Chapter Twelve #3
And Christ, he had wanted to. Hell, he wanted to now. Which made him the worst sort of cad, he supposed.
“But I had you held hostage,” she protested. “You only did it so you could get a token.”
He raked a hand through his hair and tried to tame the flicker of anger arising from her assessment of his character.
“Do you really think so little of me?”
“Of course not.” Her lashes fluttered, then recovered. She straightened her shoulders then shrugged, as if she thought his reaction was nonsensical. “I told you as much, didn’t I?”
“You did.” Her confession had floored him. He had lain awake half the night playing her apology over in his head. And then, hard as a rock, he’d relieved himself with the memory of that kiss.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
It was the question he’d been asking himself since the moment he’d arrived at the elegant Georgian home.
Had it been a means of escape from the blistering reality of a marriage he did not want?
Was it the lingering fire in his body from last night’s kiss?
Or had it been something else…something Georgie had said that had stayed with him hours after she’d left him, haunting like a piece of a puzzle that did not quite fit.
“What did you mean last night, when you said you had to say those things?”
Her brow furrowed into a deep vee. “Excuse me?”
“You said that I would understand why you had to say horrible things about me,” he said. “Why did you have to?”
Her eyes widened ever so slightly, and while she shook her head, he could see her throat working as she swallowed back whatever protest she did not, or could not, voice.
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“Of course it matters,” he countered. “Did your father or Marcus make you dissolve things between us?”
To the best of his knowledge, his friendship with Georgie had been a secret. Both of them had been careful, and while the estate had started to bleed staff, those who had stayed were fiercely loyal to the earl.
Instead of any admission, however, she retreated to the hearth, her arms crossed around her as if she’d gone cold.
“Why is this so important to you?”
He raked a hand through his hair and swallowed a silent curse. Her question only answered every fear he had. But it raised another. And despite the most fearsome of battles in the Spanish countryside, he was too much of a coward to ask her. Too fearful for the answer.
Did she love him?
Even now, with all the trappings of power—money, a title, and shaky as it was, status, it meant nothing. The only power he desired was the knowledge that Georgiana Hawthorne still loved him. Desperation got the better of him.
He lowered his voice, lest a servant was near the door. “They promised you to a man who was still married, Georgiana.”
Her eyes grew wide, and she answered him with a harsh whisper. “What?”
“Baron Sharpe was married when your marriage contract was signed,” he said.
She stepped away from him, shaking her head. “That’s not possible.”
“It shouldn’t be,” he said. “But he was only widowed last year.”
“How do you know this?”
“I made some discreet inquiries.”
She threw up her hands, her anger clearly getting the better of her.
“For a man who claims to disdain society, you are fitting in quite well,” she said. “How dare you poke around my personal business without my permission.”
“I am only trying to protect you, Georgie.”
“I am not yours to protect,” she said. “I never was.”
The sting of her retort cut into him with the precision of a stiletto.
“Your father and Marcus certainly have not,” he countered.
“No, they haven’t,” she said, quietly, more to herself than to him. She looked past him, to a small writing desk, as if her mind was elsewhere in that moment. “Nor Gabriel, much as I care for him. None of them have.”
The resignation in her voice unsettled him.
Gabriel had left, and Marcus, self-absorbed cretin that he was, would have gladly sacrificed Georgie’s happiness for his own.
Tom remembered Gabriel, once deep in his cups after an officer’s dinner, complaining about some Ashcombe curse, and how glad he was to escape.
But Georgie could not, he realized. Instead, she’d done what she’d always done—tried to be one less worry on a man who was slowly being driven mad by them. But she’d done it alone…thanks to his wounded pride.
“Georgie—”
“Out of necessity I have had to fend for myself. To protect myself,” she continued, pacing with all of that aristocratic breeding, regarding with him a cool resolve. “And that is what I am doing now. Pray leave me to do it.”
“I’m sorry I left you,” he said, trying to be calm while his insides were flailing like a man trying to save himself from drowning. “And I’m sorry I was so angry when I left.”
“If living at Whetherby taught us anything,” she said, a lone shaky breath betraying her practiced reserve, “it is that sometimes broken things cannot be fixed.”
“You cannot believe that.”
“If you will excuse me,” she said, walking past him to the door and opening it. “I have some urgent correspondence I must attend to. Until tomorrow, Mr. Worthington.”