Romancing the Rogue (106 page)

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One week later, Georgina requested a meeting with the Duke of Aubrey.

She stared across the wide surface of the immaculate mahogany desk at the powerful nobleman who’d controlled her fate these many years now. He sat, his gaze trained on a sheet in front of him as though either uncaring or disinterested in her presence.

She gritted her teeth, tired of commanding gentleman.

She cleared her throat.

The duke picked his head up. He stood and studied her from hooded lashes. “You should still be resting,” he chided.

Georgina gave him a tight smile. “I never took you for a nursemaid, Your Grace.”

He inclined his head. “Or a spy.”

She remembered the carriage ride the evening she’d fled Lord and Lady Ashton’s. Her smile dipped. “Or a spy.” Yes, gentlemen did not become spies. It was seedy and dark and not the endeavors pursued by powerful noblemen.

“Please sit.” He motioned to the smooth brown leather sofa by the hearth.

Georgina slid into a seat. She set down a sealed note she’d carried here. “Thank you for the clothing, and for allowing me to convalesce here.”

He claimed the chair opposite her. He waved off her thanks. “Mrs. Markham, as you know, I’m indebted to you far beyond several gowns and shelter.”

Which brought Georgina to the reason for her visit. “I cannot stay here any longer.”

“I assure you my staff is the soul of discretion. Your presence here has gone, and will remain, undetected if that is your—”

Georgina shook her head. “No. It is more than my reputation. I…”

Am tired of living a lie.

Her entire life had been a lie. The truth of her parentage, her role in helping the Brethren, her marriage to Adam. All of it. She was tired of the mistruths and deception. She wanted to start anew. Nay, she needed to begin anew.

And it had to begin by freeing Adam. Her heart seized.

The duke spoke. “I gather you want to return to your husband.”

She laughed. The sound bitter and empty. Her husband. Dear, loyal Adam, who continued to pay her visits, sketching at her bedside, bringing flowers. She cleared her throat. “No.”

The duke blinked. “No?”

She smoothed her palms over her skirts. “You know he is not my husband.”

The duke sighed and settled his long, muscled arm on the back of his seat. He tapped his fingers along the top of the chair. “I can see that your marriage is made legal.”

Her lips twisted wryly. Of course he could. A smidgeon shy of royalty, with a large dose of power at the Home Office, the duke could accomplish nearly everything. Seeing to the legality of her sham marriage should prove little obstacle.

“I don’t want to marry Adam,” she said bluntly.

The duke’s fingers stilled.

Even if Adam somehow desire a true marriage with her, how could she marry the man who’d left her so callously, believing the lies of another?

Because you were never truthful with him
, a voice taunted.

Yes, she hadn’t been entirely honest, or at all honest with him, but after the hell she’d endured at her father and Jamie’s hands, she deserved more than an empty marriage with a man who thought so ill of her.

Georgina continued. “I only ask you help me leave. Beyond that, I will never ask anything else of you, Your Grace.” She reached for the note at her side and handed it to him. “Could you give this to my h…
to Adam.” He wasn’t her husband. Only in her heart would he remain that way.

The duke studied the note in her fingers a moment and then took it. “I am so very sorry for how all this turned out,” he said quietly.

Georgina rather suspected the Duke of Aubrey apologized to no one. “Will you help me?”

Two hours later, she left.

Adam stepped into the Duke of Aubrey’s library and glanced around for Georgina. Disappointment twisted his gut when he found only the duke standing in the corner of the room by a floor-length window. They exchanged bows, before the duke moved over to a wingback chair and sat.

Adam remained standing.

“Sit,” Aubrey murmured.

“I don’t feel like sitting.” His gaze flickered over toward the door.

Where the hell is she?

Two days ago, Georgina had asked Adam to leave the Duke of Aubrey’s townhouse. She had insisted that, as they were not married, it was highly improper to remain as guests in the duke’s home together. Willing to do anything to earn her forgiveness, Adam had granted her wish and taken himself home, though it didn’t prevent him from visiting. He did. Every day. She was always ensconced in the music room or library.

