My Lady of Deception

by Christi Caldwell

  “Grace is married.”

  Grace. Her name somehow made her all the more real. Bitterness, as sharp as acid, burned the back of her throat. What remained of her heart cracked into a million shards, jabbing at her insides until she wanted to twist and writhe to escape the pain of losing him—but then, he’d never been hers to lose.

  “Congratulations.” She didn’t know how she managed those words. Not when she wanted to hiss and snarl like a wounded cat. There was no way Grace could possibly love him like Georgina did.

  “If I ever see her, I’ll be sure to pass along your felicitations.” His response was dry as leaves in winter.

  She spun around.

  “She is married,” he held his palms up, “just not to me.”

  All the air left Georgina on a whoosh. His Grace had married another? The woman must be as mad as a hatter.

  With the sketches he’d made of his love, it had been clear that Grace had been the light that sustained him through his captivity. The foolish, foolish woman. “Oh, Adam,” she murmured. “I am so very sorry.” Georgina should find happiness in knowing the woman had wed another. How odd to find she was not so very selfish. She would embrace the agony of unrequited love if it meant Adams’s happiness. After what he’d endured—at her father’s hands—he deserved nothing less.

  He clasped his hands together and stared down at them. “Apparently I was gone too long.”

  Needles of guilt pricked at her. Adam’s captivity had cost him the woman he loved. She hated her father, and herself, all over again.

  “I should have freed you sooner. If I had…”

  He closed the distance between them in three long strides and pressed a finger to her lips, silencing her. “I didn’t lose Grace because of you.”

  She moved his hand. “That doesn’t make it all right, Adam. It is because of…of them that you lost her. I could have helped you. I could have made sure you got back before…” Beautiful Grace married some other man. Georgina didn’t finish. She imagined those words would be too painful for him.

  He rested his palms on the door, framing her between his arms. “Lovely, lovely Georgina,” he murmured.

  Then he did what she’d longed for him to do since she’d spied him across the ward. He kissed her. The crown of her head. The tip of her nose. On her closed eyes. She waited, breath held, until he claimed her lips with his in a moment so fleeting, Georgina wondered if she’d imagined it.

  “You worry about everyone else. Do you ever think of yourself?”

  If he knew the depth of her betrayal, he’d know that all she’d worried about her entire life was her own safety, her own comfort. “I’m not good, Adam.” She was as tainted as a witch’s black mark. Her continued deception only proved as much.

  The green of his eyes sparkled. He cupped her cheek in his palm. “Dearest Georgina, I have lain awake so many nights thinking about you. Worrying about you.” His hand clenched reflexively on her flesh. “The day I was freed, I nearly went mad knowing I’d left you there.” A tick in the corner of his mouth made his skin twitch. He leaned down, his breath caressing her skin. “Did they hurt you?”

  Georgina hesitated. A feral gleam glowed within his eyes and she knew. If she told him about what she’d endured that day, he’d hunt her father down and kill him. She could not let Adam risk his life. Not for her.

  So she lied. “No. They didn’t hurt me.”

  His eyes slid closed and a prayer escaped him on a whispering sigh. “I thought…”

  She touched her fingers to his chest. His heart thumped fast and true against her palm. “They didn’t hurt me,” she assured him. There were so many lies, sometimes she felt she was slogging through a quagmire of deception.

  If this brings him peace, what is one more falsity to the hundred others?

  There was a faint scratching at the door. “Mr. Markham?”

  Oh God, Nurse Talbert.

  “Your brother, that is, the Earl of Whitehaven has arrived.”

  Georgina scooted out from under the bridge of his arms. Nurse Talbert’s voice grated like fingernails being scraped across a windowpane. She clamped her hand over her ears, trying to blot out the sound.

  Nurse Talbert would sack her. She tried sucking breath into her constricted lungs. It felt like someone had dragged her below water and was holding on to her feet, as she was seized by the same desperation she’d felt in Bristol after her father had beat her and left her for dead. Then the woman’s words registered.

  “The earl?” She swung confused eyes to Adam and her stomach dipped. “Your brother is an earl.” And she was a traitor’s daughter.

  Adam called out to her. “Georgina, it will be all right.”

  Even his tender concern couldn’t drag her from the dark abyss. She was sinking. Deeper. Deeper. Soon she’d disappear, forever gone. A panicky laugh bubbled up from her throat. Disappearing was the preferable option to being discovered with Adam here.

  Her gaze scoured the room for escape. It landed on a solitary window. She squinted.

  Is there a tree out there?

  Someone jiggled the door handle. “Open this door.” It was a man. The clipped tones indicated it was a man of some power. An earl. Adam’s brother. Oh, God.

