Twenty-seven
The burlap bag was snatched off her head.
The room was dim because heavy drapes had been pulled over the windows.
She blinked owlishly for a moment, trying to get her bearings.
The room was spartanly furnished, but the coverlet on which she rested was damask and of good quality.
If her eyes didn’t deceive her, the landscape painting overhanging the small fireplace seemed to be a Gainsborough.
The room was too conventional, too well-appointed a place to house a kidnapped victim.
Then Georgette looked up into the face of her abductor.
And was tempted to swear so vehemently even Mercy would have blushed.
“Nathaniel Edward Colton,” she said, spitting his name through clenched teeth. “Have you taken complete leave of your senses?”
“No, but I suspect you have.”
“Because I dare to leave the house without you dogging my footsteps?”
“For a start, yes.”
She struggled against her bonds, but he didn’t seem disposed to untie her.
“If I were so minded,” Nathaniel said, “do you realize I could do anything I want with you?”
“It appears to me you already have.” Georgette wiggled into a sitting position. The process wasn’t terribly dignified, but once she was upright, she felt more in control than when she was lying down.
“Only because you’re intent on endangering yourself,” he said with vehemence. “Don’t you understand? Anything could happen to you on Lackaday Lane.”
“I fail to see how. There were two men guarding me at Madam Bouchard’s, the bully and Mr. Darling.” She glared at him. “What did you offer them to allow you to cart me off?”
“Only a couple solid clouts to the head. Something anyone of evil intent could have done.” He hitched a hip on the side of the bed. “For what it’s worth, I regret having laid out one of them.”
But he didn’t regret abducting her, evidently. “And the rope and burlap bag? You happened to have those stashed in your pocket?”
“No, the previous madam of the House of Sirens left a few of her toys behind and I decided to use them to scare some sense into you. Do you realize there have been two murders on Lackaday Lane now?”
Her belly roiled uncertainly. “Two?”
“It seems I maligned Mr. Bagley falsely. He was not derelict in his duties,” Nate said. “His body was dragged from the Thames this morning.”
“And you think the same person did both killings?”
“They were both strangled,” Nate said. “Though Mr. Bagley was dispatched with a piano wire instead of a leather strap, so his demise was bloodier than Vesta’s.
And I expect the killer thought we wouldn’t discover his body until there wasn’t enough left to identify it.
Vesta, on the other hand, was laid out like a present for us. ”
Georgette suppressed a shiver. “Was his neck also broken?”
“No. With Vesta, that was a mercy of sorts. As if the killer didn’t want her to suffer, but he did want her to asphyxiate.” Nathaniel shook his head. “With Mr. Bagley, it seems as if the killer didn’t mind causing him pain.”
Trying to penetrate the mind of a murderer was an uncomfortable place. Unlike the room where Georgette now found herself. “Where are we?”
“I keep a little pied-à-terre in Cheapside. It suits my purposes when I want to be in London, but I’m not keen on staying at the family town house.” He stood and paced the room like a caged lynx, raking a hand through his hair. “Don’t worry. No one fashionable could possibly know you’re here.”
“I’m not concerned for fashion and you know it.”
“You should be.” He rounded on her and leaned down to face her, nose to nose. “A woman in your position should fill her days with trips to the milliner and taking tea with the patronesses of Almack’s instead of traipsing about Covent Garden fretting about the lives of whores.”
She leaned away from him so far she lost her balance and flopped back onto the feather tick. Didn’t he realize the life he was prescribing for her sounded empty as a pit? “Do not presume to tell me what to do.”
“Someone sure as hell needs to. Georgette, don’t you realize I could have been someone intent on doing you real harm?”
“Real harm?” Since when was seducing her out of her maidenhead not considered harm? “After last night, I find your concern for my welfare a tad misplaced.”
He lifted a cynical brow. “You’re not trying to blame me for that, are you? As I recall, you’re the one who came to my bedchamber.”
Drat the man, he was right, but she wasn’t about to admit it to him.
“I will allow that I seduced you,” Nathaniel said, easing down beside her and leaning on one elbow. He reached over with his other hand and traced the lacy edge of her bodice. A wicked little thrill trailed after his touch. “But you made the choice to come to me.”
He leaned down and kissed her.
She hated herself for not turning her face away, but she couldn’t bear not to feel his mouth on hers.