Aubrey interrupted his musings. “We should speak about your captivity.”

Adam’s gaze whipped forward.

The duke motioned to the chair opposite him, and Adam slid into the seat. His hands curled into tight fists, and he had to force his fingers to relax. The horror of those days in Fox and Hunter’s clutches, the fear that he’d not live to see beyond the small chamber walls, had faded but still crept back into his mind’s eye at the oddest times. He suspected they would always haunt him.

But the dreams had shifted. In his deep, troubled sleep, he no longer saw the chambers in Bristol but rather the inside of a dark warehouse, with Georgina lying limp and bloodied on the hard floor. He shoved the thought aside.

“What is there to say about…
about…?” Adam couldn’t force the word out. “For my service with The Brethren I was handsomely repaid by losing nearly a year of my life to Fox and Hunter.” He leaned forward in his chair, fairly seething. “Tell me, Your Grace, at what point did you decide my life was expendable? Was it all along?”

Aubrey’s lips turned down at the corners. “You knew when you pledged your service to The Brethren that your life belonged to the Crown.”

“Yes, but I did not agree to becoming bait.” The words ripped from Adam’s chest as he allowed the bitterness he’d kept buried to spew to the surface. “I lost everything. My family. My life.”
My sanity
. “And it was all a game to you.”

The duke made an impatient sound. “Surely you trust this wasn’t a game?”

“My life was inconsequential to The Brethren. My service meant nothing when—”

“I considered what we could have learned from Miss Wilcox and made a decision that was in the Crown’s best interests.” There was no apology in the duke’s words.

Adam looked away. The rub of it was that he did see value in the duke’s plan.

“Markham, I do not argue that you endured hell to benefit the organization, but didn’t anything good come of it?”

Georgina
.

He would never have met Georgina. Some other poor, hapless member of The Brethren would have been at the mercy of Fox and Hunter, and Georgina would have been there to care for him. Adam would have married Grace.

A viselike pressure tightened about his heart at the rewrite of history which erased Georgina from his life.

The duke reached inside his jacket. He pulled out a folded note and handed it over. “When Miss Wilcox agreed to help us lure her father out, she asked I give you this if anything were to happen to her.”

Adam stared at it a moment and then took it. His fingers tightened reflexively about the letter.

“I understand you cared very deeply for my sister-in-law,” Aubrey said.

He glanced up. Odd, he hadn’t given much thought to Grace’s familial connection with the duke. After his reunion with Grace at Lord Ashton’s ball, Adam had finally been able to lay to rest all the tumultuous yearnings he’d thought he had for Grace.

Now she existed as nothing more than a distant memory of a past that belonged to some other man he no longer knew.

Thoughts of Georgina drove back all memory of Grace.

He needed to see his wife.

“Markham?” Aubrey prompted.

Adam shook his head. “I cared very much for Grace, but I love my wife, and I would like to see her.” He made to rise.

Aubrey held up a hand. “She’s not here.”

“I can see that,” Adam said with a touch of impatience.

“No,” Aubrey said, his tone firm. “I mean she is not here. She left.”

He froze. “What do you mean she left?”

Aubrey withdrew a second note. “One more thing. Miss Wilcox asked that I give you this as well.”

Adam stared at it. Dread pooled in his gut.
Why would Georgina give me a letter?
His mouth went dry as a niggling fear crept in. “Her name is Mrs. Markham.”

“You know by now that you were not married. Not in the eyes of the Church of England,” Aubrey said with surprising gentleness.

Adam slammed his fist down. “We were married in the eyes of God, and that is all that matters.”

The Church of England could go hang! He tore open the envelope in a frenzied panic and scanned the succinct note.

Adam,

You have always done what is right. For England. For your family. For me. I cannot allow you to sacrifice any more of your happiness. Not out of any misplaced guilt or obligation. If I let you, you would spend the rest of your life married to me for all the wrong reasons.

