Читать книгу The Regency Season: Dangerous Dukes: Marcus Wilding: Duke of Pleasure / Zachary Black: Duke of Debauchery - Кэрол Мортимер, Carole Mortimer - Страница 23
ОглавлениеGeorgianna had been flattered but terrified when her father first came to her and proudly told her of the offer of marriage he had received, and already accepted, on her behalf, from the wealthy and powerful Duke of Hawksmere.
Until that moment Hawksmere had been a gentleman Georgianna had never so much as spoken to and seen only rarely, and then only from a distance, at several of the ton’s entertainments during the past two Seasons. The toplofty gentleman had much preferred his clubs, and the company of his close friends, to the bustle and formality of society’s much tamer entertainments.
But even viewed from a distance, Hawksmere had seemed intimidating to her, and aged one and thirty years to her nineteen, their twelve years’ difference was so obvious in experience as well as age.
His demeanour was always one of icy disdain as he habitually looked down his arrogant nose at the crush of guests assembled at those entertainments. And the terrible scar visible upon the duke’s throat had caused Georgianna to tremble every time she so much as glanced at it, as she imagined the raw savagery that must have been behind such an injury.
The very idea of her ever becoming the wife of such a haughtily cold and frightening gentleman had filled her young and romantic heart with fear. Especially so when the two of them had not so much as spoken a word to each other. Indeed, the only possible reason Georgianna could think of for the proposal was that, as the only daughter of the Earl of Malvern, Hawksmere must consider her a suitable candidate to provide his future heirs.
The dukedom aside, even the thoughts of the intimacy necessary to provide those heirs with such a terrifying man as Hawksmere had been enough to cause Georgianna’s heart to pound fearfully in her chest.
Besides which, she was already in love and had been so for several months. With André Duval, the handsome and charming blond-haired, blue-eyed French émigré her father had taken pity on and brought into their home, so that he might help to prepare her younger brothe,r Jeffrey, for his entry into Cambridge.
That same handsome and charming blond-haired, blue-eyed Frenchman who just weeks later had so unemotionally taken her out to a wood outside Paris with the intention of killing her.
Tears of humiliation now burned Georgianna’s eyes as she looked up at Hawksmere. ‘As I said, I was very young and very foolish,’ she said dully.
‘And now you are so much older and wiser,’ Hawksmere taunted.
‘Yes.’ Georgianna’s eyes flashed darkly. This man could have no idea of how much older and wiser she was, how much even a loveless marriage to him would have been preferable to the fate that had befallen her.
He eyed her pityingly. ‘I trust you will forgive me when I say I do not believe you?’
‘I very much doubt that you have ever needed anyone’s forgiveness, least of all mine, to do just as you please.’ She sighed as she moved to the edge of the bed before standing up. ‘Very well, Hawksmere. Arrange to take me to your torturers now and let us put an end to this.’
Looking at her from between narrowed lids, Zachary could not help but feel a certain grudging admiration for the calmness of Georgianna Lancaster’s demeanour and the slender dignity of her stance. A dignity so at odds with the frivolously young and plumply desirable Georgianna Lancaster of just ten short months ago.
Zachary had not been consciously looking for his future wife the evening he attended the Duchess of St Albans’ ball, only making that brief appearance because the duchess had been a friend of his deceased mother. He had thought only to while away an hour or so out of politeness to that lady before making his excuses and departing for somewhere he could enjoy some more sensual entertainments.
Indeed, he had been about to do exactly that when Georgianna Lancaster had chanced to dance by in the arms of some young rake. Even then it had been her eyes which first drew his attention.
Eyes whose colour Zachary had never seen before. Long-lashed and violet-coloured eyes, laughing up merrily into the face of the gentleman twirling her about the ballroom.
It had taken several more minutes for Zachary’s hooded gaze to move lower, for his body to respond, to harden, at sight of those delectably pouting and sensual lips, the swell of full and creamy breasts above her gown and curvaceous, childbearing hips.
To say that his arousal at her abundance of femininity had come as something of a surprise to him was understating the matter.
Normally he did not so much as glance at any of the young débutantes paraded into society every Season, having long ago decided they were all prattling flirts who sought only a titled and wealthy husband, none of them having so much as a sensible thought in their giddy heads.
