Romancing the Rogue (107 page)

Georgina poured water into a glass and handed it to the young woman, Madeline. When she’d arrived back at Bristol Hospital asking Nurse Catherine for work, the woman hadn’t hesitated. She’d even found a home and lot for Georgina.

“Here, sit up.” Georgina gently guided the woman forward and held the drink to her lips.

The woman took several sips before settling back into the bed. “You are an angel, Miss Wilcox.”

Georgina winced. “I’m no angel.”

I’m just a woman, flawed and imperfect.

“Are you Eve?”

Adam’s taunting whisper curled around her brain, the memory of their first meeting as clear as a clean Bristol sky.

“Miss, are you all right?”

She gave her head a clearing shake. “Forgive me,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“Miss Wilcox?”

Georgina jumped at the unexpected intrusion, and she scrambled to her feet. “Yes?”

The young maid, Jane, smiled. “Nurse Catherine has requested your presence in her office.”

Her heart raced. Georgina lived in constant fear that one day Catherine would find Georgina guilty for the crimes of her father and toss her from Bristol Hospital. Then Georgina would be well and truly lost.

Jane cleared her throat and Georgina started. “She just said it was an urgent matter, miss.”

Oh God, an urgent matter. While Georgina made the long trek to Nurse Catherine’s office, she told herself it could be anything or nothing at all but the worst possible scenarios played out in her head.

The young maid scurried off.

Georgina leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, willing away memories of Adam though they refused to stay buried. He was everywhere. There was no escaping him.

She knocked on the door.

“Enter,” the woman called.

Georgina opened the door, but hesitated at the threshold. “You wished to see me?”

She gestured her forward. “My dear, there is someone who requested an audience with you.”

She furrowed her brow. The only people who would ever have a need for her were Father and Jamie—and they were both dead.

“Hello, Georgina.” That deep baritone that haunted both her dreams and nightmares filled the room.

She spun around, and her hand flew to her breast.

Adam!

In her darkest moments she imagined he’d forgotten about her. She’d tortured herself with the truth—he’d surely not thought of her. Only he was here now. Her mind went blank and she searched for words. “Adam.”
Why are you here?

An indecipherable look passed over her face.

Odd, she should know him so very well and yet he may as well be carved from stone for the stiffness to him.

She wet her lips. “Why you here?” Then a niggling of fear pebbled in her belly. Gooseflesh dotted her skin at the sickening possibility that he’d come for no other reason that to retrieve her, to bring her to justice, to…She took a step back, toward the door.

He stretched a hand out. “Don’t go,” he said hoarsely. “Please.”

Please. This man who’d endured countless days of torture at her father and Jamie’s hands had never pleaded once. Now he would beg her. To what end.

Georgina nodded once.

“May I speak to my wife alone?” he said quietly.

Georgina’s lips twisted. “I’m not your wife.” He’d not wanted her. She hated the inherent weakness in her that the pain of his betrayal should still ravage her heart.

He closed the distance between them. He stopped a hairsbreadth apart from her. “You are my wife, and I’d like to speak to you alone.”

Catherine interjected. “If Georgina will not speak to you, I will have to insist you leave, sir. I merely allowed this extraordinary meeting because I believed you were her husband. However—”

“I’ll speak to him,” Georgina said. She looked back to Adam. “I’ll speak to you, but when you are finished you must leave.”

He hesitated and then gave a curt nod.

Nurse Catherine walked toward the front of the room but paused at the doorway. “If you require anything, Georgina…” She closed the door behind her with a soft click. The meaning was clear. If he were to harm her, Georgina need just call out and help would be there.

Adam would never lay a hand on her. He’d inflicted a different kind of pain
—
the kind which would never go away.

“What do you want, Adam?” She didn’t allow herself to look up his towering, lithe form. His moss-green eyes could weaken a woman’s resolve, and Georgina was not willing or able to turn herself back over to him. He’d hurt her too greatly, and she feared if she welcomed him back into her life she would always be on a steep cliff that she could teeter over at any moment. She wasn’t strong enough to survive another fall—not at his hands.

Adam brushed her jawline with his fingertips. He directed her chin up. Warm shivers radiated out from the point of his touch.

She closed her eyes, hating her body’s awareness of him, hating herself for her weakness.

“Look at me,” he ordered.

She bit the inside of her cheek. “Why are you here?” she tossed back.

