He looked up, eyes narrowed. ‘Who did this to you?’
Her smile turned humourless. ‘Ah, and now comes the intelligence beneath the scorn and derision.’
‘Georgianna.’
‘Have you seen enough that I might refasten my gown now?’ she challenged tensely.
His jaw clenched tightly as he demanded again, ‘Who did this to you?’
Her eyes hardened to glittering violet jewels. ‘Who do you imagine did it to me?’ She refastened her gown without waiting for his permission. ‘Who was it that you yourself said could not allow me to live once I had left him?’
‘Rousseau,’ he breathed softly.
‘Exactly. Rousseau,’ she confirmed flatly. ‘Have you seen enough yet to believe me, Hawksmere?’ she challenged tautly. ‘Or would another scar help to finally convince you that everything I have told you is the truth?’ She lifted a hand to move back the cluster of curls gathered on her left temple, revealing a long scar where a second bullet appeared to have grazed and broken her skin without actually penetrating it. ‘This one was to be the coup de grâce, I believe. Unfortunately for André it was dark that night and I must have turned my head away at the last moment, because the second bullet only succeeded in rendering me unconscious rather than killing me outright.’
A single bullet to the heart and another to the head.
‘An assassin’s method,’ Zachary acknowledged gruffly.
‘Because André killed me,’ Georgianna confirmed emotionally. ‘Or, at least, he believed that he had when he left me for dead in that deserted forest just outside Paris,’ she continued flatly. ‘Which is where Monsieur Bernard, having heard the two shots and fearing for his livestock, found me unconscious and took me back to his farm.’
‘The doctor?’
‘The Bernards dare not call in a doctor, because they had no way of knowing who had inflicted such injuries. And, being unconscious, I could not tell them, either.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘Madame Bernard removed the bullet herself, then she sewed the wound back up as best she could. It could have been worse, I suppose, and monsieur might have lived alone and so been the one to attempt to sew the wound.’
‘For pity’s sake, be silent a moment, Georgianna.’ Zachary choked as he finally found the breath to speak.
‘Why?’ she challenged. ‘Did I not tell you yesterday that we all carry scars, some more visibly than others? Or does it sicken you to see such imperfection? It sickened me at the time. Although, in truth, I did not see the scars for some weeks,’ she continued conversationally. ‘I remained unconscious for several days afterwards and delirious for the better part of a week or more,’ she explained flatly as Zachary looked at her sharply. ‘And then, finally, when I did awaken it was to discover that I was blind, Zachary. Completely and utterly blind.’ She raised her chin as she looked at him in defiant challenge.
‘Dear God.’
‘Yes.’
Zachary closed his eyes momentarily. ‘That is the reason you do not like full dark.’ It was a statement rather than a question.
‘Yes. The blindness lasted only a couple of weeks, but it was the longest fortnight of my life, as I lay there wondering if I should ever see again. Do you believe me yet, Zachary?’ she continued tauntingly. ‘Or do you require further proof? If so, I am afraid I have none.’
‘Stop it, Georgianna. For pity’s sake.’
‘Pity?’ she echoed bitterly. ‘And why should I pity you, Hawksmere? You were not the stupid fool who believed she was eloping with the man she believed herself in love with and whom she believed loved her, only to discover that she had been nothing more to him than a useful pawn. A pawn who was totally dispensable once he was safely returned to his native France and fellow conspirators.’
Zachary gave a dazed shake of his head. ‘I meant only that you have had months to grow accustomed to this, Georgianna. I have had only a few minutes. Rousseau truly believes he has succeeded in assassinating you?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘That is why you did not fear his looking for you after you had left him? Because he believed you already dead?’
She nodded abruptly. ‘And my body then eaten by scavenging animals, yes.’
Now Zachary did feel sickened. But not by Georgianna’s scars. Never that.
How could he ever be sickened by those, when they were the scars of the war she had been forced to fight alone, and in a country not her own? Indeed, it was the same evidence of war which he carried upon his own throat.
Georgianna might well have died, but for the kindness of a French farmer and his wife. And she had then placed herself in danger by working in a French tavern for months, followed by days of fearing being discovered at any moment as she waited at the dockside to return to England, so that she might bring back the information she had overheard of Napoleon’s intention of leaving Elba.
There had been no father to defend her.
No brother to cherish her.
No husband to protect her.
‘I demand to know where you are taking me,’ Georgianna insisted even as she accepted Hawksmere’s hand to aid her in climbing inside the ducal carriage.
Hawksmere waited until she was seated before climbing in behind her and sitting on the seat opposite as the door was closed. His expression was as grimly forbidding as it had been this past hour, since he had informed her she would be leaving Hawksmere House at the same time as he. ‘Somewhere you will be safe.’ He turned away to look out of the carriage window as it moved forward.
Georgianna had no idea what to expect from Hawksmere after her revelations to him earlier in the bedchamber. She had waited nervously as he went exceedingly quiet, restlessly pacing the room, so deep in thought he seemed almost to have forgotten she was there. Zachary had then come to an abrupt halt and instructed her to repack her bag and be ready to leave within the hour, before he had then departed her bedchamber.
There had been very little for Georgianna to repack. The things she had originally taken with her to France had all, apart from what she had carried in her reticule, been left behind when André took her to the forest outside Paris with the intention of killing her.
The Bernards had later provided her with a couple of worn gowns left behind by their daughter when she went off to marry her French soldier. And Georgianna had added two more gowns to that meagre wardrobe with the wages she’d earned at the tavern. She was wearing one of the only two sets of undergarments she possessed. As she had last night worn one of her only two nightgowns. Otherwise she had no other possessions.
Consequently she had spent most of that hour sitting in a chair beside the window, worrying about what Hawksmere intended to do with her now. As his final words had implied, he intended doing something.
‘Is there such a place?’ she prompted softly now.
Zachary turned back to look at her, his expression unreadable beneath the brim of his beaver hat as he answered her. ‘I believe so, yes.’
Georgianna gave a pained frown. ‘Is it your intention to foist me off on to one or other of your close friends? Perhaps that was the reason for Wolfingham’s visit to you this morning?’ she asked heavily.
Zachary now had cause to regret many things in his life. The nature of his marriage proposal to Georgianna Lancaster