Chapter Sixteen
Georgiana
The manor was quiet as Georgiana padded barefoot down the corridor in her dressing gown, her slippers barely making a sound on the worn rugs.
She hadn’t been able to sleep. The anticipation of London, the looming responsibilities, Julian’s letter burning in her mind, and her growing, confusing feelings for James.
When she reached the drawing room, she paused in the doorway.
James sat in one of the wingback chairs by the fire, his coat discarded and a book forgotten on his lap.
His posture was relaxed, one ankle resting over the opposite knee, a half-empty glass of wine in hand.
The flickering light from the hearth gilded the sharp lines of his jaw and caught in his intense, watchful eyes that seemed to see too much.
He looked up at her arrival, his expression softening. Her breath caught.
“Couldn’t sleep either?” James asked, sounding gruff.
She shook her head, stepping into the room. “I thought perhaps a fire would quiet my thoughts.”
He gestured to the chair opposite. “Join me.”
She curled into the seat, drawing her robe tighter across her chest. This was entirely inappropriate for her to be with him in her night clothes but she didn’t even care. Not anymore. She just wanted to be wherever he was.
“Thank you for inviting Mother to stay here tonight. She claims the inn was simply too loud to sleep properly and she wants to look her best.” Georgiana chuckled, rolling her eyes.
“Your mother is a difficult woman, but she is not without her good qualities,” James said.
“Such as?”
“She has excellent taste.”
“And loves to spend other people’s money,” Georgiana said.
The fire snapped and whispered between them, and she was acutely aware of how the light played across his features, how his breathing seemed to deepen as he watched her settle.
“Hard to believe we leave tomorrow.” His fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around his glass. “London beckons.”
“Yes. I’d like to say I was looking forward to it but I’m not. I’d rather stay here and continue our work together.”
His eyes sharpened slightly. “Is your reluctance about London connected to that letter you received this morning? You seemed quite distressed by it.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. She could never tell him about Julian—about the assault, about how powerless and ashamed she felt. “Just some unpleasant correspondence from my past. Nothing that need concern you.”
Something shifted in his expression, a subtle withdrawal that made her chest tighten. “I see.”
The silence stretched between them, no longer comfortable but weighted with unspoken tension. She watched him take a longer sip of wine, his jaw working as if he were chewing on something bitter.
“It’s for Cecily,” he said finally, his voice cooler now. “And it’s only a few months. We’ll be back here before you know it.”
She watched the flames dance for a long moment before speaking, desperate to recapture the warmth that had been there moments before.
“I’ve been focused on her future and now that we have a chance to make her dreams come true, it occurs to me that I will lose her in the process.
She will become a wife and a mother and I’ll be left behind. Probably looking after my mother.”
James’s brow furrowed, but there was something more guarded in his expression now. “What do you want? For yourself? Not Cecily. Not your mother.”
“I don’t know.” Her voice caught slightly.
“I don’t believe you.” But the words came out sharper than before, almost challenging.
Her mouth opened in surprise. “Why not?”
“Because a woman of your sensibilities and passions wants to live a full life. I want to know what a full life means to you. Do you want to keep working? Do you want a husband and family? A life in the city or the country?” He leaned forward suddenly, resting his forearms on his knees, but something desperate edged his voice now. “Tell me what you want.”
I want you.
“No one’s ever asked me that before,” Georgiana said instead.
“I’m asking you,” he said, his voice low, urgent, but she caught the frustration underneath. “I want to know everything about you, Georgie.”
The words made her fingers tingle, but she heard the emphasis on everything and felt the familiar nervous twist in her stomach. He wanted to know everything, but would he still feel that way if he knew her better? Were there things in her past that would make him look at her differently?
She felt tears prick at her eyes ad blinked them away quickly, but not before he noticed. His jaw tightened, and she saw something close off in his expression.
She swallowed hard. “I want to be loved and to love in return.”
He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”
She hesitated, feeling her hands tremble slightly around her empty palms. “I was so naive when I married Robert. I had no idea he had a secret life, one he’d hidden even from me.
