But she gathered herself before his eyes, straightened her shoulders like a soldier preparing for battle. “How many times has my father sent someone to kill me?” she asked, her voice strong and clear.
How he wished she would meet his gaze. He longed to haul her atop him and embrace her, to somehow absorb from her all the pain and betrayal she felt and experience it for her so that she never knew another day of hardship or disappointment or hurt in her life. No one as good and sweet and kind as Georgie deserved to be so thoroughly misused.
“There were several attempts, according to Ludlow,” he admitted.
“How many?” Her husky alto held a note of steel that would not be ignored. She was harder than she appeared, and though she would bleed endlessly to protect her animals, she did not shy from being assertive and bold when it mattered most.
“There were five thwarted attempts in all.” Here was another revelation he wished not to have to unload. “Four before my arrival and one since.”
Georgie pursed her lips, fury dancing in her eyes. “Five times someone attempted to take my life, and yet no one thought to inform me?”
“Ludlow was here to defend you,” Kit hastened to remind her. “He thwarted the four attempts, and together we thwarted the fifth.”
Georgie’s pale cheeks flared to life with sudden color, her eyebrows lifting over her faultless forehead. “I do not give a fig if Ludlow was here. Or if the two of you joined forces to protect me from a fifth attempt. That is decidedly beside the point. I will not be protected and lied to. Why has no one seen fit to warn me? Why have you, my husband, not told me before tonight, just when you are readying yourself to leave me?”
He raised a placating hand. When she summarized it in such a fashion, he truly could not argue the point with her. “Georgie—”
“Do not dare to condescend to me now, Kit,” Georgie interrupted, fairly seething with the violence of her emotions. “If I need to defend myself, I wish to know it, damn you.”
“I will bloody well defend you!” The words burst from him, vibrating with anger, echoing in the chamber between them. They were laden with his regrets, filled with his fury for her father, rife with his need for vengeance. Dripping with the scorn he felt for himself for so thoroughly letting her down. “From this moment forward, I will be the one who defends you, damn it all. Not Ludlow, and certainly not you. I am your husband, and I will see to your safety. I will not stop until all threats to you are buried, and that is why I am going to New York.”
Georgie paled, the only outward sign that she understood that his words were not idle chatter. He fully intended to hunt down his enemies and remove the dangers they posed. However he deemed necessary. “Thank you for the sentiment, but I wish to defend myself as I am the only trustworthy person I know.”
The bitterness in her tone ate at his heart, especially after what they had just shared.
“Georgie, these are not empty sentiments. I mean what I say.” He caught her upper arms in a gentle grip, forcing her to face him. “I wish to protect you. I pledge to you now that I will go to my grave fighting for you if I must. You need not ever fear again. I was hoping it would not come to this, but I am a man of action, and your sire is a problem that needs to be solved just as much as the Fenians.”
“Then listen to me when I tell you I am capable of defending myself,” she said, her tone unwavering. “What if the person responsible for the attacks on me is the same person who orchestrated your downfall in New York?”
She wasn’t wrong in arriving at such a conclusion, but the truth of it was that there wasn’t a shred of evidence to suggest the two events were connected in any way. “You mean to suggest that your father also somehow orchestrated the ambush in New York that left me and my Fenian double agent grievously wounded?”
It was an intriguing theory.
But it was also precisely that—a theory. A flotsam and jetsam proposed out of nowhere but the recesses of her creative mind, with no fact to support it whatsoever.
She nodded, a new light entering her eyes, and she didn’t look at all vanquished now. She was bright-gazed and determined. “That is precisely what I mean to say.”
“Impossible,” he countered instantly. “Think of what you’re suggesting. How the hell would your father have an inkling that I was an agent for the Crown?”
Georgie went silent for a beat. “I suppose that would be too tidy, wouldn’t it? Perhaps I merely wish to solve all our problems with one finite solution.”
He caught her chin in a tender grip, tipping her face up. God, she was so lovely, so beloved. He did not know how he would have the strength to walk away from her. “I will solve our problems.”
Being his intractable wife, she stiffened, balking at entrusting her future and safety to him. “Listen to me, love. You have the entire heft of the League here to protect you in my absence. I will personally ensure that no harm will ever befall you again, as long as I live and breathe.”
She tensed, her eyes widening at the last words he had spoken. He could have cursed himself for saying it aloud, but there was a possibility, however small, that he would not return to her. He could not protect her from the grave, but he had made damn sure that everyone he trusted—and even the bloody not-butler himself—would look after Georgie in not only his absence but in the event of his demise as well.
“You say that as if you will not return to me,” she whispered, her eyes luminous and searching upon his.
He could not look away. “Life is a game of chance, Georgie love. But you can be sure that even when I am not here, those I trust will look after you and see that you are well protected.”
Her expression was stricken, and it plucked at his heart. “I ought to be angry with you now for keeping such a thing from me.”
“I did not wish to upset you until I myself was certain of the particulars, and I still cannot be sure. I have many pieces of a puzzle, and not all seem to fit,” he admitted. “All I do know is that I will do anything in my power to protect you. I love you, Georgie, and I will cross an ocean for you a hundred times over, fall to my knees, bow my head, fight to the death…anything that is required of me to see you safe.”
