The three men walked off, laughing.
Harry froze. Whore. The name they’d called his mother so long ago.
Whore.
The boy moved beneath his hand. Harry looked down and realized he was clutching his shoulder too tightly. The boy didn’t complain, just shrugged a bit.
“What’s your name?” Harry asked.
“Will.” The boy looked up at him and wiped a hand across his nose. “My ma’s a whore.”
“Aye.” Harry released Will’s shoulder. “So was mine.”
GEORGE PACED THE LIBRARY THAT EVENING. The windows were black mirrors, reflecting the darkness outside. For a second she paused and studied her ghostly reflection. Her hair was perfect, a rarity, but Tiggle had redressed it after supper. She wore a lavender gown, one of her favorites, and her pearl drops. Perhaps she flattered herself, but she felt she looked well, almost handsome, in the frock.
If only she felt as confident inside.
She was beginning to think that the library was the wrong place for this meeting. But what other choice was there, really? With her brothers in residence at Woldsly, she couldn’t ask Harry to her rooms, and the last two times she’d gone to his cottage… George felt her face warm. They hadn’t done much talking, had they? So there wasn’t an alternative. But still. The library felt somehow wrong.
The sound of booted footsteps rang in the hall. George squared her shoulders and faced the door, a lonely offering waiting for the dragon. Or maybe the leopard.
“Good evening, my lady.” Harry prowled into the library.
Definitely the leopard. She felt the hairs stand on the back of her neck. Harry gave off a sort of volatile energy tonight.
“Good evening. Won’t you have a seat?” She gestured to the settee.
He flicked his eyes in the direction she indicated and back to her. “I think not.”
Oh, dear. “Well…” George inhaled and tried to remember what she’d planned to say to him. Her speech had made sense in her rooms. But now, with Harry staring at her, now it fell apart like wet paper tissue.
“Yes?” He cocked his head as though to better hear her thoughts. “Do you want it on the settee or the floor?”
Her eyes widened in confusion. “I don’t—”
“The chair?” Harry asked. “Where do you want to make love?”
“Oh.” She felt a flush start on her cheeks. “I haven’t called you here for that.”
“No?” His eyebrows raised. “Are you sure? You must’ve ordered me here for something.”
“I didn’t order you…” She closed her eyes and shook her head and began again. “We need to talk.”
“Talk.” The word was flat. “Do you want my resignation?”
“No. What makes you think that?”
“My lady.” Harry laughed, a nasty, hoarse sound.
“I may be merely your servarry laughed, a nasty, hoarse sound. “I may be merely your servant, but credit me with some intelligence. You were closeted with your three aristocratic brothers all day, and then you summoned me to your library. What is this if not a dismissal?”
She was losing control of the conversation. She spread her hands helplessly. “I just need to talk to you.”
“What do you wish to talk about, my lady?”
“I… I don’t know.” George squeezed her eyes shut, trying to think. He wasn’t making this any easier for her. “Tony is pressing me to make a decision about us. And I don’t know what to do.”
“Are you asking me what to do?”
“I…” She drew a breath. “Yes.”
“It seems simple enough to me, poor commoner that I am,” Harry said. “Let us continue as we have.”
George looked down at her hands. “But that’s just it. I can’t.”
When she looked up again, Harry’s expression was so blank she might’ve been staring in the eyes of a dead man. Lord, how she’d begun to hate that wooden face. “Then you’ll have my resignation by tomorrow.”
“No.” She wrung her hands. “That isn’t what I want at all.”
“But you can’t have it both ways.” Harry seemed suddenly weary. His beautiful green eyes were dulled by something close to despair. “You can either be my lover or I will leave. I’ll not stay as some convenience for you, like that gelding in your stable here. You ride him when at Woldsly and forget him the rest of the year. Do you even know his name?”
Her mind went blank. The fact was, she didn’t know the horse’s name. “It isn’t like that.”
“No? Pardon, but what is it like, my lady?” Anger was breaking through Harry’s wooden mask, painting scarlet flames across his cheekbones. “Am I a stud for hire? Nice for a romp in bed, but after the tupping, not good enough to show your family?”
George could feel a blush heat her own cheeks. “Why are you being so crude?”
“Am I?” Harry was suddenly in front of her, standing too close. “You must forgive me, my lady. That’s what you get when you take a common lover: a crude man.” His fingers framed her face, his thumbs hot against her temples. She felt her heart skitter in her chest at his touch. “Isn’t that what you wanted when you chose me to take your maidenhead?”
She could smell spirits on his breath. Was that the reason for this hostility? Was he drunk? If so, he showed no other signs. She inhaled deeply to steady her own emotions, to try to counter his terrible sorrow. “I—”
But he would not let her speak. He whispered in a cruel, hard voice instead, “A man so crude he takes you against a door? A man so crude he makes you scream when you come? A man so crude he doesn’t have the grace to melt away when he’s no longer wanted?”
George shuddered at the awful words and scrambled to frame a reply. But it was too late. Harry claimed her mouth and sucked on her bottom lip. He pulled her to him roughly and ground his hips against hers. There it was again, that wild, desperate desire. He bunched her skirts in one hand, pulling them up. George heard a tear but couldn’t bring herself to care.
He reached underneath and found her mound with ruthless accuracy. “This is what you get with a common lover.” He speared two fingers into her sheath.
She gasped at the sudden intrusion, feeling him stretch her as he stroked with his fingers. She shouldn’t feel anything, shouldn’t respond when he—