by Kim Bowman
The front doors were thrown open before they’d reached the top step. “We need a doctor,” Aubrey instructed the stoic butler as they sailed through the entranceway. The aged servant gave no indication that there was anything untoward about bloodstained men carrying an unconscious woman into the duke’s home. “And then we need warm water and strips of cloth.”
The butler nodded and hurried off.
Adam followed Aubrey up the stairs and into an empty chamber. For the first time since he’d exited the carriage, Adam allowed himself to look down at Georgina. His heart fell.
She’s dead. Adam hung onto her limp frame.
“Hand her to me,” Aubrey said.
Adam’s chest seized and his legs crumpled beneath him. The other man rescued Georgina before Adam carried her to the floor with him. The duke laid her down on the floral coverlet.
“She’s dead,” Adam said, his voice hollow.
Aubrey shoved back the sticky, wet fabric of Georgina’s modest gown. He pressed his fingers to her chest. “She is alive,” he said quietly.
“But for how long?” Adam rasped.
Everything unfolded in a blurry haze. The doctor came and attended to Georgina. He shook his head, and Adam tossed him physically from the room.
Another doctor came with the same grim pronouncement — Georgina had shed too much blood.
This time Aubrey ushered the man out before Adam got to the old doctor.
The third doctor came; a tall, young, non-descript fellow. He examined Georgina.
Adam sat at the edge of a chair beside her bed. “Can you save her?” he asked hoarsely.
The doctor studied the front of her shoulder. Then the back. “I’ll not lie to you. Her condition is dire,” he said bluntly. His mouth set in a firm line. “I’ll do everything I can to save her.”
For three days, the doctor did just that. When fever set in and Georgina’s body shook from chills he laid cold compresses on her wrists, her ankles, her brow. Through it all, Georgina writhed and screamed.
Then the nightmares came, and Adam tortured himself with his wife’s plaintive whimpers. Her head tossed and turned as she battled the demons in her sleep. At those times, the only thing he could do was crawl into bed beside her and wrap his body around her until she eventually stilled.
He lay beside her, head propped up on his elbow, and simply studied her. Memories poured over him like a gentle rain.
“Are you Eve?”
She angled her head. “My name is Georgina.”
Adam touched his lips to Georgina’s sweat-dampened temple. The eerie pall of silence punctured by her harsh breathing served as a bleak reminder that if she didn’t awaken soon she most likely never would. He drew in a shuddery breath, willing her to hear him, needing her to come back to him.
“There are so many things I want to say to you, things I want to do and see with you. I want to dance with you in the moonlight until your cheeks were flush with color.” He caught a long, curled tendril and rubbed it between his fingers. “I want to sit with you in the still of the night until the sun comes up.” His throat worked. “And I want to have a family with you. I want to have feisty daughters with your heart and spirit and my… No. I don’t want them to have any part of me, Georgina. I want them to be just like their mother.”
Adam spoke until his throat was hoarse and still the words kept coming. “My beautiful, perfect Georgina. You’ve known so little happiness. If you come back to me, I will spend the rest of my days filling your life with joy.” He lowered his brow to hers, rubbing it back and forth. He would send the remainder of his life endeavoring to deserve her. There were so many wrongs that could never be forgiven.
He directed his gaze to the ceiling. “Please let her live. If you let her live, I will be anything and everything you want me to be. Just let her live.”
There was no lightning from above. Adam curled into a ball at his wife’s side and sobbed. Great, big gasping breaths tore from his chest.
“I don’t want to live without you.”
He wept until his lungs burned, and only when he couldn’t cry anymore did he sleep.
~~~~
Georgina struggled to open her eyes and when she did, promptly closed them against the sun streaming through the window.
When she’d been given her first horse some years ago, she’d taken a tumble off the beautiful creature. Her arms and torso had bore nasty greenish-blue bruises for the hard fall she’d taken. Her body felt much as it had that long ago day.
What happened?
She forced her eyes open once more and made a move to push herself up on her elbows. Her shoulder screamed in protest, and a wave of agony robbed her of breath. Georgina fell back against the pillow.
Father.
Jamie.
…Adam had walked out on her.
In the span of moments, she’d lost every single person in her life. She closed her eyes, revisiting the scenes from the warehouse.
Jamie saved me. He killed Father.
Her heart tightened painfully. She struggled to recall the events that had transpired after she’d placed herself between the bullet Jamie had intended for him.
Only then did she become aware of the tall, muscular figure pressed against her side.
She froze. Her heart flipped over. Her husband.
A bitter smile played about her lips as she remembered her father’s damning revelation. Adam wasn’t really her husband.
In sleep, the hard lines around his mouth had relaxed. A stray golden lock hung over his eye, and she ached to brush it back. She wanted to remember him like this forever, for in this moment they might have been any couple in love, sleeping peacefully in their bed, wrapped in each other’s arms. She wanted this moment before she forced herself to accept the truth. Adam had never loved her.
Life had reminded Georgina what she’d deluded herself into forgetting… dreams did not exist.
Adam’s eyes flickered open and closed. Then popped open.
“Georgina!” he gasped. He lurched upright.
The sudden movement sent a lightning-quick pain up her arm.
He scrambled to his knees. “Forgive me. Are you—?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine.” Except she wasn’t. She didn’t understand why he occupied the spot beside her.
She scanned the foreign surroundings and struggled to place her location. “Where am I?”
“The Duke of Aubrey has a townhouse on the outskirts of London.” Adam ran a solemn gaze over her face.
She struggled for some hint of affection but his face was set in a stoic mask. Silly ninny. Adam didn’t care for her. He’d made it abundantly clear on Lord Ashton’s terrace how little she meant to him, and in the warehouse…she’d never be able to forget how easily he’d walked out on her.
“You shouldn’t be here.” She squeezed the words out through dry lips. “We aren’t even married.” No, he’d made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want to be wed to her.
Adam’s face contorted. “I don’t care about that. I told you the day…” He faltered. “The day you were shot I would wed you again.”
She looked away as an internal battle waged inside her. The foolish part of her wanted to accept that which he offered and go on pretending she was the cherished wife of a man who’d nearly been killed by her father. Except…
She’d been foolish for too long. She would not allow him to wed her out of a misbegotten sense of guilt. “No.” Her one word response blared in the silence of the room. Nor could she wed a man who’d believed so ill of her. Even if she had given him earlier grounds to do so. There was too much they could not recover from.
A pained sound rumbled from Adam’s chest. “You don’t…” He seemed to be searching for words. “No,” he repeated back. “You said no,” he said more to himself. Adam sucked in an audible breath. “For days I considered what I might say to you. I would tell you how unworthy I am of you and your love.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I would beg y
our forgiveness. There is nothing to say. Nothing but, please forgive me.”
Adam would do anything for her — but out of guilt. He wore it etched in the tired lines of his rugged cheekbones and the sad twist of his lips.
She could not trap him — not when fate had freed him.
When fate had freed the both of them.
No. There were only three words that he could give her. Three words Adam would never utter. Not to her. Not when there was beautiful Grace, who had the added advantage of not being the daughter of a traitor.
So she said nothing but, “I need to rest, Adam.”
Adam cleared his throat and stood. “Of course, of course.” He reached a hand to her and she turned on her side. “We will talk about this later,” he said quietly.
There was nothing left to say.
~~~~
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.
Chapter 29
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 a
sked 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.