Читать книгу The Complete Regency Season Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 27

Chapter Five

‘You see how much pleasanter it is when you do as I ask, Georgianna?’ Zachary mocked several hours later as he pulled back a chair for her to sit down at the dinner table before taking his place in the chair beside her.

He had left instructions that he and Georgianna would be dining together in the smaller, more intimate dining room. A fire crackled merrily in the hearth, and two three-pronged candelabra illuminated the crystal glassware and silver cutlery. A bowl of pale pink roses had also been placed in the centre of the small round table.

To her credit, Georgianna had been ready and waiting for Zachary when he’d unlocked the door and entered the bedchamber adjoining his own, her expression one of cool composure as she stood in the middle of the room.

The darkness of her hair was smooth and shining and once again secured at her crown, with those tantalising bunches of curls at her temples and nape. The lilac gown had darkened her eyes to that deep violet. Her face was a pale ivory, her lips a full and rosy pout against that pallor.

Zachary shifted uncomfortably now as he realised he was once again aroused by the sight and scent of her.

No other woman had ever physically aroused him as easily as this one appeared to.

Zachary’s gaze narrowed on her critically as she smiled her thanks up at Hinds as he poured wine into her glass. What was it about this woman in particular that she managed to hold him in a constant state of arousal?

She was undoubtedly a beautiful young woman, her hair so dark and silky, and her delicately lovely face dominated by those violet-coloured eyes. And the lilac gown was certainly an improvement on that unbecoming black. But even so the style of the new gown still left a lot to be desired. It was not particularly fashionable, with its high neckline buttoned all the way up to her throat, revealing none of the tempting swell of her breasts as so many other women did nowadays, some of them to a degree of indecency.

Zachary had seen, and bedded, many beautiful women in his lifetime and all had been more fashionable and some more beautiful than Georgianna. So why was it that she affected him in a physical way he appeared to have absolutely no control over?

He should not have kissed her earlier, of course. Certainly should not have enjoyed the softness of her lips quite so much as he had, to the point that he had almost said to hell with attending Worthing’s wedding and carried Georgianna back to the bed instead. It was not a pleasant realisation for a man who had always put duty, and the well-being of his close friends, first.

‘I should have worn the lilac gown this evening in any case.’

It took Zachary several moments to pull out of the bleakness of his thoughts and realise that Georgianna was now answering his own earlier comment. Defiantly. Challengingly.

And there he had it.

This was the way in which Georgianna differed to every other woman Zachary had ever met. Because no man, or woman, had ever dared to defy or challenge the will of the Duke of Hawksmere.

That plump pigeon of ten months ago had undoubtedly feared him, as much as she had feared becoming his wife, but this Georgianna gave the impression that she feared nothing and no one. Except...

‘Have you always disliked being in complete dark?’

Georgianna had not been expecting the question. Although perhaps she should have done; Hawksmere was a man who liked to disarm his adversaries rather than put them at their ease. As he had just done by unexpectedly mentioning her fear of darkness.

As he had disarmed her a short time ago, when he had unlocked and entered her bedchamber through the door which adjoined that room to his own. Looking every inch the handsome and highly eligible Duke of Hawksmere, dressed in impeccably tailored black evening clothes and snowy-white linen, his fashionably overlong hair a damp and ebony sheen about that saturnine face. A face dominated by those piercing silver eyes.

As sitting beside him now at the dinner table, the warmth of his thigh almost touching her own, was also disarming her.

Only because he had unexpectedly kissed her earlier, she reassured herself impatiently. A totally unwelcome kiss.

A kiss she had nevertheless been unable to forget in the hours that followed.

Instead of the suppressed violence she might have expected, Hawksmere’s kiss had been gentle, searching, as if seeking a response from her rather than demanding one.

And all these hours since Georgianna had questioned if in fact she had responded.

It had been such a fleeting kiss, a mere brushing of Hawksmere’s lips against her own, and Georgianna had been so surprised by it that she had no memory of whether or not she had returned the pressure of those firm lips. She certainly hoped not, but still she could not be sure.

She turned to him with cool eyes. ‘I have been wondering about that wound to your throat, and the possibility it was inflicted by another female who was equally as unwilling to become your duchess?’