This is for the best. For the both of us.

I will always love you.

Ever Yours,

Georgina

He fisted the note and it crumpled in his fingers. Oh God.

I have lost her. And with her goes my heart and soul
.

His legs knocked against the edge of the chair, and he sank into the leather folds. How could she believe this was for the best? How, when she was his every reason for living?

He hadn’t even told her how much he loved her, how she’d breathed happiness and life into his existence. How had he not realized until just now that he would endure a lifetime of captivity in a small, barren chamber so long as he had Georgina at his side. He buried his face in his hands.

Aubrey settled a hand on his shoulder. “She is a good woman.”

What a bloody fool I’ve been.

He’d never deserved her.

Adam picked his head up. “Where is she?”

He looked up when Aubrey remained stonily silent. Shoving the duke’s hand from his person, he snarled his next words, “You won’t tell me?”

The duke’s jaw set at a stony angle. “The Brethren is indebted to Miss Wilcox. It would be wrong of us to not honor her wishes.”

Adam leapt to his feet and snarled. “Her wishes? You speak about being indebted to Georgina. Where is The Brethren’s loyalty to me? After all I’ve suffered for this organization, you’d take my wife from me.”

“We didn’t take your wife from you,” Aubrey said. A muscle in the corner of his eye twitched indicating the powerful nobleman’s magnanimous attempt at patience was waning. “Your wife left of her own volition.”

The words hit Adam like a blow to the chest. He spun on his heel and stalked from the room. Even as he left the duke’s townhouse, Adam could admit he was responsible for his own misery. Not Hunter, Fox, Aubrey, or any other member of The Brethren could shoulder responsibility for Georgina leaving.

With his coldness and harsh disregard, Adam had driven her away and by God, he wanted her back.

And he would get her back.

3 months later

Adam stared up at the façade of Bristol Hospital. His cloak swirled about his feet as he climbed the steps. He knocked.

A short moment later, the door opened. A young man with an empty shirtsleeve pinned up, greeted him with a frown on his hard lips.

Adam handed the man his card. “I’d like to speak with the lead nurse.”

The servant stared down at the card, his expression impassive. With a curt nod, the servant motioned him inside, and then went in search of the woman.

Adam clasped his arms behind his back and paced the pink marble foyer. His gaze searched the sterile space and guilt burned like acid in his throat. It had taken him but one meeting with Aubrey to deduce Georgina’s whereabouts. The duke hadn’t come out and directly given him her location but had eluded to it in such a way that made Adam believe that perhaps the Duke of Aubrey wasn’t the total, heartless bastard he’d taken him for.

“Sir?”

He froze mid-step.

The young man bowed. “If you’ll follow me?”

Adam walked beside the servant. They moved through the silent, cheerless halls. With each step he took, his anxiety doubled.

What if she isn’t here?

Or worse, what if she is here and turns me away?

They paused at a dark paneled door. The servant motioned him inside.

A plump matronly woman of non-descript years stood in the middle of the room, hands clasped in front of her rounded belly. She dismissed the servant with a slight nod. All the while her attention remained focused on Adam. “I am Nurse Catherine. You requested an audience with me, Mr. Markham?”

Adam rocked on the balls of his feet. He glanced around the room and searched for the right words. He expected after the three days it had taken him to travel to Bristol Hospital, he should have found some words, any words that would be adequate for Georgina. Then, what could one say or do after all the heartache he’d caused his wife.

“Mr. Markham?” she prodded.

He coughed into his hand, humbled to admit to this stranger that he’d come to find his wife…who’d left him. “Forgive me. Do you employ a woman by the name of Georgina Mar—
Wilcox?”

The faintest tick appeared on the woman’s right eyelid and he suspected if his role with the Brethren hadn’t required his strictest attention to detail, he might have not detected the telltale gesture.

But he did.

And he knew with a certainty he’d wager his very life on that Georgina was here.

“It is my understanding she might be here,” he pressed.

