Nearly an hour later, she was perched on the edge of a small, pale blue settee in a pale blue parlor, and it was still not done.
Georgina glanced at the ormolu clock on the fireplace mantel, watching the minutes tick by. After Adam had helped her out of the carriage, he’d led her up the front steps of the Earl of Whitehaven’s home. The earl had marched ahead in stoic silence, and there was little Georgina hated more than silence. Quiet was a good indicator of many things—none of them usually good.
A bellow resonated from a distant room, and she clambered to her feet and all but climbed over the settee in her haste to use it as a protective barrier against the threat—that didn’t come. She drew in a shuddery breath, closing her eyes. Shouts of fury were usually accompanied by a heavy fist or the sting of a lash.
“Well, I say, did you leap over that settee?”
Georgina shrieked and slapped a hand to her breast.
The young man in the doorway lounged with his hip against the frame, his arms folded across his chest. Not as tall as Adam, he still towered over Georgina by a good seven inches. He had a familiarly squared jaw with the tiniest hint of a cleft and pale blue-green eyes the color of sea foam. At her obvious inspection, full lips tipped up in an amused smile.
Heat rushed to her cheeks.
This had to be Tony, Adam’s younger brother.
She bowed her head and sank into a deep curtsy.
He shoved off the wall. “Tsk, tsk. Any lady who can jump as high as you shouldn’t be wasting her energy on things like curtsying and head-bobbing.”
She blinked.
He laughed, bowing low at the waist. “Anthony Devon Markham, at your service,” he said, confirming her suspicions. “But please, call me Tony.”
She’d do no such thing. She wasn’t nobility, but she’d suffered through enough governesses and instructors to know it was highly improper to be alone with a young man, exchanging introductions.
Another bellow shuddered through the house.
“Georgina Wilcox,” she said hastily.
Tony all but threw himself down onto the small, blue sofa she’d occupied. He swung his legs over the arm of the chair and folded his arms behind his head. “I’m assuming you are the source of that.”
Georgina bit her lip. Perhaps it would be better to feign ignorance; it would invite less questions. “The source of what, Mr. Markham?”
“Tony,” he corrected. A thundering roar, like that of a wounded bear, rocked the room. “That is the that to which I referred.” His lips twitched with amusement again.
She felt like she’d been spun around in a dozen dizzying circles.
He clarified. “The shouting.”
She worried her lower lip. “Uh…yes, I did think that may have been the that to which you were referring.”
“You’re going to chew right through it, you know.”
Another shout and Georgina jumped, looking back at the door. Finding no immediate threat, she turned back to Adam’s younger brother. “What did you say?” The last thing in the world she wanted to do in that moment was exchange banter with Adam’s vexing, if abundantly charming, brother.
He motioned to his lip. “You keep biting at your lip like that and you’re going to go through it.”
“I’ve bit my lip enough times to assure you that will not happen.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized by the glittering specks of gold in his eyes that he was jesting. “Oh,” she said, another blush heating her skin. “You were making light of me.”
Tony shoved himself upright and frowned. “I wasn’t making light.”
She raised a brow.
He sighed. “Very well, perhaps I was. I apologize.”
Then he smiled. It fairly oozed roguish appeal. He was going to be deadly to the young debutantes—and, she’d venture, the older dowagers, as well.
“So, tell me, what’s that all about?” Tony nodded toward the doorway.
Georgina had her lower lip between her slightly crooked teeth before she realized he was looking at her pointedly. She stopped immediately. “I-I…have no idea,” she lied.
He snorted. Fortunately, he was wicked but not deliberately cruel, for he didn’t press her for details.
Not that Georgian would have given them. What was she to say?
Oh you see, my father abducted your brother, took him captive, but I helped free him. Now the honorable lummox has decided to marry me…whether I like it or not.
“Mother is going to be quite disappointed that she’s missing all this,” Tony mumbled beneath his breath.
She fanned her cheeks. His mother! Goodness, Adam had brought her into his family’s home, through the front entrance no less. Why, the scandal would surely rock his family. Suddenly, taking her chances alone on the streets seemed infinitely preferable. She glanced at the window.
“Oh no. It’s far too high a jump.”
Georgina jerked her gaze back to Tony.
He nodded toward the window. “You look like you were thinking of jumping to freedom.” With a beleaguered sigh, he added, “I’ve considered it on many occasions myself.”
Being reunited with Adam, losing her position and security, being dragged into the middle of a battle between the Earl of Whitehaven and Adam…all of it was suddenly too much. Georgina began laughing. She covered her mouth to stifle the giggle but it was little use. Laughter poured out of her like a torrential London rainstorm. Of course, it was infinitely better than crying, but there’d be time enough for that later, when Adam and the earl decided to include her in a discussion that pertained to the rest of her life.
Suddenly she was tired of waiting. To be rescued. To be taken care of. To have a decision made about her fate. She looked at Tony. “Will you show me the way to his lordship’s office?”
Tony smiled, revealing a very Adam-esque row of perfectly straight, pearl-white teeth. “It will be my pleasure, Miss Wilcox.” He held out his elbow.
*
Nicholas sat with his hip perched on the edge of his mahogany desk. The fa?ade of nonchalance was belied by his broken nose and crumpled clothing.
It had been a good six minutes since they’d last shouted at one another. It would appear they were making progress.
Nick swiped a hand across his brow, dashing back an errant trace of sweat. “Surely you see the wisdom in my words. You cannot marry this woman. Why, it would be ruinous.”
Apparently they were making far less progress than he’d hoped.
Adam closed his eyes and counted to ten. When he still felt like hitting his brother, he counted another five. He tried appealing to Nick’s sense of honor. “As a gentleman, you have to see that I’ve ruined Georgina. She is alone in the world. Without work…”
In a wholly un-earl-like show of emotion, Nick slammed his fist down on the desktop. “Christ, you are not thinking with your head!” He drew in a deep breath, and when he spoke again, his tone was even. “I don’t know anything about this woman other than that, in addition to being a maid, she was the reason for your overindulgence in whiskey.”