Or so she’d stated in the letter she had left behind for her father to read after she had eloped with her French lover, and which Malvern had reluctantly shared with Zachary when he had demanded the older man do so.
Zachary’s mouth thinned as he remembered the days following Georgianna’s elopement with her French lover.
The formal withdrawal of the betrothal in the newspapers so soon after it had been announced.
The condolences he had received from his uncles and aunts.
Most humiliating of all, perhaps, had been the knowing looks of the ton, all of them aware that Zachary Black, the haughty Duke of Hawksmere, having finally chosen his future duchess, had then just days later been forced to retract the announcement when that future bride had withdrawn from the betrothal.
Or so the story had been related to society at large. Very few people were made privy to the knowledge of Georgianna’s elopement with the young and handsome French tutor.
Certainly none knew that it had been discovered, after the elopement, that the French tutor was not who he’d claimed to be, but was in fact a spy.
As Georgianna Lancaster was herself now also a spy, at the behest of her French lover?
She certainly knew far too much of Zachary’s private business, of his connections, to be the complete innocent she claimed to be.
‘Your Grace?’
Zachary’s eyes narrowed as he returned his attention to the here and now. ‘If only it were as simple as that, Georgianna,’ he bit out scathingly. ‘Unfortunately, there are several aspects of your story which the two of us will need to discuss in more detail.’
‘Such as?’
‘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.