  Georgina could only assume the voice belonged to the Earl of Whitehaven, a mythical beast she’d rather not face. Austere, regal, and polished, he was everything Georgina was not.

  She looked to Adam for help. His lips were turned up, revealing even, pearl-white teeth. “How can you be smiling?” she choked out.

  “My brother is going to be furious.”

  Georgina dropped her head into her palms. Bloody perfect. She was going to have to contend with an austere, regal, polished nobleman who also happened to be furious. Being thrown out in the streets without a reference seemed the more palatable option. Almost.

  The earl murmured something to Nurse Talbert, the words indecipherable through the door.

  He tried the handle again.

  Adam went to open it.

  Georgina gasped and flew across the room, her pale white skirts fluttering about her. She reached him before he turned the lock. “What are you doing?”

  Adam’s lips twitched. “I assure you, Georgina, we will have to face him eventually.”

  How could he possibly find anything humorous about their situation? The wheels of her mind spun. Surely there was something—

  “Adam, the door.”

  She jumped as Adam allowed the Earl of Whitehaven entrance.

  Adam’s lips formed a rusty smile as he greeted the earl. “Hullo, brother.”

  If looks could shoot fire, Adam would’ve been nothing more than a pile of ash at the earl’s feet. “What is the meaning of this? When I said you needed a diversion, this is most certainly not what I had intended.” His blue eyes, sparkling with fury, did a quick survey of Georgina. He returned his attention to Adam. “I was called from my board meeting by the head nurse, who informed me that you had abducted one of her…”

  “I’d hardly call it abducting,” Adam drawled.

  The tight, drawn lines around the earl’s mouth indicted that he didn’t care to debate the merits of word choice. He arched a perfectly “earlish” brow.

  Her stomach curled in knots. The Earl of Whitehaven chose that moment to glance her way. His upper lip curled back as he looked down his aristocratic nose at her.

  Georgina inched away from Adam, who shifted his attention to the earl.

  Georgina saw her chance and took it. She pulled the door open and flew down the hall as though the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels. She might actually prefer those sharp-toothed dogs to the condemnation she’d seen in the earl’s eyes.

  By the time the thick fog of confusion had lifted, Georgina was gone. His heart threatened to pound a hole out of his chest. He’d not lose her now!

  “Georgina!”

  Nick planted himself in front of him. “Where do you think you’re going?” he snapped.

 
; Adam took a step around him.

  Nick again placed himself between Adam and the freedom he craved.

  Adam gripped him by the shoulders and snarled like the caged captive he’d been. “By God, if you stop me from going to her, I will thrash you within an inch of your life. Is that clear, Nick?”

  Nick’s mouth fell open, but he remained frozen in place. “There will be a scandal,” he snapped. He waved his hand around the sterile office. “The staff here will talk. The other board members have already caught a whiff of scandal when I was summoned from the meeting. I will be damned if you throw away your reputation for a common maid…”

  Red dots of fury nearly blinded Adam. A roar rumbled deep within his chest. He slammed his fist into Nick’s unsuspecting face.

  Nick crumpled to the floor, landing hard on his knees. He pressed his fingers to a slightly-hooked nose and winced. He tugged a kerchief from his pocket and blotted the crimson blood. “By God, you broke my nose!”

  Adam stood over him. “You’re my brother and I love you. But if you disparage her, I will lay you flat again. Is that understood?” He held his hand out.

  Nick knocked it aside and shoved to his feet without assistance. “I will not continue this dialogue in this very public forum. If you don’t have a care for your reputation, have one for mine and mother’s.” He glared around the edges of the embroidered fabric.

  A twinge of remorse hit him. Nick was the type of brother who’d battle a thousand foes for his family. But being reunited with Georgina had set a blaze burning within him and his thoughts raged like a conflagration, threatening to burn reason and logic to cinders. His brother would never understand, because he would never know the hell that had bound Adam and Georgina in an unbreakable bond. Still, he had to try. “I need to help her.”

  From behind the kerchief, Nick’s eyes grew shuttered. “Tell me this is not the woman.”

  Adam didn’t say anything.

  Nick sighed. “Very well. I’ll have her summoned.” He walked over to the door…just as it was opened. The wood slammed into his nose with a sickening crack. He cried out.

  The plump nurse with her silly, white cap stood there wearing a nasty scowl. She had her fingers wrapped tightly around Georgina’s forearm. Nurse Talbert spared a glance at Nick’s bloodied kerchief and wrinkled her nose in a manner hardly befitting a nurse. “My apologies for injuring your nose, my lord,” she said with all the sincerity of a sinner taking sup with a man of the cloth. She didn’t make a move to help.

  Adam’s gaze fell on Georgina. He tried to imagine her, a beautiful glowing nightingale, silenced by this harridan. The red curtain of rage fell back into place. “Release her now.”