Georgianna Lancaster did not look any less giddy than her peers, but at least his manhood had sprung to attention at sight of her, a necessary function if one was in need of an heir, and, he had decided, the daughter of the Earl of Malvern would do as the mother of that heir as well as any.
He had even convinced himself that her youth was an asset rather than the burden an older, more demanding woman might become. He would be able to mould Georgianna to his ways; he could wed her and bed her, enjoy that lusciously ripe body to the full whilst he impregnated her, before then leaving her to enjoy her role as the Duchess of Hawksmere, and so allowing him to return to the more sophisticated entertainments he preferred.
Or so Zachary had decided as he had looked upon Georgianna Lancaster that evening ten months ago.
What he had not considered at the time, or for some days after the announcement of their betrothal appeared in the newspapers, was that Georgianna Lancaster had not been the one to accept his offer of marriage. That, young as she was, she had a mind of her own. She had no intention of becoming the wife of a man, even a duke, she neither knew nor loved.
Or so she’d stated in the letter she had left behind for her father to read after she had eloped with her French lover, and which Malvern had reluctantly shared with Zachary when he had demanded the older man do so.
Zachary’s mouth thinned as he remembered the days following Georgianna’s elopement with her French lover.
The formal withdrawal of the betrothal in the newspapers so soon after it had been announced.
The condolences he had received from his uncles and aunts.
Most humiliating of all, perhaps, had been the knowing looks of the ton, all of them aware that Zachary Black, the haughty Duke of Hawksmere, having finally chosen his future duchess, had then just days later been forced to retract the announcement when that future bride had withdrawn from the betrothal.
Or so the story had been related to society at large. Very few people were made privy to the knowledge of Georgianna’s elopement with the young and handsome French tutor.
Certainly none knew that it had been discovered, after the elopement, that the French tutor was not who he’d claimed to be, but was in fact a spy.
As Georgianna Lancaster was herself now also a spy, at the behest of her French lover?
She certainly knew far too much of Zachary’s private business, of his connections, to be the complete innocent she claimed to be.
‘Your Grace?’
Zachary’s eyes narrowed as he returned his attention to the here and now. ‘If only it were as simple as that, Georgianna,’ he bit out scathingly. ‘Unfortunately, there are several aspects of your story which the two of us will need to discuss in more detail.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as why you chose to come to me, of all people, with this fantastical tale.’
‘It is not fantastical or a tale.’
‘Why me, Georgianna?’ he persisted.
Her lashes lowered over violet eyes. ‘I—I can see no harm in my admitting that it was André who informed me that you had long been acting as a spy for the Crown.’
Zachary gave a humourless smile to cover the inner jolt her words had given him; if Rousseau knew of the work he carried out in secret for England, then surely it followed that others must also? ‘Could you not have found more stimulating pillow talk?’ he said scornfully.
Georgianna’s cheeks coloured at the insult even as she straightened the narrowness of her shoulders determinedly. ‘He taunted me with the knowledge when he...when he...’
‘Yes?’
She raised her pointed little chin. ‘When he admitted that he had never been in love with me.’ Her lashes lowered, her voice husky. ‘When he told me that he had deliberately seduced me, then used our elopement as a way of leaving England. That there were now some who suspected his real reason for being in England.’
Zachary nodded abruptly. ‘He had only just been put under more intense investigation at the time of your elopement.’ And if Rousseau now knew of Zachary’s own secret work for the Crown, then his usefulness in that capacity had surely come to an end?
‘How disappointing for you,’ he drawled dismissively in order to cover his inner disquiet.
Violet eyes flashed rebelliously. ‘Do not dare to mock me, your Grace.’
All humour faded as Zachary’s mouth thinned in displeasure. ‘Your behaviour these past ten months dictates that I shall now dare to treat you in whatever manner I please, madam.’
The fight went out of Georgianna as quickly as it had flared to life. She bowed her head, totally shamed at the truth of the duke’s words. She had behaved like a fool ten months ago. A stupid and naïve fool who had fallen completely for André’s charm.