Framing her face between his hands, he lowered his brow to hers. “I have thought of you and nothing else since you walked out of my life. I lied awake and imagined what I would say to you if I ever found you again, and now you are here, and I am remarkably without words.” He drew in a shuddery breath. “Nothing I can say would be adequate to convey how sorry I am—”

Georgina shoved his hands off her person. Was that was this was about? His sense of remorse? She spun away from him. “If you’ve come to apologize, there is no need. We were both wrong. I was wrong to lie to you and…”

You were wrong to believe the absolute worst of me. You were wrong to abandon me with Jamie
.

Folding her arms beneath her stomach, she hugged herself tight.

~~~~

Adam rested his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him.

She shrugged him off and proceeded to speak. “I do not know for what purpose you’ve come. I’ve already told you the reasons for my lies.”

“I know—”

Georgina glared him into silence. “You asked why I lied to you about my father and yet your treatment of me from the moment you discovered the truth, confirmed the need for my deception.” She shook her head sadly. “It is as I said, you would have only seen Fox’s daughter and…what was it you called me? Hunter’s whore?”

Adam jerked as though he’d been run through with a blade. His throat worked. Hunter’s mistress. He’d called her Hunter’s mistress. Mistress. Whore. She was right. It was all the same. He’d debased her with his words and tone. His neck heated with shame.

Georgina continued, either unaware or uncaring of his own tortured thoughts. “In the beginning, I painted a world of make-believe for myself as much as for you. It was easier to share a world with you where I was the loved and cherished daughter of two honorable people, rather than the useless daughter of a man who loathed me.”

Ah God, he needed her to stop talking. He would forever bear the nightmares of his short time in captivity and yet his brave, courageous Georgina had lived her whole life in such a state. He held his palms up. “I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t,” she scoffed. “Would you rather I showed you my scars?” She held her right hand up and displayed the white scar between her thumb and forefinger. “Should I have told you how my father stabbed me with a fork?”

His heart cracked. He wanted to clamp his hands over his ears and drown her words out. “No!” Nausea burned in his belly at the hell she’d endured.

“Would you have rather I told you that when I ran off chasing rainbows, my father had a servant fetch me then proceeded to beat me for my foolishness?”

He sucked in a shuddering breath. “Oh God, Georgina.” His words were an entreaty. He tried to gather her into his arms but she shrugged free of him.

“There is nothing more for either of us to say or do, except move on.”

He growled. His cloak snapped angrily at the alacrity of his movement. “I cannot live without you.”

She smiled back at him sadly. “At one time, I would have given anything and everything to hear you utter those words. Now it is too late. There is too much for us to overcome.” He reached for her, but she held up a staying hand. “You never wanted to marry me. Your one and only love is Grace. You married me out of a sense of obligation, and that obligation is the only reason you’re here.”

His patience snapped. “Do not presume to know what brings me here, love.” He’d not thought of Grace since the last he’d seen her on the balustrade and had his needed good-bye. “I’m here to tell you what I should have told you a long time ago. I love you, Georgina Patience Wilcox, and I’m asking you to marry me. Again.” He dropped to a single knee and withdrew the signet ring from the front of his jacket pocket.

Georgina gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth. Hope soared in his chest and he allowed himself to believe for an infinitesimal moment she intended to capitulate and accept his unworthy hand.

Then her glance slid away. “I lied to you about something else, Adam.”

He froze.

“I once told you that I didn’t dream, but that was a lie. I did dream. I used to dream there would be a man who would fall in love with me.” Her lips turned up in a heartbreaking smile. “In my dreams, I would be a mother to these incredibly plump, angelic babies with rounded cheeks and sweet giggles.”

He was lost in the dream of those children. He wanted those babies. He wanted them with her. Only her.

“Let me give you—”

Grace touched her fingers to his lips. “I spent the past three months warring between anger for your total lack of faith in me and my love for you.” She sucked in an audible breath. You broke my heart, Adam.” Those words were flat. Matter-of-fact. You ruined that dream beyond repair. I can’t marry you.”

Adam surged to his feet. “No,” he barked. Determination coursed through him. He had not found her only to lose her. Not again. Fate had already separated them too many times. “You can.”

You have to, because I am nothing without you. I am an empty shell of a man when you’re not near.

She shook her head, dislodging a single strand of chocolate brown hair. “As much as I love you, I cannot wed you.

He didn’t move.

Georgina brushed the loose curl behind her ear. “There are too many lies. You’d never truly be able to forgive me for being your captor’s daughter, and I would always be waiting for you to realize you couldn’t stay married to me. It’s easier this way.”

A muscle ticked at the corner of his mouth. “You’re wrong. It doesn’t matter to me who your father is. I thought it mattered, but it doesn’t.” And it didn’t. He’d only just fully realized that now.

Tears filled her eyes. A fat, lone tear trailed down her cheek. It was followed by another, and another. She swatted at them as though embarrassed of the show of emotion. “Please go,” she begged.

Adam’s jaw flexed. She thought he would leave and never look back. But then, he’d never given her much reason to believe in his constancy. He gave a curt nod and walked stiffly to the doorway.

