina had been given what Hilda insisted was a red silk gown. It was markedly flimsy, however, and Georgina suspected it was a nightdress of another era. When her protests had gone unheeded, she’d put on two petticoats under it.

And there the resources of the castle had run out. Emma and Mama both wore gowns of their own. Emma’s was more pink than red, her mother’s a garnet shade that was deemed acceptable.

A vase of red roses graced the low table in the middle of the room, and branches of candles all around them once again lit the scene. Joanna had stationed the Greshams on one side of the center and Georgina’s family on the other, planting herself between. “We look like we’re standing at a church altar, as we will be in just a few days,” said Hilda.

“Not exactly,” said Randolph.

“Silence,” declared Joanna. “It is time to begin.” She raised her arms. There was a rustling noise as various people retrieved the pages Joanna had given them as they entered. She glared until it quieted. “We are here to mark the entrance of a new member into the Stane family,” she intoned then. “Though few recognize it in these modern days, this is a solemn occasion. A change to be noted and revered.”