It was such a disappointment to realize that what I thought was between us was not at all what I wanted or needed.
And it’s made me bitter and afraid to let anyone in.
” Her voice broke on the last word, and she looked away, unable to bear the intensity of his gaze.
James’s face tightened, his knuckles white around the wine glass. “Robert was wrong to use you in that way. What he did is not about you, though. I hope you know that. You’re lovable, Georgie. Any man who enjoyed the company of women would give a limb to lie with you in bed.”
“What if that’s not true? What if I’m too ugly inside for anyone to truly love me?” The admission came out as barely a whisper.
“There’s not one ugly thing about you. Inside or out,” he said after a moment, his voice rougher than before, but she caught the doubt creeping in at the edges. “But I understand very well what you’re saying because I’ve believed it about myself.”
The fire crackled between them, and Georgiana found herself studying his profile, remembering the empty chair at dinner. “You didn’t join us for dinner tonight.”
His shoulders tensed. “No. I didn’t.”
“We missed you.” The words came out smaller than she intended. “I missed you. I thought perhaps… after this morning’s conversation was interrupted, you might not want to be around me.”
Something raw flashed across his features. “Christ, Georgie, no. That’s not—” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Isherwood insisted I dine in the formal dining room. Said it was proper. Said I was blurring lines that shouldn’t be blurred.”
“And you listened to him?”
“I sat alone in that mausoleum for an hour, listening to your laughter echoing from the kitchen below, feeling like the loneliest man in England.” His voice turned bitter. “Apparently that’s what lords do. Maintain distance to preserve dignity.”
Relief flooded through her, followed quickly by hurt. “But you still chose to listen to him over joining us.”
“Because he said.” James stopped, his jaw working. “Because he suggested that my behavior might be damaging your reputation. Yours and Cecily’s.”
“I see.” But she didn’t, not really. If he truly cared for her, wouldn’t he have ignored the butler’s concerns? Wouldn’t he have chosen her company over propriety?
The silence stretched between them again, heavier now. She watched him take another sip of wine, and when he spoke again, his voice was carefully controlled.
“I’ve told you how I’ve believed I was too broken for love.
Family. A future that meant something.” He paused, his throat working.
“When I was ten years old, I watched them take my father away. Watched them kill him for a crime he didn’t commit.
And I learned that day that the world breaks things.
Good things. Innocent things. That justice is a lie we tell ourselves.
Yet, now, all these years later, redemption’s come to our family.
To me. And I find myself questioning everything I once thought I’d take with me to the grave. ”
Georgiana’s hand moved of its own accord, reaching across the space between them before she caught herself, her fingers hovering in the air before she pulled back.
He noticed. Of course he noticed. And something in his expression shuttered completely.
“I convinced myself I was meant to be alone.” His gaze found hers, but it felt distant now, as if he were looking through her rather than at her.
“That perhaps some people carry too much darkness to offer anything clean to another person. That I was too damaged by what I’d seen, by what I’d lost, to ever love or be loved in return.
” He stopped, his hands clenching. “I thought your presence here had changed everything.”
Thought. Past tense. Her chest ached with the weight of everything unspoken, everything she couldn’t tell him.
“For me too,” she whispered.
But even as she said it, she could feel him pulling away, retreating behind walls she didn’t know how to scale. He was sharing his deepest pain with her, and she was giving him nothing in return. She could see it in his eyes—the growing certainty that she would never truly let him in.
“Sometimes I think the boy who watched his father hang never really left that courtyard. That I’m still him, still ten years old, still believing that everything good gets destroyed.”
“But you don’t really believe that. Not anymore.”
He was quiet for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat, resigned. “No. But perhaps I was wrong to think otherwise.” He cut himself off, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. Tell me what you were going to say.”
“That I thought there was a possibility to put back together what was once broken.” His eyes met hers briefly before looking away. “But maybe some things are meant to stay broken.”
Her stomach hollowed, leaving nothing but emptiness. “How can you say that?”