A charm that had completely deserted him the night he had taunted her, mocked her, for having run away with him, a spy for Napoleon. When the man to whom she was betrothed, the man she had run away from, was in fact the honourable one and more of a hero to England than any but a select few knew.
‘That still does not explain how you knew where I should be this evening.’
Georgianna raised her head wearily, too tired now to do any more than answer Zachary Black’s questions. ‘I returned to England by ship yesterday.’
‘Does your brother know you are returned?’ he prompted sharply.
‘No one but you knows.’ She gave a sad shake of her head. ‘It would have been most unfair to burden Jeffrey with that knowledge.’ Much as she might long to see her brother again, to know if he at least was able to forgive her for her past recklessness, he was still but nineteen years of age, and newly become the Earl of Malvern, with all of the responsibilities that title entailed. He did not need to be burdened with the knowledge of the return to England of his disgraced sister, too.
‘Obviously you did not feel a need to treat me with the same consideration,’ Hawksmere rasped disdainfully.
She winced. ‘I have explained why you are different. Why I had no choice but to seek you out and speak with you.’
‘But not how you knew where I should be this evening,’ he reminded grimly.
‘I made it my business to keep a watch of your comings and goings as soon as I arrived in London yesterday, in an effort to speak with you alone. This evening, spent at your club, to celebrate the nuptials of your friend, offered me the opportunity I needed.’
Hawksmere gave a dismissive shake of his head. ‘I should have known if you had been following me.’
‘Obviously you did not.’
Which was worrisome, Zachary acknowledged with a frown. It implied a complacency on his part now they were no longer at war, a laziness, if he had failed to realise he was being so closely watched.
He straightened. ‘This has all been very interesting, I am sure, but I have several other things that require my attention this morning, not to forget a wedding to attend this afternoon. So I am afraid I cannot waste any more time on this particular conversation just now.’
She nodded. ‘I am staying at lodgings in Duke Street—perhaps you can send word to me there once you are have decided what to do?’
‘Oh, no, Georgianna, I am afraid that will not do at all,’ Zachary drawled drily, grateful for the approximate knowledge of where she was staying in London. And that no one but he was aware of her presence back in England.
She stilled warily. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that, for the moment, I cannot allow you to leave this bedchamber.’
She gasped. ‘You cannot keep me a prisoner here.’
He eyed her mockingly. ‘Can I not?’
‘No.’
‘And, pray tell, who is to stop me?’
Her hands clenched at her sides. ‘You are attempting to frighten me again.’
‘And succeeding?’ Zachary prompted mildly.
‘Not in the least.’ Georgianna clamped her lips stubbornly together as she refused to show any fear at Hawksmere’s threats.
As she refused to ever show fear again, of anything, or anyone, after the way she had suffered at Rousseau’s hands.
Which did not mean that Georgianna was not inwardly quaking at the icy determination so clearly shown in Hawksmere’s expression.
She repressed a shiver at how, just ten months ago, she had so narrowly escaped becoming the wife of this cold and ruthless gentleman. A man, Georgianna had no doubt, who would have settled her in one of his ducal homes following the wedding and then repeatedly bedded her, until she had filled his nursery with his heir and his spare. After which, like many of the gentlemen of the ton, he would no doubt have abandoned her to find her own entertainments, whilst he returned to the life he had enjoyed before their marriage.
Such, Georgianna knew, was the life of many wives in society. A loveless and boring existence.
A life she had hoped to escape when she had eloped with André.
Only to then find she had placed herself in an even more dire position than becoming Hawksmere’s unloved duchess.
Did she regret her elopement of ten months ago?
Of course she did.
If she could live that time over again, she would have remained in England with her family.
And become the wife of Zachary Black, the Duke of Hawksmere instead?
Never!
Despite all that Georgianna had endured these past months, despite all that she might still have to endure, she did not have a single regret in regards to refusing to become the wife of the Duke of Hawksmere.
She would never marry at all now, of course. How could she, when her reputation was now such that no gentleman would ever consider making her his wife? And to lie about her past, to pose as a widow, perhaps, in order to marry a lower-born gentleman, was a deceit she refused to practise on any man, or any children born into that marriage.
No, Georgianna had accepted that she would spend the rest of her life alone. As she fully deserved to do, when her impetuous actions of ten months ago had resulted in such shame and scandal.