And there he had it again, Zachary acknowledged, as he began to smile and then to chuckle openly; not only did Georgianna challenge him, but she also had the ability to make him laugh, at himself as much as others. ‘There have been no others females, unwilling or otherwise, whom I have asked to become my duchess.’ He finally sobered enough to answer her.

‘You surprise me.’

He gave a mocking inclination of his head. ‘My only unsatisfactory venture into contemplating the married state has made me wary of repeating the experience.’

‘Then your wound really was, as it is rumoured, inflicted by a French sabre?’ She was barely able to suppress a shiver.

Zachary’s humour faded, his expression darkening as he ran his fingertips along the six-inch length of the scar. It had been with him for so long now that he rarely thought about it any more. Or the effect it might have upon others. Upon Georgianna. ‘You find it repulsive?’

‘I find the idea of the violence behind it repulsive, yes,’ she answered him carefully.

‘Indeed?’ he rasped.

‘I did not mean you any insult,’ Georgianna assured hastily. ‘I—I am sure we all have our scars to bear, some more openly than others.’ Her gaze moved to the fireplace as she picked up her glass and took a sip of her wine.

‘Do you?’ Zachary continued to study her profile through narrowed lids.

She straightened her spine but continued to look towards the fireplace rather than at him. ‘Of course. How can I not after the events of this past year?’

‘Tell me where you have been these past nine months, Georgianna?’ he prompted softly.

She gave a start—a guilty one?—as she now looked down at the food in front of her, as if seeing it for the first time. ‘Should we not eat our soup before it becomes cold?’

‘By all means.’ Zachary nodded. ‘But there is no reason why we cannot continue talking as we eat,’ he added once Georgianna had raised the spoon to her lips. A spoon that shook precariously as her hand began to tremble, until she placed it carefully back beside the soup bowl. ‘What are you hiding, Georgianna?’ Zachary demanded sharply as he saw that nervousness.

‘Nothing.’

‘Do not lie to me, Georgianna.’

She drew in a ragged breath as she now looked down at the tablecloth. ‘I am not hiding anything. Or rather, I am hiding, but it is not from a what but a who,’ she continued so softly it was difficult for Zachary to hear her.

‘Who?’

Her eyes closed. ‘Rousseau, of course.’

‘Why?’

She gave another involuntary shudder. ‘Because I fear what he would do if he were to ever find me again.’

Zachary had absolutely no doubt that Georgianna’s fear was real. He could feel it in the tension of the air surrounding them. As he could see it, in the trembling of Georgianna’s body and the quivering of her lips. ‘What do you have to fear from that, Georgianna?’ he prompted gruffly.

‘What do you care?’ She turned on him fiercely, two spots of angry colour in her cheeks. ‘You have not believed a single word I have said to you so far today, so why should you think I might now bare my soul to you? Just so that you might have the pleasure of ridiculing me again?’

She had a point, Zachary conceded impatiently. But could she not see how difficult it was for him to believe the things she had told him, a woman who had eloped with a known French spy?

Except it had not been confirmed that Rousseau was a spy when Georgianna eloped with him, that certain knowledge only having come later, he reminded himself.

‘This conversation is not at all conducive to our digestion.’ She gave a weary shake of her head. ‘Perhaps it would be best if you were to lock me back in the bedchamber.’

‘You have to eat, Georgianna, or you will starve yourself to death.’ Zachary scowled.

Her laugh sounded bitter. ‘I am harder to kill than you might imagine!’

He was taken aback by the vehemence of her tone. ‘What?’

‘How went your friend’s wedding today?’ Once again she avoided answering his question.

The whole conversation of this past half an hour had resembled that of a sword fight, Zachary realised irritably. He would thrust. Georgianna would parry. Georgianna would thrust. He would then parry. It was frustrating, to say the least.

But her question as to how Worthing’s wedding had proceeded earlier today brought forth memories of the love and pride that shone in Worthing’s face as he turned to watch his beautiful bride walk down the aisle towards him. Of that same love and pride shining in Julianna’s eyes as she walked without hesitation to join her handsome bridegroom at the altar, before they spoke their vows to each other. Declaring loudly and clearly, sincerely, to love and to cherish each other from this day forward.