Nurse Catherine arched a single brow. “So, you are looking for your wife Mr. Markham.”

His back stiffened at the condescension in the older woman’s tone, but he did not respond to it. She couldn’t possibly loathe him anymore than he loathed himself.

“And you believe she is here,” she went on.

“I do.” He knew she was here.

The nurse’s hand fluttered about the base of her severe chignon. “Forgive me, sir, this is a most unusual meeting. I don’t know a woman by that name.”

“Oh?” he drawled.

The corner of her eye twitched again.

Yes. Georgina was here. He’d rather maintain a semblance of gentlemanliness and not storm Nurse Catherine’s halls in search of his wife.

Her lips compressed into a tight line. “What do you want, sir?” Impatience danced in her eyes.

Adam held his palms up. “I love my wife. I need to see her. I need to know if she is here, and that she is safe.”

Nurse Catherine’s hands tightened, rustling the fabric of her stark white dress. “May I speak plainly, sir?”

He inclined his head.

“If your wife is here, and I’m not saying she is, it would indicate that she ran away from you. What would make me trust that your intentions are driven out of love and a sense of concern for her well-being, and not out of a desire to bring her back home where you can continue to hurt her?”

He strongly suspected his answer was paramount to being granted an audience with Georgina. He knew the only thing Nurse Catherine would respond to was truth. “I wronged her. I believed the worst things about her and because of that drove her away. My life is incomplete without her.”

She took a step toward him and ran her gaze over his face. “It took your wife leaving for you to realize your life is incomplete without her?”

Adam accepted the lash of her disapproval. It was no less than he deserved. He couldn’t expect this woman to forgive him when he couldn’t forgive myself. He spoke quietly. “If after she hears what I have to say, if she chooses to remain, I promise to leave and never return.”

Being able to lie without remorse was one of the many skills he’d acquired in his work for the Crown. Now that he’d found her, not even the mighty Lord could keep him from her.

“I don’t suppose you are aware of the condition Miss Wilcox was in when she last came to me?”

His heart thudded painfully. He tried to force words out past numbed lips but they lodged in his throat.
He shook his head once.

“She was badly beaten,” she said with a bluntness that made him flinch. “In all my years caring for people I have never seen a woman more battered and bloodied than the day Miss Wilcox arrived on my doorstep in the middle of the night.”

The world tilted on its axis. Adam’s knees buckled beneath him, and he sought something, anything to grip onto to keep from falling to his knees. His hands found purchase on the back of a scarred wooden chair.

“It was done at her father’s hands.” Nurse Catherine continued to flay him with the truth. “She was brought here an honorable gentleman some months past.”

A loud humming filled his ears as he pieced together the woman’s words. The timing…the nobleman…

It had to have been after she’d freed him. Yes, it would see he had found his freedom that day, but Georgina had paid the ultimate price. He pressed the backs of his hands against his eyes to blot out the horror of imagining Georgina at the mercy of Fox and Hunter.

“Her ribs were fractured,” the nurse continued, her telling cold and methodical. “Her eyes so swollen she was unable to open them for more than a week.”

Adam struggled to swallow past a wave of emotion. Not for the first time, he wished Georgina’s father had lived so Adam could beat him with his bare fists. Pummel the bastard for the way he had abused his daughter. “Thank you for caring for her. I can never repay your kindness.” Such hollow words.

“It wasn’t kindness that drove me to help Georgina,” she snapped.

The muscles in his body went taut. That there had been another person there to help Georgina, when it should have been Adam protecting her, pricked at his heart.

“So I’ll ask you again. What do you want with Miss Wilcox?”

“I love her.”

I need her. I am nothing without her.

Nurse Catherine continued to study him, seeming to weight the veracity of his promise. “I will call her.” His heart leaped. She held up a finger. “I understand you are a powerful man and that you are of noble birth, but I will not let her leave this place unless she wishes it.”

Adam watched the woman as she rang for a servant. She asked for Georgina.

He waited.