‘Do not look so sad, Georgianna.’ The duke deliberately chose to misunderstand the reason for that sadness as he crossed the bedchamber on predatory soft steps, until he now stood just inches away from her. ‘I may be busy for the rest of the day, but I shall return later this evening. And when I do—’ those glittering silver eyes held her mesmerised as he slowly raised a hand and allowed the hardness of his knuckles to graze softly over the warmth of her cheek ‘—I am sure we shall be able to think of several ways in which to keep you entertained, during your incarceration in my bedchamber.’
Georgianna gasped as she heard the intent beneath that softly sensuous voice. Just as she now flinched as the hardness of those knuckles travelled the length of her throat before moving lower, lingering to caress the swell of her breasts through the material of her gown.
Leaving her in absolutely no doubt as to what those entertainments might be.
Her cheeks burned with humiliated colour as she pulled back from those caressing knuckles. ‘I may have fallen from decency in society’s eyes, Hawksmere, but I assure you I have absolutely no intention of becoming your plaything.’
The duke eyed her derisively. ‘The arousal of your breasts, from just the merest touch of my knuckles, tells a different story,’ he drawled mockingly as he glanced pointedly downwards.
Georgianna’s startled gaze followed the direction of his mocking gaze, her face paling as she saw what Hawksmere so obviously saw; those rosy berries that tipped her breasts were now swollen and full, and could clearly be seen outlined against the soft material of her gown buttoned up to her throat.
Because they were aroused?
By Hawksmere?
Impossible.
Oh, he was handsome enough to set any woman’s heart beating faster. But it was a dangerous attraction, a challenge those silver eyes proclaimed no one woman would ever be able to satisfy.
Too much of a challenge, it was rumoured, for any woman, high-or low-born, married or unmarried, to resist sharing the duke’s bed once he had expressed an interest.
But Georgianna was not one of those weak and susceptible women. How could she be, when she found Hawksmere no less intimidating now than she had ten months ago?
Except...
There was no denying the physical evidence of her breasts having become aroused by his lightest of touches.
Not with desire but fear, Georgianna instantly assured herself.
Because Hawksmere had just threatened to keep her here, a prisoner in his bedchamber, for as long as he chose to do so.
She straightened her spine. ‘You cannot keep me here against my will,’ she repeated firmly.
‘I can do anything I wish with you, Georgianna,’ Zachary murmured with satisfaction, mocking her response, her undeniable arousal at his caress.
An arousal which Zachary knew no woman could fabricate or control.
As he had been unable to control his own arousal as he had lightly caressed the engorged tip of her breast.
Despite her having run away from marrying him ten months ago, Zachary could not deny that he still physically desired this woman. In his bed, beneath him, to be buried to the hilt between her thighs.
Try as he might, Zachary had found no explanation for that sudden clench of desire when he had looked at Georgianna Lancaster ten months ago, and he had none now, either. It was enough to know that it still existed.
A weakness, in the current circumstances, best kept to himself.
He stepped back abruptly. ‘As I said, I have other things to occupy me this morning, but I will go downstairs now and arrange a breakfast for you, and then I advise that you get some sleep.’
‘I am not hungry, nor shall I sleep.’
Zachary’s eyes narrowed on her critically, noting the hollows in the paleness of her cheeks, her slenderness beneath the unbecoming black gown. ‘You are grown too slender.’
‘I said I am not hungry.’ Those violet-coloured eyes flashed again in warning.
Another show of temper Zachary did not care for in the least, as he stepped deliberately closer to her, so close that he could see the way the pupils of her eyes expanded as she now looked up at him apprehensively.
‘Nevertheless, you will eat all of the breakfast I have brought up to you.’
She maintained her ground even as a nerve pulsed rapidly at her throat, no doubt as evidence of her inner nervousness. ‘And I have said I shall not.’
Once again Zachary felt that grudging admiration for her stubbornness; not too many people dared to stand against him, least of all women. She was a very young woman at that, and one who did not as yet appear to fully appreciate the danger she had placed herself in by choosing to step back into his life.
He gave a slow and deliberate smile. ‘I advise you not to defy me, Georgianna.’
She eyed him rebelliously. ‘Why should I not?’