A bittersweet reminder to Zachary that he could never hope to have that love and devotion bestowed upon him.

And bringing into sharp contrast the wedding which should have taken place the previous year. Between a bridegroom who was only marrying because he was in need of a wife to provide his heir and to retain his fortune. And the young and romantic woman who had feared her bridegroom so much she had eloped with another man.

Zachary looked at that young woman now, once again acknowledging that he was partly, if not wholly, to blame for Georgianna having run away from her family and her home.

And for the things that had happened to her since.

Whatever they might be.

Whatever they might be?

He drew his breath in sharply. ‘I believe I owe you an apology, Georgianna.’

She gave him a startled glance. ‘I don’t...?’

‘For the manner of my proposal to you last year,’ Zachary continued grimly. ‘Worthing’s wedding today made me see that I was unfair to you then. That I should never have spoken to your father regarding a marriage between you and I before we knew each other better.’

‘We did not know each other at all!’

He nodded. ‘And for that I apologise.’

Georgianna stared up at him wordlessly for several seconds, those violet-coloured eyes searching his face. ‘Do not be kind to me, Zachary, please,’ she finally choked out. ‘I believe I can bear anything but your kindness.’ She stood up to cross the room on slippered feet, coming to a halt beside the fireplace, her head bowed, revealing the vulnerable arch of her nape.

Zachary rose more slowly to his feet, more inwardly pleased than he cared to contemplate, at hearing Georgianna use his name for the first time.

He crossed the room silently until he stood just behind her, not quite touching, but enough to feel the warmth of her body just inches away. ‘My actions then were selfish and totally without thought for how you might have felt in regard to marrying me. For that I am deeply sorry.’ His apology still sounded awkward. As evidence, perhaps, that it did not come easily to him?

As it did not. Zachary was unable to remember the last time he had apologised to anyone for anything he had said or done.

Georgianna’s shoulders moved as she sobbed quietly. ‘It does not matter any more, Zachary.’

He reached out to lightly grasp the tops of her arms. ‘It does matter if it forced you into unnecessary anger towards your father and consequently into a course of action you might otherwise not have taken—’ He broke off as the door opened quietly and Hinds stood uncertainly in the doorway. ‘I will ring when I need you.’ Zachary dismissed him grimly, waiting until the butler had left again before resuming the conversation. ‘Is that what happened, Georgianna? Was it my selfishness that pushed you into taking the step of defying your father, leaving your family, and eloping with Rousseau?’

‘What does it matter?’ She shook her head. ‘What is done cannot now be undone.’

‘Georgianna.’ His hands slid down the length of her arms until he clasped the bareness of both her hands in his. ‘What the—?’ Zachary turned her to face him before looking down to where he held her hands palms up in both of his, noting how red and roughened the skin was, with several calluses at the base of her fingers on both hands.

Georgianna almost laughed at the shocked expression on Hawksmere’s face as he looked down at her work-worn hands. Except it was no laughing matter. ‘They are not as pretty as they once were, are they?’ She grimaced, knowing her hands were no longer those of a pampered and cosseted lady.

Zachary ran his thumbs across the calluses. ‘How did this happen?’

Georgianna had learnt this past few dangerous months that it was best, whenever possible, to keep to the truth as much as possible. Far less chance of making a mistake that way. ‘After André had... After he made it clear he did not want me any more, I left Paris for a while.’ She raised her chin determinedly as she pulled her hands from his. ‘I was lucky enough to be taken in by a kindly farmer and his wife.’

‘And they obviously used you like a workhorse.’ Hawksmere scowled his displeasure.

‘Not at all.’ Georgianna smiled slightly. ‘I did work for them, of course; I could not accept their hospitality without repaying them in some small way. But it was never hard labour, just—just milking cows and feeding chickens and such. And Madame Bernard taught me how to cook. Stews, mainly. I think because...’ Georgianna drew in a breath. ‘They had a daughter, but she had married the year before and gone off with her soldier husband. I think they were pleased to have a young woman about the place again. In any case, they allowed me to stay with them for almost two months, after which time I decided I should return to Paris.’

‘Why, when you were so obviously safe and with people who cared for you?’