Her face crumpled, tears welling in her bright-emerald gaze as she caressed his face. “Are you sure you must leave me?”
He swallowed against a wave of emotion, tamped it down, down, down where it belonged. For he did not want this departure any more than she did, and leaving her behind, thousands of miles between them, entrusting her safety to the hands of others…it was something he almost could not bear. His sole motivating force was the fact that he needed to uncover the truth and keep her safe, and leaving her was the only way he knew how to accomplish that monumental but necessary feat.
“I am afraid I must,” he said quietly, pressing his mouth to hers once, twice, three times. God, he could not—could never—get enough of her sweet lips. “Never doubt my love for you, Georgie. I will return. One way or another, I will come back to you, and I will end the threats against you. I will not stop until you are safe.”
Her hand slipped between them, her fingers curling around his length. It did not take even half a breath for him to harden beneath her tentative touch as she gripped and stroked.
“If you must leave me,” she murmured, “then the least you can do is make up for the time I will be without you.”
In one swift move, he caught her against him and rolled her to her back, pinning her delectable body beneath his. This was what he needed, to lose himself inside her. To love her. His cock was ready, poised at her cunny. His fingers dipped into her folds, and she was wet. Dripping. For him.
Fuck yes.
He kissed her, sank his tongue into the silken depths of her mouth, and sank home inside her once more. This would have to last. This brand of her skin upon his, the hot, tight sensation of her pussy welcoming him, would have to carry him through the darkest days facing him.
And he would have to do whatever it took to prot
ect her.
To save her.
Hell, who was he kidding? To save them both.
Just before dawn, Georgiana awoke, jolted from slumber by a nightmare in which she watched Kit sailing away from her on a ship that began to sink into the ocean. No matter how hard she called out for him or how desperately she tried to reach him, he never looked back at her. He simply kept disappearing into the seas, until the dark waters swallowed him.
When she reached across the bed to find his comforting presence, to reassure herself that it had all been but a terrifying dream, her hand connected with cool, rumpled bedclothes.
Kit was gone.
Five days later, Ludlow showed her a ring that had been secreted upon the person of a man who had been behind the last attempt on her life. It belonged to her stepmother, given to her by Georgiana’s father, and was unmistakable, with a distinctive diamond and ruby cluster and an engraving on the interior of the band.
For my darling Josephine.
In that moment, Georgie knew she had been right and yet so very wrong at the same time.
She stared at Ludlow, her mind made. “I’m going to New York, and you cannot stop me.”
He inclined his head. “I would not dream of stopping you, Your Grace, but I can certainly accompany you.”
New York City
bloody week.
That was the length of time it had taken Kit to locate Mrs. Robert Dumont. It was the interminable span of time since he’d left his sleeping wife’s bed in London to begin his journey across the Atlantic. It was how long it had been since he’d seen her beautiful face, fallen into the depths of her emerald eyes, the time since he had last kissed her sweet lips and lost himself inside her delectable body. The time since he had told her he loved her and now.
After finally finding Georgiana’s stepmother, the next increment of time he measured his life by was six bloody hours.
That was the length of time Kit had been locked inside a darkened room, tied flat on his back to a table with such tight, precise knots that escape was impossible and his hands and feet were numb. He could tell how many hours had passed thanks to the dependable ticks of his pocket watch, audible in the eerie silence of his current tomb.
After he’d awoke with a throbbing head thanks to the unseen bastard who had clobbered him from behind in the nondescript brownstone where he’d unexpectedly discovered his quarry, he’d had a great deal of time to ponder such vagaries as time.
And life.
And death.
He’d survived many missions over the years as an agent for the Crown. But this one was the one that mattered most. Of the myriad League missions spanning the years, the outcome of this mission was paramount.
If he failed, he failed Georgie.
Georgie.
Sweet, intelligent, fierce, lovely, kindhearted Georgie.
On his passage to New York, he had studied all the information available to him, examining the evidence from every angle, and he had come to a staggering conclusion. His wife was correct.
What if the person responsible for the attacks on me is the same person who orchestrated your downfall in New York? she had asked, and at the time, both of their minds had been focused on her father. As his ship crossed the restless sea, the final, niggling piece of the puzzle had fallen within his grasp.
The answer was in the lad’s revelation about the man who’d hired him to murder Georgie in her bed. That ‘e worked for a rich bird, and she were in love wiff ‘im.
At the time, he’d thought it perplexing. Or that perhaps either the lad or the man who’d hired him had been prevaricating. Perhaps even that there was an intermediary involved. When all signs had pointed to Georgie’s father, it had been a part of the tale that had been easy to overlook. But as he’d read and reread the love letters Ludlow had plucked from the dead man’s pocket, he’d discovered it held coded secrets.
And it had struck him with frightening certainty that there was one woman in Georgie’s life who would wish her ill. One woman who had written to her lover in London that she was poisoning her husband, that she had secreted away the funds he would need for his cause, that removing the Duke and Duchess of Leeds for good was the final solution to all their problems.