He gave a nonchalant shrug as he murmured softly, ‘Because I shall win and you will lose.’
Georgianna repressed another shiver of apprehension as she heard the arrogant certainty in his voice. As she acknowledged that, through her own stupidity this time, Hawksmere now had her completely at his mercy. She was his prisoner, to do with as he wished.
Hawksmere smiled confidently as he seemed to guess at least some of her thoughts. ‘I shall be locking you in here in my absence, of course, and taking the key with me. And I advise that you not bother giving yourself a sore throat, or knuckles, by screaming or shouting, or banging on the door for my servants to release you whilst I am gone,’ he added derisively. ‘I shall make sure to inform them, before I depart, that it is all part of the erotic play between the two of us, and that the more you ask to be set free the more you desire to stay here and await my return.’
‘You truly are a monster.’ Georgianna’s cheeks burned with humiliated colour.
He shrugged. ‘I have never made any pretence of being anything else.’
The implication being, Georgianna knew, that she was the one who had practised deceit, when she’d lied to her family and her betrothed in order to run away with André.
And that Hawksmere believed she was lying to him even now.
Except she was not. And Hawksmere’s decision to keep her locked up here, and his threats, did not change the fact that time was more the enemy than this arrogant duke. ‘You will speak to someone this morning on my behalf?’
Hawksmere’s mouth thinned into an uncompromising line. ‘I have no plans to do so until the two of us have spoken again, no.’
‘But you must,’ Georgianna gasped desperately. ‘Napoleon...’
‘Enough, Georgianna,’ Hawksmere rasped his impatience with her persistence as he grasped her arms, his silver eyes as cold as ice as he looked down the length of his arrogant nose at her. ‘I have not had the opportunity to sleep, either, this past night, and my patience is now at an end.’
‘But...’
‘I said enough, Georgianna,’ he thundered.
Tears blurred her vision. ‘You have every right to be angry with me, to despise me for my having ended our betrothal in the way that I did.’ She gave a weary shake of her head. ‘Take your revenge upon me any way you please. I do not care what you do to me, as long as you take my warnings seriously.’
‘And if it is my wish to claim your body, for your having run from me, from our betrothal, ten months ago?’ he taunted softly.
She shook her head. ‘As long as you also listen to me in regards to Napoleon.’
‘One more mention of that man’s name and more pressing responsibilities be damned, I shall be forced to begin that punishment now!’ the duke warned darkly. ‘Now that I think about it, it might be best if I were to request that you remove your gown,’ he mused hardly. ‘You will be less likely to attempt an escape if you are half-naked.’
‘I will not take off my gown.’ Georgianna pulled out of his grasp to move quickly away from him, her hands held up defensively in front of her rapidly rising and falling chest.
Zachary studied her through narrowed lids as he noted the wild panic in those beautiful violet-coloured eyes. Much like a deer the moment it realised it was caught in the sights of the hunter’s gun.
All because he had asked her to remove her gown?
Surely a woman who had shared one man’s bed for the past ten months would not be quite so averse to the idea of another man seeing her naked?
Unless...
‘Did he hurt you?’ Zachary scowled darkly.
That violet gaze sharpened. ‘What?’
His mouth thinned. ‘Did Rousseau hurt you?’
‘Of course he hurt me! How could he not, when he used me to make good his escape?’
‘That is not the type of hurt I am referring to, Georgianna.’ Zachary took several steps towards her, coming to a halt as Georgianna shadowed those steps by moving back, until she was now pressed up against one of the velvet curtains hanging at the window. ‘I have no intentions of harming you, Georgianna.’
She gave a choked and bitter laugh. ‘You have just threatened to take away my gown.’
‘And that is all I have threatened.’
She gave a shudder. ‘It is enough!’
Zachary’s eyes narrowed. ‘Some men like to give pain to their bed partner during lovemaking, as a way of heightening their own arousal.’
She gasped. ‘Do you?’ Pale and slender fingers now tightly clasped at the throat of that unbecoming black gown as she stared at him with dark and shadowed eyes.
‘No, I most certainly do not,’ Zachary assured grimly. ‘But I am beginning to suspect that Rousseau did. Do you perhaps share his perversion?’