Every time Nathaniel Colton kissed her, the world tilted a bit further on its axis and she imagined a future where she wasn’t destined to bear a royal heir or spend her years smiling woodenly at the collective nonsense that was life at court.
The only trouble was the life Nathaniel seemed to want for her sounded just as hollow. She was expected to be purely ornamental when she longed to be useful.
But if he were at the center of that conventional existence, might she be able to bear it? Better yet, might she be able to change things so she could have him and a higher purpose?
When he finally released her lips, she was halfway to believing her fantasy was possible. But that didn’t change the fact that he’d made off with her as if he were a common highwayman and she an ill-gotten bauble he’d exchange for coin later.
“I made the choice to come to your room last night, I’ll admit it. But I’m not here now by my own choice,” she reminded him.
“No, you’re not, but it’s for your own good. You want a bit of schooling on the ways of the world. Being a marquis’s daughter only matters to some. There are others who would do as I’ve done and worse.”
She snorted. “What more could they do to me?”
“Trust me, Georgie, you don’t want to know.”
A dark shadow passed behind his eyes and she wondered what malignant memory streaked by for him. Something from his days in the war? Remembrance of the nights of debauchery after he returned from the disaster at Maubeuge? Whatever it was, it clearly grieved him.
If he wished to speak of it, she’d listen, but she wouldn’t try to pry it out of him. Her favorite tutor had been fond of saying that every soul in the world bore a secret too deep for the telling. If you only knew it, the knowing would break your heart.
And it might break the heart of the one who shared it to know that you, too, were now burdened with the weight of it.
Some things were not meant to be spoken aloud. Like festering things in the earth, they were too terrible for sunlight. They were things each person must work out in fear and trembling for themselves until finally the demons were, if not cast out, at least stilled.
She’d never really understood that tutor till now.
“What will you do with me?” she asked in a small voice.
A crooked smiled lifted one corner of his mouth. “An interesting conundrum. A bound woman presents a number of fascinating possibilities.”
He began to undo the row of buttons that marched down the center of her bodice. Much as her nipples tingled at his fingers’ nearness, nothing had changed since last night.
He still hadn’t spoken a word of love to her. And however much her body wept for him, she couldn’t allow him to take her again if their joining was of no more import to him than if he’d been a stallion covering a mare.
“Please don’t,” she said.
She didn’t know whether to be glad or sad when his hand hovered between one button and the next. But in that slice of a moment, it occurred to her that she knew why Nate had not spoken of love.
“You’re sad that I’m not Anne,” she blurted out.
“No. I know full well who you are, Georgette.” He studied her face as if he were committing her to memory.
“I’m the one I’m not sure of. All I know for certain is that I’m not the same man who loved Anne.
He’s dead. I think he died in France. Or maybe he was dead before he went there and just hadn’t had the good sense to fall down yet. ”
There it was again. That shadow. The specter of something unspeakable hung over them for a moment.
“I’m not a very good man, Georgette,” he said as he worked the knot that held her arms fast. “I’m sure that’s no news to you.”
She started to protest, but he covered her lips with two fingers.
“Let me get this out and then you can berate me all you like.” He finished untying her and rubbed her arms to make sure the circulation was restored. “You see, no matter how terrible a man is, sometimes he can’t help but lift his gaze above himself.”
The adoration in his dark blue eyes surprised her.
“I’m no angel,” she whispered.
“Thank God,” he said devoutly. “If you were, I’d never find the courage to tell you…that I have feelings for you.”
Her heart threatened to hammer its way out of her ribs. “How did you reach this astonishing conclusion?”
“With great difficulty.”
“Careful. You’ll turn my head with such flattery.”
He made a low growl of disgust in the back of his throat. “I’m doing this all wrong. What I mean is, you’re not like anyone else I’ve ever known. You don’t fit any of the rules.”
“I rather think you’re not overburdened with a need to follow them either. Else I wouldn’t find myself a prisoner in Cheapside.”
“I won’t keep you here if you want to leave.” Despite his words, he covered her body with his, careful to prop himself up on his elbows. She welcomed the weight of him.
“But I want you to stay,” Nathaniel said as he gazed down at her. “Always. I love you, Georgette.”
There were still questions, still gaps in the tenuous bridge he’d built between them, but she suddenly felt no need to ask him anything else. He was here. She was here. It was enough.