Zachary ran his thumbs across the calluses. ‘How did this happen?’
Georgianna had learnt this past few dangerous months that it was best, whenever possible, to keep to the truth as much as possible. Far less chance of making a mistake that way. ‘After André had... After he made it clear he did not want me any more, I left Paris for a while.’ She raised her chin determinedly as she pulled her hands from his. ‘I was lucky enough to be taken in by a kindly farmer and his wife.’
‘And they obviously used you like a workhorse.’ Hawksmere scowled his displeasure.
‘Not at all.’ Georgianna smiled slightly. ‘I did work for them, of course; I could not accept their hospitality without repaying them in some small way. But it was never hard labour, just—just milking cows and feeding chickens and such. And Madame Bernard taught me how to cook. Stews, mainly. I think because...’ Georgianna drew in a breath. ‘They had a daughter, but she had married the year before and gone off with her soldier husband. I think they were pleased to have a young woman about the place again. In any case, they allowed me to stay with them for almost two months, after which time I decided I should return to Paris.’
‘Why, when you were so obviously safe and with people who cared for you?’
She shrugged. ‘I decided that I was behaving the coward by hiding away in the countryside and might be of more help to England if I were to return to the city and keep my ears and eyes open to the plots and intrigues that so abounded there. I found a job working in a tavern.’
‘A tavern!’ Hawksmere repeated, obviously more shocked than ever.
‘In the kitchen, preparing food, rather than the tavern itself,’ Georgianna assured ruefully. ‘The lady who owned the tavern assured me I was not...was not buxom enough to work in the tavern itself.’
The duke raised dark brows. ‘You are thinner than you were, certainly, but that does not detract... Never mind,’ he said dismissively. ‘I suppose this is another of those occasions when we must be grateful for small mercies?’
Georgianna smiled slightly. ‘Indeed.’
‘The name of this tavern?’ he prompted sharply.
Georgianna had no doubt that, as she had suspected might be the case, Hawksmere would make it his business to check as to the truth of what she was now telling him. That he would not simply take her word for any of it. So, yes, better by far that she had kept to the truth as much as was possible.
Her gaze met the duke’s unflinchingly. ‘It was the Fleur de Lis.’
‘And?’ Hawksmere stilled as he looked down at her between narrowed lids. ‘Surely that is the name of the tavern owned by...’
‘Helene Rousseau, the sister of André Rousseau,’ Georgianna confirmed evenly as she turned away to once again stare down at the fire. ‘I did not go there as Georgianna Lancaster, of course, but assumed the identity of Francine Poitier, the married daughter of the farmer and his wife.’ Again, she had kept to the truth as much as possible when she returned to Paris, knowing that if her identity were to be checked by Helene Rousseau, that the other woman would learn that the Bernards’ did indeed have a married daughter called Francine.
Zachary released her hands to step back, not sure if he dared believe this fantastical tale. But he wanted to. Oh, yes, he found that he dearly wanted to believe it.
But, in truth, it seemed too much to accept that the young and flirtatious Georgianna Lancaster, that indulged and plump pigeon, the daughter of the Earl of Malvern, could possibly have worked as a labourer on a farm for several months, and then in the Paris tavern owned by Helene Rousseau, albeit in the kitchen. ‘And how did you manage that?’ he prompted in perfect French.
‘I managed it very well, thank you,’ Georgianna replied just as fluently. ‘My father was unaware of it, of course...’ she grimaced ruefully as she reverted back to English ‘...but during the winter months we spent at Malvern Hall before I...before I left, I had attended all of Jeffrey’s French lessons with him.’
Zachary’s mouth twisted humourlessly. ‘No doubt drawn more by the charming and handsome Frenchman teaching the subject, than an interest in the language itself.’
‘No doubt,’ she conceded quietly. ‘But, as you now hear, I did learn it.’
‘That must have made it doubly choking for you when the duke who offered for you was neither charming nor handsome,’ he rasped harshly.
Georgianna’s eyes widened incredulously. Hawksmere could not be serious, could he?
Oh, he definitely lacked the charm, was too forthright and forceful to ever be called charming, but as any woman of the ton would be only too happy to confirm, he was most certainly handsome. And it was a handsomeness that would cause most women to willingly overlook his lack of charm.
Even Georgianna admitted to having been taken with his dark and dangerous good looks during her first two Seasons. Indeed, he was a man it was impossible for any woman, young or old, to ignore. His arrogant bearing was always shown to advantage in his perfectly tailored clothes and she had never been able to decide whether his face was that of a fallen angel or a devil. André had possessed the face and golden hair of an angel, of course, but as Georgianna knew to her cost, he was most certainly a devil.
Whereas Zachary Black had long been considered the catch of any Season.
It had been the fact that Georgianna had been the unlikely one to ‘catch’ him which had come as such an unpleasant shock to her ten months ago.
Gazing at such a handsome and unobtainable duke from afar was one thing—being informed he was to become her future husband was something else completely. Even the thoughts of becoming the wife of such a cynical and experienced gentleman had thrown Georgianna into a turmoil of doubt and fears. Mainly fears, she now realised.
What could a young girl of nineteen know of being married to a jaded gentleman of one and thirty? How would she even know what to talk to him about, let alone perform any of her other wifely duties? Georgianna had shied away from even thinking of the two of them in bed together, she plump and inexperienced, he as sleek and beautiful as a Greek god, with a legendary number of women known to have shared his bed.
Nor did she understand why he had chosen her at all, when he had never so much as even spoken or danced with her. The reason had become obvious, of course, and Hawksmere had confirmed it earlier today when he admitted he had believed her to be young enough, malleable enough, to make him an undemanding duchess.
She clasped her hands tightly together as she forced her gaze to meet his. ‘So there you have the answer to your earlier question. Working in Helene Rousseau’s tavern was inadvertently the way in which I gathered the information I gave you earlier.’
Impossible as it seemed, Zachary had already guessed that might be the case. Although he still had to question whether the delivery of that information had been deliberate or accidental. ‘And why did you find it so difficult to confide that to me earlier?’
She drew in a deep breath. ‘Because I feared you would not believe me.’
He raised dark brows. ‘But you no longer fear that might be the case?’
She grimaced. ‘Whether I do or I do not is no longer relevant—having now lost my liberty, I consider I have nothing else left to lose, and everything to gain, by confiding all to you.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘And you expect me to believe that Helene Rousseau confided in you, a young woman she had employed to work in her kitchen?’
‘Of course I do not.’ Georgianna gave him an impatient glance for the derision in his tone. ‘The truth is that I eavesdropped on the conversation in which Napoleon’s liberation from Elba was discussed.’
‘Eavesdropped how?’
‘I quickly realised that a group of men, including André, met upstairs in a room of the tavern several