Mary Balogh: Gentle conquest

"Now, tell me," he said. "What is this dreadful confession?"

"Well," she said, "I have in my workbag a large bundle of money that I was going to begin by giving you. Shall I get it? It is just beside the chair."

"No need," he said. "What is its purpose? Did you steal it?"

"No," she said. There was a pause. "I earned it, actually."

"Indeed?" he said. "And what have you been working at to earn money? Do I not provide you with enough?"

Georgiana ignored the last question. "I have been earning it by allowing a gentleman to make love to me," she said distinctly. Her mind was telling her with equal distinctness that she was approaching this whole confession in quite the wrong way.

Ralph's body jerked quite convulsively. She put an arm up about his neck, thinking that at any moment she was going to be hurled to the floor.

"You have been doing what?" he asked hoarsely.

She said nothing. She merely tightened her grip on his neck and burrowed her head under his chin until her face was safely hidden in the hollow between his shoulder and neck.

They sat thus for a long time, absolutely still.

"My God," he said at last. "Oh my God. Georgie!",

"Are you very angry?" she asked, her voice muffled against his neck. "Please say you will not kill me. I shall never have the courage to move my head, you know."

She suddenly missed the comfort of his chin against the top of her head and realized that he had put his head back against the chair. There was a long silence again. This one lasted for several minutes. Georgiana found every second an excruciating agony, but she had no more power to lift her head than she had to stop breathing.

His next words took her completely by surprise. "Why, you little rascal!" he said. "I suppose Roger put you up to it?"

"Oh no!" She lifted her head without thinking and presented a flaming face to his view. "I had to use all the wiles at my disposal to persuade him to help me. He thought it a quite scandalous idea."

"I should think so too," he said.

"I thought you were afraid of me," she said in a rush. "I thought that with me perhaps you felt yourself incapable… That is, I thought perhaps you could not… Ohhh! " She burrowed her face back into its safe hiding place again.

One of his hands came up to fondle the back of her head. "You were partly right, you know," he admitted. "But, you rogue, Georgie. You utter scamp! When I think! Why did you not tell me the truth when I had proved to you and to myself that I was not incapable, as you so delicately put it?"

"I was afraid you would think I had made a fool of you," she said, "and turn from me in disgust. I could not bear to give you up, Ralph. I loved so much the… That is, I enjoyed… Oh, I never thought I could be such a stuttering miss." She withdrew her face from safety and looked him severely in the eye. "I derive enormous pleasure from being in bed with you," she said defiantly.

Ralph began to laugh. "I wish you had completed the other sentences too," he said. "I always thought you were a lady, Georgie. Ladies are not supposed to have such feelings, you know. And they are certainly not supposed to talk about them."

"Are you very angry?" she asked anxiously.

"No," he said, serious again, "I think not. But the memories are crowding at me. My God, that was you! So beautiful, Georgiana. So very… giving. It is no wonder that I have been confused by the fact that I loved two women."

"Did you love me there?" she asked wistfully. "I was not merely a… a body to you?"

He shook his head. "No," he said. "There was more than that. You must have felt it. I did not merely use you. Did you not know that? I made love to you each time except perhaps the first, I wanted more than just my own pleasure. I wanted to make you happy too. And I succeeded?"

"I love you," she said, linking her hands together behind his head and leaning back from him to the full extent of her arms. "I love everything about you. Not just the things that happened there. I admire your intellect and your learning. I love your kindness and concern for everyone you know and even for people you do not know. I love your gentleness. You are so very truly a gentleman, Ralph. And my very dear love. I am so proud that you are my husband."

"Oh my God," he said suddenly, closing his eyes and putting his head against the back of the chair again, pressing back against her hands. "I have just thought of something else."

"What?" she asked sharply.

He opened his eyes and looked at her so that she had that familiar feeling of being about to drown in the gray depths. "Your child," he said. "It is mine."

"Of course it is," she said, and watched in wonder the tears spring to his eyes. "Oh, my dear love, of course it is your child. It is going to be a boy, you know, and he is going to be just like you so that when you are old and gray, I shall be able to look at him and remember just how handsome you used to be. Though as for that, you will always be handsome to me. And I shall always insist that he mind his father so that he will learn all the valuable things of life from you. He could learn nothing from me except how to get into stupid scrapes, and I don't want him to be wild. Maybe our second son can be a madcap, or even one of our daughters. But not our first son. Not your heir. I will not stand for it."

"Georgie," he said, tightening his arms around her and bringing her against him again. "My love, I cannot adjust my mind to reality at the moment. My child. Inside you now. Here, is it?" He laid a hand lightly against her abdomen. "Our child. I cannot believe it."

He laid a cheek against the top of her head and they sat silent for a while. His hand still rested against her womb.

"Am I keeping you imprisoned here?" he asked. "Perhaps you have other things to do, Georgiana. We must have been here an hour or more."

"Well," Georgiana said. She was playing with a button on his waistcoat, twisting it dangerously in one direction. "I thought that perhaps… I mean, it is only just past teatime, is it not? I thought… But perhaps you would rather not. I mean… Oh, here I go again. Just listen to me." She released the button, which spun back crazily to its original position, and sat up.

She fixed her husband with that severe eye again. "Would you care to convey me to my bedchamber and make love to me?" she asked.

"Now, Georgie?"

"And tonight too, if you wish," she said, her expression not faltering.

"Now, what do you mean by 'convey?' he asked. "It suggests being carried. I can just picture the butler's face if I were to carry you out of here and up two flights of stairs, can't you? And Mama's, if she happened to come out of the drawing room just as we reached the first landing."

"I shall walk," Georgiana said with great dignity. "Are you coming?"

"I invite you to try to stop me," Ralph said. "I hope you realize that there is still some daylight outside, Georgie. "

She looked her inquiry.

"I want you just as you have presented yourself to me at Kensington," he said.

"Oh," she said, and blushed. "I shall be very embarrassed."

"Good," he said. "You deserve a strong dose of embarrassment, my girl, after having the effrontery to invite your husband to bed in the middle of the day."

"Are you shocked?" she asked.

"No," replied Ralph, taking his wife's hand and linking it through his arm before turning toward the door, "merely chagrined that you made the suggestion before I had a chance to, my love."

"I shall leave it to you in future," she said meekly, "provided you promise that it will be quite frequently, Ralph."

"Georgie!" he scolded, opening the library door wide enough that they could pass through to the hallway together. "Whatever made me think in the long-ago days of my youth that that nickname was inappropriate for you? You almost do not deserve the longer form, you know."