Cheryl Holt by Complete Abandon Page B

fast. Next time, we’ll go slower.”
    “It’s not the
speed
we need to worry about. It’s—” She cut off, unable to verbalize why she was afraid.
    “How far we might go?” he completed for her. She nodded, and he kissed her, a quick, dear peck on the lips. “It will be wonderful. I promise.”
    Which was what she feared.
    In the outer bedchamber, the door opened—stupidly, neither of them had thought to lock it!—and a sultry, unmistakable female voice inquired, “Wakefield, are you in here?”
    As his mistress boldly entered, reality crashed into Emma with the force of a runaway carriage. What was she doing in this room? With this man?
    Frantically, she lurched away, but he was squeezing her hand, refusing to release it. His eyes searched hers, probing for something she couldn’t define, and his cheeks flushed, as if he were embarrassed by the intrusion, but he made no comment. Perhaps he couldn’t.
    After all, what could possibly be apropos?
    “Let me go,” she begged in a whisper, but he only tightened his grip, so she yanked her hand away, and leapt out of reach.
    There was only one exit, so she couldn’t avoid his paramour, but she didn’t want the beautiful doxy to stumble upon her as she was huddled over the tub, with Wakefield naked as a jaybird.
    She patted her hair and jerked at her damp clothes, uselessly trying to straighten herself. She was a sight, but there was nothing to be done about it, and desperate to appear calm, she strolled out.
    “Tomorrow at one, Emma,” Wakefield said softly to her retreating back. “I’ll be waiting.”
    Her insides clenched. Dare she come on the morrow?
    No! She absolutely would not!
    She stepped into the bedchamber, and the imposing courtesan—had Wakefield referred to her as Georgina?—was so stunned that her painstakingly plucked brows rose to her hairline. Her shock instantly metamorphosed to a scowl, then full-on hostility.
    The encounter might have been comical if Emma hadn’t been so utterly mortified. She and the demimondaine stared one another down, and they didn’t require pistols for it to be described as a duel. Though Emma hid her trepidation well, she felt the loser. Too short, too thin, too poor, and obviously too free with her favors. Her drab, dowdy dress was sodden in several spots where it shouldn’t have been, and Georgina took careful note of every incriminating mark.
    When she’d seen Georgina on the stairs two hours earlier, she’d been immaculately attired in an exquisite gown, but in the intervening period, she’d changed her apparel, slipping into a robe that was all but transparent. Her hair was down, her feet bare, and she was clearly intent on an assignation with the viscount.
    The belt at the waist of the robe was loose, the lapels widened so that the center of her torso was visible. Emma could see her large nipples, her tonsured privates.
    “What are
you
doing here?” Georgina barked.
    Her haughty tone was terrifying and would have made a normal woman cringe and tremble. As it was, Emma’s legs were wobbly.
    She despised the other woman, for all that she was, for all that she represented, but mostly, Emma loathed her because she was entitled to waltz into the other room and finish what Emma had started. Wakefield would spend the evening having sexual relations as he’d proposedto Emma, but he’d have a different partner.
    Dismayed and confounded, Emma recognized that she was jealous. A red-hot rage surged through her at the idea of Georgina reveling with Wakefield as Emma, herself, could not.
    “Wakefield asked me to attend him.” Emma was deliberately vague and suggestive, wanting Georgina to stew and fume over what exactly they’d been doing. “We’ve been . . .
busy
.”
    “Be off, you little harlot.” Georgina was seething, disdainful as any princess, and she floated by Emma as if she were invisible.
    Emma was rooted to the floor, and she flinched when, behind her, Georgina gushed, “John, where have you