h had threatened to overwhelm her the moment she looked at him. Of him kissing her, caressing her, pleasuring her, with those sculptured lips and large, and wholly seductive, hands!
There was no denying that Zachary looked very handsome this evening, in his black evening clothes and snowy white linen. His hair had grown longer this past two weeks and now curled silkily about his ears and nape. He appeared slightly thinner in the face, too, no doubt from the weeks he had spent in the turmoil of France, bringing into stark relief his handsome features.
Just to look at him caused Georgianna’s heart to beat faster and the palms of her hands to dampen inside her lace gloves.
‘So it is,’ he drawled in answer to her comment as Hinds appeared discreetly in the doorway. ‘Shall we go into dinner now?’ He offered Georgianna his arm.
Georgianna hesitated at the offered intimacy, having no desire to touch Zachary, to be made so totally aware of him, and of those memories that had haunted, and so bedevilled, her these past two weeks.
Nevertheless, she forced herself to show no emotion as she placed her gloved hand upon his arm and walked beside him to the dining room.
The same intimate dining room in which she and Zachary had dined alone together two weeks ago.
Chapter Eleven
‘I’m sure you will have received many visitors and invitations now that you are returned to society?’
‘Hawksmere, I give you permission to cease all attempts at this strained politeness between the two of us for the time my brother is out of the room,’ Georgianna dismissed impatiently, Jeffrey having excused himself on a call of nature just a few short minutes ago.
Zachary smiled at her customary straightforwardness. Georgianna was right: their efforts at maintaining that imposed social politeness, because of Jeffrey’s presence, had become more and more difficult as dinner progressed, to the point that even the boyishly enthusiastic Jeffrey had seemed to become uncomfortable in their company.
‘I am far more interested in knowing how things progress in France than in the two of us being socially polite to each other,’ Georgianna prompted interestedly as she sat forward eagerly.
Zachary gave a guarded shrug. ‘As you say, they progress. At least, Napoleon does,’ he added grimly.
She gave a soft gasp. ‘And do you believe he will be successful in his endeavour?’
Zachary did not bother in so much as attempting to dismiss Georgianna’s concerns. She was far too intelligent to be fobbed off. Besides which, the months she had spent in France had given her an insight into the turmoil which had once again beset that country. ‘I do not believe I am breaking any confidences by revealing that his army grows bigger by the day and that he will soon enter Paris itself.’
‘And the king?’
‘I believe Louis is preparing to flee.’
Georgianna’s cheeks grew pale. ‘Then there will most certainly be another war.’
‘Undoubtedly.’
She flicked him a glance beneath long silky dark lashes. ‘You will be a part of that war?’
‘Most certainly.’ Zachary gave her a mocking grin. ‘Just think, Georgianna, I might even manage to get myself killed, and in doing so relieve you of the burden of suffering both my guardianship as well as my company.’
Georgianna frowned across at him darkly. ‘You are being unfair by inferring that I have ever wished you dead, Hawksmere.’
‘Just consigned to Hades.’
‘Well, yes, there is that.’ A beguiling dimple appeared in her cheek as she smiled genuinely for what seemed to be the first time this evening. ‘A little singeing by those hellish fires, at the very least, might succeed in stripping you of some of your irritating arrogance.’
Zachary found himself chuckling. ‘I do believe I have missed both you and your insults, Georgianna.’
She raised dark brows. ‘Somehow I doubt that very much!’
Then she would be wrong, Zachary acknowledged. Georgianna was a woman with whom he now spoke almost as freely, and on similar subjects, as he did his closest male friends. Something he had not believed possible with any woman in society.
It had long been his experience that the women of society preferred not to know of the more unpleasant facts of life, their main topics of conversation seeming to be fashions, gossip, and the managing of their household and family. Georgianna’s experiences this past year had taken her far beyond being interested in such trivialities.
Reminding Zachary only too forcibly that there was something he needed, rather than wished, to discuss with her in private.
‘You will not allow Jeffrey to fight?’ Georgianna looked at him anxiously now.