She shrugged. ‘I decided that I was behaving the coward by hiding away in the countryside and might be of more help to England if I were to return to the city and keep my ears and eyes open to the plots and intrigues that so abounded there. I found a job working in a tavern.’

‘A tavern!’ Hawksmere repeated, obviously more shocked than ever.

‘In the kitchen, preparing food, rather than the tavern itself,’ Georgianna assured ruefully. ‘The lady who owned the tavern assured me I was not...was not buxom enough to work in the tavern itself.’

The duke raised dark brows. ‘You are thinner than you were, certainly, but that does not detract... Never mind,’ he said dismissively. ‘I suppose this is another of those occasions when we must be grateful for small mercies?’

Georgianna smiled slightly. ‘Indeed.’

‘The name of this tavern?’ he prompted sharply.

Georgianna had no doubt that, as she had suspected might be the case, Hawksmere would make it his business to check as to the truth of what she was now telling him. That he would not simply take her word for any of it. So, yes, better by far that she had kept to the truth as much as was possible.

Her gaze met the duke’s unflinchingly. ‘It was the Fleur de Lis.’

‘And?’ Hawksmere stilled as he looked down at her between narrowed lids. ‘Surely that is the name of the tavern owned by...’

‘Helene Rousseau, the sister of André Rousseau,’ Georgianna confirmed evenly as she turned away to once again stare down at the fire. ‘I did not go there as Georgianna Lancaster, of course, but assumed the identity of Francine Poitier, the married daughter of the farmer and his wife.’ Again, she had kept to the truth as much as possible when she returned to Paris, knowing that if her identity were to be checked by Helene Rousseau, that the other woman would learn that the Bernards’ did indeed have a married daughter called Francine.

Zachary released her hands to step back, not sure if he dared believe this fantastical tale. But he wanted to. Oh, yes, he found that he dearly wanted to believe it.

But, in truth, it seemed too much to accept that the young and flirtatious Georgianna Lancaster, that indulged and plump pigeon, the daughter of the Earl of Malvern, could possibly have worked as a labourer on a farm for several months, and then in the Paris tavern owned by Helene Rousseau, albeit in the kitchen. ‘And how did you manage that?’ he prompted in perfect French.

‘I managed it very well, thank you,’ Georgianna replied just as fluently. ‘My father was unaware of it, of course...’ she grimaced ruefully as she reverted back to English ‘...but during the winter months we spent at Malvern Hall before I...before I left, I had attended all of Jeffrey’s French lessons with him.’

Zachary’s mouth twisted humourlessly. ‘No doubt drawn more by the charming and handsome Frenchman teaching the subject, than an interest in the language itself.’

‘No doubt,’ she conceded quietly. ‘But, as you now hear, I did learn it.’

‘That must have made it doubly choking for you when the duke who offered for you was neither charming nor handsome,’ he rasped harshly.

Georgianna’s eyes widened incredulously. Hawksmere could not be serious, could he?

Oh, he definitely lacked the charm, was too forthright and forceful to ever be called charming, but as any woman of the ton would be only too happy to confirm, he was most certainly handsome. And it was a handsomeness that would cause most women to willingly overlook his lack of charm.

Even Georgianna admitted to having been taken with his dark and dangerous good looks during her first two Seasons. Indeed, he was a man it was impossible for any woman, young or old, to ignore. His arrogant bearing was always shown to advantage in his perfectly tailored clothes and she had never been able to decide whether his face was that of a fallen angel or a devil. André had possessed the face and golden hair of an angel, of course, but as Georgianna knew to her cost, he was most certainly a devil.

Whereas Zachary Black had long been considered the catch of any Season.

It had been the fact that Georgianna had been the unlikely one to ‘catch’ him which had come as such an unpleasant shock to her ten months ago.

Gazing at such a handsome and unobtainable duke from afar was one thing—being informed he was to become her future husband was something else completely. Even the thoughts of becoming the wife of such a cynical and experienced gentleman had thrown Georgianna into a turmoil of doubt and fears. Mainly fears, she now realised.

