Determinedly banishing thoughts of Keir from her mind, she started to negotiate the climb back down the rocks again. But a melancholy had descended— that she couldn’t shake, and it stayed with her for the rest of the day until she went to bed later that evening…
A few days later, the sultry weather they’d been having finally broke at around ten to midnight. An almighty crack of thunder vented its fury above the turreted rooftops of Glenteign, and Georgia sat up in bed in shock as a streak of lightning lit up the room, briefly— and eerily illuminating all the previously dark corners and making her clutch at the thin cotton sheet which was all the covering her overheated body could bear.
She had a love/hate relationship with thunderstorms. While she had a secret admiration for the passion and fury they displayed, which reminded her that no matter what humankind achieved it could not control the elements, they frightened her deeply. Of course she’d never displayed that fear to Noah—not— when he was young and had naturally relied on her to help him feel secure. But when she was on her own, as she was now, it was hard to keep her anxiety completely at bay.
She’d suffered an agony of tension all day because she’d known that a storm was threatening, and she’d guessed it would come tonight. And while Georgia despised the fear that it evoked in her, which she couldn’t entirely control, she found herself wishing that Keir was at least at home, in his room down the hall from hers. It would have given her a measure of security just to know that he was there. But Keir was still in New York, and she had received no word as to when he would be returning.
Something that sounded vaguely like a door opening and closing broke into her consciousness. But as the rain started to lash with some ferocity at the casement windows with their lavish undrawn curtains Georgia wondered if she’d imagined it. Her ears strained for a repetition of the sound, or some follow-up to it, but all she heard was the rain pounding relentlessly at everything it touched. She let out her breath slowly and forced herself to try and relax.
All of a sudden she was certain she heard someone— walking about in the corridor outside, and her heart leapt into her mouth. Was it Moira? But the housekeeper’s room was on the floor below hers. What reason would she have for coming up here in the middle of the night? A new, more terrifying thought occurred.
What if they were being burgled? What if the sound she’d heard hadn’t been a door innocently being opened and then closed by one of the staff, but the sound of someone breaking into the house instead?
What better distraction than a fierce thunderstorm to drown out any sound of broken glass caused by climbing through a downstairs window or breaking and entering through a side door somewhere?
Trembling hard, Georgia shoved the cotton sheet aside and slid smoothly and quietly out of bed. Switching on her lamp, dim light flooded the room. That at least reassured her. Reaching for the thin pink robe hanging over the end of the brass bedstead, she— pulled it on over her bare body and swiftly tied the belt. Then, tiptoeing across the carpet, she reached for the iron poker that lay in the old-fash-ioned fireplace. Surprised at how heavy it was, clutching— it between her hands as though it were some kind of broadsword, she crossed the room slowly to the door.
She didn’t know exactly what she intended to do, or— how on earth she was supposed to deal with some burly thug bent on thieving something valuable—she only knew that this was Keir’s home that was being violated whilst he was away, and that Moira and the other staff slept on oblivious downstairs. Clearly someone had to do something!
The sound of footsteps was no more, but she thought she heard a muttered expletive—a man’s voice, low and harsh. Georgia’s heart began to pound so hard that to her sensitive hearing the sound drowned out the noise of the heavy rain that was pelting the windows. Oh, dear God… Muttering a swift prayer for help, she turned the doorknob and wrenched open the door. The light from her bedside lamp escaped into the darkened corridor and cast an eerie yellow glow.
‘Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded, her gaze latching with fright onto the six-feet-plus frame of the menacing individual hovering outside Keir’s bedroom door.
‘I might ask you the same bloody question!’ came back the irritated and furious reply.
‘Keir!’
‘If I were you, Georgia, I’d put down that extremely— lethal looking poker before you drop it on your foot and break a couple of bones!’
‘I thought you were a burglar!’
‘You thought what?’ His hard handsome face was glistening with moisture from the rain, and his jacket and trousers were darkened in several places from the spreading damp. Keir’s disbelieving blue eyes regarded Georgia as though she was deranged.