That person and the author of the letter were one and the same. Her stepmother.
A door creaked open. The dank room was suddenly illuminated by a shaft of light as a figure entered, bearing a lantern. Booted feet approached.
“And what have we here?” the man asked, a slight brogue lilting his words. “Could it be the mighty Duke of Leeds, Her Majesty’s Spy?”
Kit clenched his jaw. His hours in the darkness had also give him time to prepare his response, or lack thereof. He was ready now. Nothing would make him bend. He maintained his silence, making his face an expressionless mask.
“Nothing to say for yourself?” The man stopped not a pace away, placing the lantern on a table.
Though he ought not to have been surprised, a tremor of shock coursed through him before he could tamp it down. It was his informant, the bastard who had led him to his ambush. Cold rage threatened to overpower his control, but he fought it back.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “I know who you are. But do you know who I am, Your High and Mighty Grace?”
Kit maintained his silence. There was only a finite number of reasons for him to be strapped to a bloody table, and none of them were good. He refused to believe that he had at last managed to land himself in the one scrape from which there would be no extrication. But it seemed increasingly likely by the moment.
When he had swept the brownstone, he had not expected to find it occupied. His sources had reported that the woman, who had rented the home with cash and had introduced herself as a widow by the name of Mrs. Montford, had not been seen for several days. His shock at finding her within had been eclipsed only by the blow he’d promptly taken to the head.
He’d been careless and foolish, and now he would pay the price.
“My brother was murdered in a London alley by a duke and a giant. At least, that’s what a little birdie told me.” The man’s lip curled. “You wouldn’t happen to know aught about that, would you?”
Bloody hell. What had the bastard done to the lad to make him sing?
“I didn’t think you’d want to talk just yet.” The man’s tone was patronizing, but it held a steely edge of violence. This was personal. “Fear not, Your High and Mightiness, I have some encouragement of the liquid variety right here.”
He lifted a pitcher above Kit’s face, angling the spout directly over his nose and mouth. Oh, hell. The water sluiced over him gently at first, with calm aim. He thrashed his head from side to side, held his breath, but a bound man could only defend himself so much against a madman with a vendetta. The son-of-a-bitch meant to drown him.
Slowly.
He inhaled water, choked for breath. And from somewhere within the house, a strange sound echoed, reaching his ears. Very strange indeed, for it sounded like…dogs barking.
The passage back across the Atlantic in a steamship, regardless of how ornate her accommodations and how luxurious the dining saloon, how sumptuous the fare or how elegant her stateroom, had not been a pleasant voyage for Georgiana. She spent it in turmoil, trapped in a paralyzing fear that she and Ludlow would arrive too late.
And they may have still arrived too late. She could only hope that their madcap plan would work.
With the aid of the Duke of Carlisle and his shadowy network of agents for the Crown, they had located the whereabouts of one Josephine Dumont, currently traveling under the name of Josephine Montford.
As Georgie awaited the signal from Ludlow, she prayed that Kit had not been harmed. The Duke of Carlisle had lost contact with him two days ago, and no one knew where he could be found. If indeed he could be found at all.
No, she refused to think it.
There was only one resolution she would accept. Only one she would consider. He would be found, and he woul
d be safe, and she would drag him back to London where Lady would gleefully cover him in white fur and they would live the rest of their days in love and happiness, surrounded by her rescues.
From his position across the street, Ludlow gave a jerky nod at last. Georgiana set her knuckles to the door and rapped with all her might. Predictably, no one came to the door. She knocked harder, announcing herself. She needed to gain entry and distract her stepmother so the police could surround the home without further endangering anyone inside.
“Josephine, I know you are within. It is Georgiana.” She knocked louder. “Josephine! Please, I must speak with you.”
The door wrenched open, and there, at last, was her stepmother. She did not resemble the bright-eyed, elegantly dressed woman Georgiana had last seen before her father and stepmother’s departure for New York. Instead, her brown hair was shot with gray streaks. Dull purple bruises marked the skin beneath her eyes, suggesting a lack of sleep, and her woolen dress was gray and unremarkable, her expression pinched.
Her lip curled. “How did you find me here?”
“I went to the Fifth Avenue House, Josephine,” she lied. “I was looking for my father, but all I found instead was a home stripped of all valuables. I hired a Pinkerton detective, and he led me here to you.”
Her stepmother’s eyes narrowed. “Your father is dead. He made beggars of us by gambling away everything we had, and now I am left with nothing but this roof over my head, secured with the measly funds I could secret before his creditors swooped in like vultures to claim it all.
Georgiana pressed a hand to her thudding heart. Though she had not shared a loving relationship with her father, learning of his death upon reaching New York had been a shock. My father is dead because you killed him, she longed to say, knowing it was the truth. Every word from your lips is a despicable lie. But she had to trod carefully, to perform as if she were an actress born to the stage. Everything depended upon it. She had to find Kit, and time was running low. “Josephine, I am so sorry. Perhaps I can help. May I come inside?”
Her Deceptive Duke (Wicked Husbands Book 4) Page 28