‘No!’
‘I am glad to hear it.’ Zachary’s eyes narrowed. ‘But has he left lasting marks upon your body you would not wish another man to see?’ he added harshly, surprised at how violent it made him feel to think of there being so much as a single bruise administered to that alabaster skin, let alone any lasting reminder of the man Rousseau.
Georgianna breathed shallowly, not sure she understood all that Zachary Black was saying to her. Not sure she wanted to understand.
Surely lovemaking was exactly that? An expression of the love a couple felt for one another? Or if not love, then at least a tenderness, a caring, for the other’s welfare?
What the duke was describing, the deliberate inflicting of pain, did not sound as if it could be any of those things.
And yet Georgianna did indeed bear scars, and ones inflicted upon her by André Rousseau. Not the visible scars to which Hawksmere seemed to refer, of course, but they were damning none the less. A testament to the scorn, the total uninterest in which André had held the impressionable young girl who had forsaken all for her love of him.
‘I can see that he did.’ Hawksmere obviously took her silence to be her answer, his expression grimmer than ever. ‘And you still love such a man?’ he added disgustedly.
‘No.’ Georgianna choked in protest; how could she possibly love a man who had treated her as André had?
To her everlasting shame, Georgianna was no longer sure she had ever really loved André, or whether she had not just been in love with love itself.
A year ago she had been so young and idealistic, had believed in love and romance. And the handsome and penniless Frenchman employed by her father had seemed so much more romantic, so much easier to love than the intimidating and distant Duke of Hawksmere. To the extent that Georgianna had woven all of her dreams about the golden-haired and romantic Frenchman in order to run away from marrying the dangerous duke.
Reality had proven to be so much less than those silly, romantic dreams.
Not that she believed Hawksmere to be any less dangerous now than she had previously. The opposite, after the things he had said and done to her today.
But she certainly had no romantic dreams left in regard to André Rousseau, either, or indeed any other man.
Hawksmere’s top lip curled up in distaste, silver eyes a pale glitter between narrowed lids. ‘Again, this is something we will have to discuss further upon my return. No doubt we shall have the opportunity to discuss many things during the hours we spend here in my bedchamber together,’ he added pleasantly.
‘How long do you intend to keep me here?’ Georgianna stared at him disbelievingly.
‘As long as it takes to get to the truth,’ Zachary assured uninterestedly.
She gave a desperate shake of her head. ‘Have you not listened to a word I have said? Do you not understand the urgency of the things I have told you?’
He eyed her mockingly. ‘I have listened to the little you decided to share with me, yes.’
‘What will it take to convince you of my sincerity?’
‘More than you have already told me, obviously,’ Zachary drawled drily, brows raised questioningly. A frown creased Georgianna’s forehead as she obviously fought an inner battle as to how much more she intended revealing to him.
Finally she gave a defeated sigh. ‘Napoleon is to leave Elba before the end of this month.’
‘And you come to me with this story now?’ He raised sceptical brows. ‘With the end of the month just days away?’
‘I did not—’ Georgianna gave an impatient shake of her head as she accepted that to Hawksmere this was still just a ‘story’. ‘I only learnt of the plan nine days ago and I could not immediately get passage from France. I...’ Her gaze lowered. ‘André has men placed at all of the ports, watching and waiting for anyone who might wish to betray Napoleon.’
‘And yet here you are,’ Hawksmere drawled disbelievingly.
She nodded. ‘But I had to bide my time and make good my escape when the chance came for me to join a large family travelling together. I was all the time fearful that someone might recognise me. Am I boring you, your Grace?’ she prompted sharply as the duke gave a yawn.
‘As it happens, yes, you are.’ He nodded unapologetically.
‘But...’
‘I really am uninterested in listening to any more buts or arguments just now, Georgianna,’ he rasped harshly.
Georgianna looked up searchingly into his hard and implacable face. Noting the cold glitter of his silver eyes. The tautness of the skin across sculptured cheekbones. The sneering curl of his top lip.
The determined set of his arrogant and unyielding jaw.
She knew in that moment that all of her efforts of appeal for Zachary Black’s help had been a waste of her time.
That this man despised her so utterly he would never believe a single word she said to him.
