Each deserved and hurtful word was like a whip lashing across Georgianna’s flesh. Her eyes flooded anew with stinging tears, her body quivering at the landing of each successive and precise blow to her sensitised flesh.
She gave a weary shake of her head, unheeding of the tears still falling hotly down her cheeks. ‘I am asking you to accept that the information I bring is completely removed from my own behaviour. That it is most urgent, even imperative, that you believe me when I tell you it is Bonaparte’s intention to leave Elba soon and take up arms once again.’
‘When, precisely?’
Her gaze dropped from meeting his. ‘If you could arrange for me to speak with someone...’
‘You do not trust me with this information?’ He raised incredulous brows.
‘Forgive me, but I have learnt this past ten months not to trust anyone completely,’ she answered dully.
Zachary studied her between narrowed lids, hardening his heart to the tears that still lay upon those pale and hollowed cheeks. He reminded himself that this was the woman who had thought nothing of deceiving her own father, and the man who was to have been her husband, in order to run away with the Frenchman who was her younger brother’s tutor.
It might be true that she had not seen André Rousseau for some months. Just as it might also be true that Georgianna Lancaster’s unmarried state meant that she had reason to regret ever having eloped with the Frenchman in the first place.
But it might be just as true that this was all just a ruse and that she had been sent here by that lover to deceive and mislead the English government.
If the first of those things was true, then it was of no personal concern to Zachary; the woman had made her choices and must now live with them. No, it was the little information Georgianna Lancaster had already imparted, in regard to Napoleon’s intention to soon leave Elba, which interested him.
For no matter what he might have said to Georgianna Lancaster, no rumour of Napoleon leaving Elba was ever ignored.
His nostrils flared.
‘And I have no intention of so much as telling anyone of your presence back in England until I am satisfied you have told me all that you know.’
‘Please.’
‘Poor, bewildered Georgianna,’ Zachary mocked the pained expression on her beautiful face as he slowly lifted his hand to gather up one of her tears on to his fingertip, looking down curiously at that tear before allowing it to fall to the carpeted floor at his feet as his gaze returned to her face. ‘Did you really imagine it would be so easy to convince me of your sincerity? That I would listen to your information, be so concerned by it that I would then immediately arrange for you to speak to someone in the government?’
She swallowed. ‘You must.’
‘I have already told you I must do nothing where you are concerned, Georgianna,’ Zachary thundered before quickly regaining control of his temper. A control he lost rarely, if ever. Testament, no doubt, to the anger he still harboured towards this woman. ‘What have you really been doing these past ten months, I wonder?’ he mused grimly.
She blinked. ‘I told you, after André— Once I learnt he had merely been using me, I had no choice but to leave him.’
Zachary was fully aware that her violet gaze could no longer meet his own. A sure sign that she was lying? ‘And what did you do then?’ he prompted. ‘How did you continue to live in France, Georgianna, with no money and, as you claim, no lover’s bed to warm you?’
‘It is not just a claim.’
‘I am afraid that it is.’
Georgianna looked up at the duke apprehensively, not fooled for a moment by the calm evenness of his tone. ‘What do you mean?’
He returned her gaze contemptuously. ‘I mean that you have made a mistake in claiming Rousseau would ever have allowed you to leave him.’
Georgianna ran the tip of her tongue across suddenly dry lips before speaking huskily. ‘Why do you say that?’
He gave a derisive laugh. ‘My dear Georgianna, if you really were just the foolish romantic you claim to be, then once your usefulness to Rousseau was at an end he would have had no choice but to kill you for what you already knew about him, rather than simply allowing you to leave.’
She drew her breath in sharply, the colour draining from her cheeks even as she felt the burning in her chest and temple, a painful reminder that André had attempted to do exactly that.
She still cringed at the numbing disillusionment, the cruel and frightening way in which she had discovered André had never cared for her, but had merely been using her. And the shock, the devastation of learning that André intended to rid himself of the nuisance of her by taking her out of the city before killing her.
That he had not succeeded in doing so had been more by chance than deliberate intent.
And Georgianna had the scars, physical as well as emotional, to prove it.
Zachary remained unmoved by the haunted expression on Georgianna Lancaster’s suddenly deathly pale face. Her elopement with André Rousseau, the mystery of where she had been and what she had been doing this past ten months, were all more than enough reason for him to distrust every word that came out of her delectable mouth.
And he did still consider it a delectably sensual mouth, he conceded regretfully. The sort of mouth that he had once imagined doing wild and wonderful things to his body—
Zachary stood up abruptly. ‘Fortunately, the decision as to the truth, or otherwise, of the information you wish to impart, does not rest with me.’
‘Then with whom?’
Zachary looked down at her grimly. ‘There are others—less gentle than myself—who will decide the matter.’
‘I do not understand.’
‘You will, Georgianna.’ Zachary hardened his heart to the increased bewilderment in those violet-coloured eyes. ‘Have no doubt, you most certainly will.’
She stared up at him with fearful eyes. ‘You cannot mean to— You are saying I shall be tortured, in order to ascertain whether or not I am telling the truth?’
‘The English government does not resort to torture, Georgianna.’ Zachary bared his teeth in a hard and mocking smile. ‘Not openly, at least,’ he added softly.
‘You are trying to frighten me,’ she accused emotionally.
‘Am I succeeding?’ he taunted.
‘You must know that you are.’ Her slender fingers tightly gripped one of the downy pillows.
‘Poor Georgianna,’ Zachary drawled mockingly. ‘Are you even aware of your father’s death?’ he prompted sharply.
‘Yes. I learnt of it yesterday when I returned to England.’ Her lashes lowered. ‘I— Do you have any news of Jeffrey?’
‘He is well, I believe. Inheriting the title put paid to Cambridge, of course,’ he drawled dismissively. ‘But he fares well with his new responsibilities as Earl of Malvern, with the aid of his guardian.’
‘Who on earth...?’
‘I am sure your belated concern for your brother is all well and good, Georgianna,’ Zachary continued dismissively, ‘but it will not succeed in deflecting me, and others, from the suspicion that you might also now be a spy for Napoleon.’ He gave a mocking shake of his head. ‘And to think, just ten months ago the situation was all so very different. That if you had not run away, then all of this might now be yours.’
All of this, Georgianna knew, being the Hawksmere houses and estates,