What could a young girl of nineteen know of being married to a jaded gentleman of one and thirty? How would she even know what to talk to him about, let alone perform any of her other wifely duties? Georgianna had shied away from even thinking of the two of them in bed together, she plump and inexperienced, he as sleek and beautiful as a Greek god, with a legendary number of women known to have shared his bed.

Nor did she understand why he had chosen her at all, when he had never so much as even spoken or danced with her. The reason had become obvious, of course, and Hawksmere had confirmed it earlier today when he admitted he had believed her to be young enough, malleable enough, to make him an undemanding duchess.

She clasped her hands tightly together as she forced her gaze to meet his. ‘So there you have the answer to your earlier question. Working in Helene Rousseau’s tavern was inadvertently the way in which I gathered the information I gave you earlier.’

Impossible as it seemed, Zachary had already guessed that might be the case. Although he still had to question whether the delivery of that information had been deliberate or accidental. ‘And why did you find it so difficult to confide that to me earlier?’

She drew in a deep breath. ‘Because I feared you would not believe me.’

He raised dark brows. ‘But you no longer fear that might be the case?’

She grimaced. ‘Whether I do or I do not is no longer relevant—having now lost my liberty, I consider I have nothing else left to lose, and everything to gain, by confiding all to you.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘And you expect me to believe that Helene Rousseau confided in you, a young woman she had employed to work in her kitchen?’

‘Of course I do not.’ Georgianna gave him an impatient glance for the derision in his tone. ‘The truth is that I eavesdropped on the conversation in which Napoleon’s liberation from Elba was discussed.’

‘Eavesdropped how?’

‘I quickly realised that a group of men, including André, met upstairs in a room of the tavern several times a week. And I discovered, quite by accident, that a convenient knothole in the floor of that room allowed their conversation to be overheard in the storeroom directly below.’

‘You will have to forgive my scepticism, Georgianna.’

‘Will I?’ she retorted sharply.

Zachary grimaced. ‘The Rousseaus, both brother and sister, have been watched constantly since it was discovered that André Duval was actually André Rousseau, a known spy for Bonaparte.’

‘I am gratified to hear it,’ she responded tartly. ‘Indeed, it is a pity his duplicity was not discovered earlier, as it might then have saved me from considerable heartache.’

And Zachary was not in the least gratified to hear that Rousseau’s treatment of her had succeeded in breaking Georgianna’s heart. ‘You speak now of having a fear of meeting Rousseau again; how is it that you did not fear meeting him again at his sister’s tavern?’

She shook her head. ‘He was present at all of those meetings, but ordinarily he had no reason to ever enter the kitchen.’

‘Even so, you were taking a huge risk, Georgianna.’

‘Have you never heard that it is easier to hide in full view than it is to run away and attempt to hide?’ She sighed heavily.

It was a ploy Zachary had used several times himself these past four troubled years. ‘I have, yes.’

‘Besides, you only have to look at me now...’ Georgianna glanced down ruefully at her slenderness ‘...to see I am nothing like the girl I once was.’

Because she was no longer a girl but a woman, Zachary conceded grimly. Beautiful, intelligent, confident, capable, but most of all, in spite of everything, utterly desirable.

And nothing Georgianna had told him this evening had lessened the pounding of the relentless desire Zachary had felt for her since meeting her again. Was it only a matter of hours ago? It seemed as if he had been in this state of constant arousal for days rather than just hours.

He gave a shake of his head in an attempt to clear his head, at least, of that desire; his body was another matter entirely. ‘You understand I shall need time to confirm this new information?’

She held herself up proudly as she nodded. ‘I expected nothing less.’

Zachary gave an inward groan at the way the straightening of Georgianna’s spine had now pushed her breasts up against the soft material of the lilac gown. They were full and pert breasts, the nipples resembling ripe berries. As her waist would be slender, her hips gently curving, with a tempting triangle of dark curls hiding the succulent fruit between her...

‘Zachary?’

‘Say my name again,’ he encouraged gruffly.

Georgianna blinked, taken aback by this sudden change of subject.

More than taken aback when she realised Hawksmere was now standing so close to her she could once again feel the heat of his body through the material of her gown.

Her heart began to pound rapidly in her chest as she found herself unable to look away from the fierce intensity of those mesmerising silver eyes.