Loving Lady Georgianna (Spirited #2)

Chapter Four - Part Two

His calming breath deserted him entirely as Thorne entered. He took his time getting settled, knowing his abject belligerence would only infuriate his father further.

Ignoring his father, Thorne made a point of stopping to study various tomes on the bookshelves to his right. He stopped, shifting a portrait on the wall, and turning it one inch more to the right so it now lay off distinctly off-kilter.

"Are you quite done with your little display?"

Thorne twisted to the left, tinkering with a snuffbox he found. Snapping the lid roughly, Thorne was disgruntled when the delicate china refused to crack from the pressure. Feigning disinterest in that, Thorne set the piece halfway on the shelf, it's weight dangling precariously over the edge.

Lord Randall gasped, sprinting rather horridly to keep the trinket from falling.

Thorne used the distraction to select a wingback chair before Lord Randall's desk. Grasping the wooden back, Thorne dragged it across the costly flooring, the chair legs screeching and scraping. He stepped back, eyeing the placement of the chair and then, pursing his lips, glanced about until he found what he needed.

"Ah, yes!" An end table would do nicely. Thorne dragged it over, and settling it just so before his chair, Thorne swiped the thick stack of books covering its top onto the floor with a bang!

Pleased with his arrangement, Thorne cast the wings of his tailcoat behind him as he sat down. "Perfect," Thorne said, clasping his fingers behind his head and linking them on the back of his neck. "Most perfect."

His boots landed with a clop on the end table.

"For Christsakes, Thorne! What in the blazes do you think you are doing?"

Thorne glanced up with wide, innocent eyes. "Oh, my apologies!" He unlinked his hands and straightened slowly. "Dear me, where have my manners gone?"

"You and I both know you've never concerned yourself with those."

"Yes, and I wonder from whom I got that particular trait?" Thorne jibbed.

"I don't know how society deals with you at all," Lord Randall said, shifting his bulk until he landed heavily in his own chair. He steepled his hands before him, and Thorne felt as if he were on trial for some wrongdoing. "You're quite lucky I even deign to give you a spare ha'penny."

"Oh?" Thorne asked, raising his brow. "So you are portraying yourself as the man of virtue and charity now, then?

Lord Randall's face flushed in anger.

At one time, this look would have prepared Thorne for the next blow of his father's fist or the lash of Randall's bootstrap. Violence was this man's game, and Thorne was only too sure that it lived within him too. How else would one man seek to murder another if at his basest, he wasn't inherently the same? 

There must be something quite wrong with Thorne even now - some strike of bad blood - for him to imagine wrapping his hands around Randall's throat, watching as the man's face turned red then purple then gray, as he lost his ability to breath. He wanted nothing more than to rid this beast of his waste-less existence.

And that was the problem, wasn't it? That the thought filled Thorne with a healthy dose of anticipation and excitement, wishing for nothing more than to bring Randall's stinking corpse before his mother.

And Georgie had wanted to be tied to this.

To Thorne, himself.

"We don't have time for your nonsense, Thorne, so let me get right to the point," Randall said. His elbows on his desk, Randall leaned in, his mop of black hair lying greased around his flushed face. The action caused Thorne's face to coat in a sheen of sweat and his muscles tightened. "You have lived on my benevolence long enough, and it is time for you to do your duty-"