~~~~

Georgina watched him go and wanted to plead with him to forget every foolish word she’d just uttered.

He looked at her once more before he left. “This is not over, Georgina Markham.”

Her legs gave out beneath her, and she wilted to the floor like a dying flower. A spark of gold caught her eye, and she reached for the signet Adam had left behind.

She knew Adam leaving was for the best, but she could not keep herself from wanting him. She would always love him.

Georgina buried her face in her hands and wept.

Georgina went through her morning ablutions. The sun glared into her small chambers, bright and unforgiving. She stole a glance at her reflection in the bevel mirror. She barely recognized the wan creature with dark circles under her eyes in an uncharacteristically pale face. Following Adam’s swift exit the previous afternoon, she’d been unable to sleep or think. He occupied her every thought.

In the dead of night, she’d lain awake staring up at the small crack across the ceiling, Fool, fool, fool. She’d sent him away. How many hours of how many days had she dreamed of Adam loving her, loving her even with knowing about her connection to the Fox and Hunter? Her pride, her fear of being hurt again by Adam had driven her motives.

She pinched her cheeks hard, trying to send some blood flowing through her white skin. Her efforts proved futile.

Georgina opened the door and stopped.

A simple sketch hung on the wall. She walked up to it, studying
—
she squinted
—
what appeared to be a meal of roast chicken and potatoes.

Georgina walked down the hall until she came upon another drawing. This one of Bristol Hospital’s front façade.

She continued and found sketch after sketch: a woman’s hands, a songbird…
a woman. Her breath caught. Georgina drew to a halt, her gaze riveted to her own image. It was a rendering of Adam’s cell, with her kneeling beside his chair, rubbing his wrists. She yanked it from the wall. Her heart raced as she studied the picture.

Nurse Catherine appeared. She looked at the page clutched in Georgina’s fingers. “It is very odd, you know. There are these sketches throughout the hospital. Perhaps you should follow them and see where they lead.”

Georgina angled her head.

The kindly older woman gestured down the long hall and Georgina continued walking. The sketches were everywhere. There was the moment Adam had twirled her around his prison cell, forever memorialized in charcoal. That scene gave way to his ballroom when he’d danced her around, with Tony laughing on the sidelines.

The images led her all the way to the foyer.

She stumbled to a halt. A vibrant rainbow had been painted on the white wall above the hospital’s entrance. Periwinkles, daisies, and pale peach and pink roses lay scattered on the floor, beneath the painting. Standing amidst the blooms, peppermint in hand, stood Adam.

Her throat worked. “What are you—?”

“I thought long and hard about what you said. I thought about when I fell in love with you and realized it was a collection of moments. From the moment I first met you, you began to work your way into my heart. Your place there grew and grew, and now…” He held his hands up. “Now you fill all of me. Heart, mind, and soul. I am nothing without you. A time long ago, Georgina, you went chasing rainbows. All these years, I was the one waiting at the other end. I know I’m not much of a treasure, but I love you. I know I’ve wronged you, but—”

“Be quiet,” Georgina rasped. She buried her fist against her mouth, attempting to stifle a sob.

Adam’s hand fell quivering to his side, the children’s treats tumbled to the floor.

“I love you,” she choked out. She ran the remaining distance between them and launched herself into his arms. Adam wrapped his arms around her.

He pressed his lips hard against her temple. “Marry me. I will spend the rest of my life making amends, Georgina.”

Her tears fell unchecked down her cheeks. She pulled back slightly and, leaning up on tiptoe, passed her gaze over his face. “I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life making amends. I want you to spend it simply loving me.”

A glimmer lit his moss green eyes. Adam smiled. “Forever, Georgina. I promise you, forever.”