to Janice as she returned to join the dwindling party on the front stairs. "A maid is making up a guest room for you and Audrey. Douglas says he wants to sleep in the stable with the grooms. Do you think that's all right, or should I have a room made up for him?"
Janice blinked back a tear. Georgina's elegant gowns had always made her feel grand, larger than life. But standing here now, bedraggled and tired, her hair falling in dishevelment about her shoulders, she was just a woman, like any other, and Janice nodded wearily.
"The stable is fine. He'll think he died and went to heaven. I think we've died and gone to heaven. How will we ever live anywhere else after seeing this?" Janice gestured at the foyer they were entering.
"The same way I did." Georgina reached for Daniel's hand. "You go where your family is. That's the only place in the world that is real."
Janice shook her head scornfully. "Love doesn't put a roof over your head or food in your belly. You have a lot to learn, Mrs. Mulloney. But I thank you for your generosity, anyway. In the morning, we'll look for a boarding house."
At the words "boarding house," Georgina murmured 'hmmm" and began to look around her with a look of calculation in her eyes. As Janice disappeared up the stairs in search of her family, Daniel jerked his wife's arm and brought her down to earth.
"Even if you rented every room for fifty dollars a month, it wouldn't pay for this monstrosity, so get that idea out of your pretty head right now, Mrs. Mulloney."
Georgina made a face. "Couldn't you change your name? I'm really having a hard time getting used to being called by that one."
"To Martin, maybe?" Daniel grinned and hugged her tighter. "Go on up to bed. I figure someone ought to quiet the staff before they decide to make a break for it."
Daniel wandered off to the rear of the house, leaving Georgina to stumble upstairs to bed. She hoped he knew how to find her. Maybe she ought to stick labels on the doors so everyone could find each other.
Her room seemed much small and fussier than she remembered. The pink ruffled curtains and bedcovers had been her mother's idea, but Georgina had never protested them. The dresser was still filled to overflowing with perfume bottles and lotions, and she wondered what she had ever needed all of them for. All she cared about now was a hot bath, and that was one blessing that was easily bestowed in this place.
Running the bathwater in the next room, Georgina poured a bottle of her favorite bubbles into the steaming waters and struggled out of her clothing. It would be sheer bliss luxuriating in a full tub for a change.
When Daniel finally located her sometime later, Georgina was lying with her head on the back of the tub, nearly asleep in an ocean of bubbles. He hesitated in the doorway, taking in her luxurious surroundings with a pang of something he wanted to ignore. This was his wife's natural setting. She was meant to be surrounded by the finer things in life. She functioned best here, where she knew the people and the etiquette and the forces of society.
He had been a blind fool to think she was as adaptable as he was to the harsher side of life.
Chapter 33
Georgina woke with a jump when Daniel climbed into the tub with her. She stared at the naked man sitting in her bathtub and wasn't certain if she was still sleeping. Daniel's strong legs sliding wetly along her own confirmed his reality.
He really had the most amazing face. Long lean bones and a mobile mouth and those electric eyes lent themselves to an astonishing number of characters. One minute he could be vague and scholarly, the next he could be the very picture of a furious cowboy out to protect his claim. At the moment he possessed a look of seductive tenderness that turned her insides to quivering jelly.
"Did you stave off mutiny?" she asked lightly, trying not to reveal the effect he was having on her.
"They were quite reassured to know the master of the house is in Chicago, that we are temporarily looking after the household, and that we don't intend to hold any more unexpected parades. It's just a matter of telling them what they want to hear."
"And you're an expert at that. Daniel, what will we