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‘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.’