  Nurse Talbert released Georgina’s arm with alacrity.

  Georgina’s downcast eyes and pale skin indicated it was her spirit that had been wounded. Having suffered at the hands of Fox and Hunter, he knew some things were far worse than physical pain.

  It made him want to throw her over his shoulder and run off like a conquering lord, saving his damsel.

  He slipped his hand into Georgina’s.

  Nurse Talbert’s eyes nearly bulged from her head. She pointed a quivering finger at Georgina. “Your services are no longer required here, Miss Wilcox.”

  It was perhaps a testament to how helpless Georgina had become. She showed no outward reaction to what was surely a devastating turn of events. Somehow, the lack of emotion from Georgina was even more bothersome.

  Nick flicked an imaginary piece of dust from his shoulder, looking for all the world as though he’d never been more bored. “I’m sure that is a bit extreme, Nurse Talbert.”

  The woman’s lips flattened into a hard line. “I have a reputation to maintain, my lord. I cannot allow women of ill repute within my halls. And I most certainly will not allow this wanton to destroy my hard efforts.”

  Adam had never hit a woman, but if ever a woman deserved it, this was the one. “If you disparage Georgina Wilcox one more time, by God, I’ll see to it that you’ll never work in this hospital or any other hospital, again. Is that clear?”

  Nick dabbed at his nose. The blood flow had trickled to a near stop. He folded the cloth and tucked it in his front pocket like it wasn’t completely bloodstained. “I’m sure, Nurse Talbert, there is something we can work out so the woman—”

  “Miss Wilcox.” Adam had tired of Nick’s lofty use of the term “the woman”. He spoke of her as if she were a teacup or settee.

  Nick gave him a pointed glare. “So Miss Wilcox might retain her position.”

  “She doesn’t want her position,” Adam snapped.

  “Yes she does!” Georgina said, hastily. She looked at Adam with such entreaty in the brown of her eyes, that he was struck speechless. She turned to his brother. “I do, my lord. I want my position here. I need my position here.”

  Nurse Talbert was already shaking her head. “The moment you created that scandalous scene on the main floor, you sealed your fate.”

  A muscle in Nick’s jaw ticked, a telltale indication of how very close he was to losing his temper. As the earl, he’d become unaccustomed to having people gainsay his wishes.

  “Nurse Talbert, I’m going to say this just one more time. I would greatly appreciate it if Miss Wilcox was permitted to keep her position. Is that clear?” He raised a single brow.

  Nurse Talbert raised her own brow. “Oh, it was quite clear, my lord.” She looked to Georgina. “Pack your things, my dear. This is your last day.”

  Georgina pressed a hand to her mouth, as if she were trying to stifle a scream. Panicked eyes flitted around the office. They met his.

  “I will help you, Georgina,” he said quietly. Surely, she had to know that?

  The guilt that had robbed him of sleep pricked at him. Then again, what would make her believe he would help her? He’d abandoned her with those foul beasts.

  Ever proud, Georgina dropped her trembling hand to her side. She tossed her head back. “Very well, Nurse Talbert.”

  Like hell. He planted himself in front of Georgina and effectively blocked her path. Over the crown of her head, he shot his brother a look.

  Nick held his stare then sighed. “I’ll find work for Miss Wilcox in my household.”

  Nurse Talbert snorted, indicating just what kind of work she expected Georgina Wilcox would find in the earl’s home.

  Adam clenched his teeth. He had not survived the hell with Fox and Hunter to fear society’s snide recrimination. “She will not be working in my brother’s household.”

  Georgina picked her head up. Her full, red lips quivered.

  He reached down and stroked her cheek. It was like silk against his fingers. “She’ll be my wife. I’m marrying her.” He turned to Georgina. “Will you marry me?”

  And indomitable Georgina Wilcox fainted dead-away in his arms.

  Fox has made an innovation to the folding pike. The weapon can be concealed beneath one’s cloak and possesses a hinge. Fox and Hunter have now devoted their efforts to locating members of The Brethren.

  Signed,

  A Loyal British Subject

  Chapter 11

  When Georgina came to, she realized several things at once.

  First, she was in a carriage.

  Two she was entirely too cozy, warm, and comfortable. In her twenty years, she’d been all those things…but never at the same time.

  Thirdly, were the clipped tones of two men in a heated argument.

  Her brow wrinkled.

  Two men?

  Arguing?

  She came crashing down to earth and her eyes flew open.

  “Don’t fight me on this,” Adam fairly snarled. His hard body against hers thrummed with the same charge as a lightning strike. She expected most men would’ve cowered under Adam’s lethal glare.

  Apparently, the Earl of Whitehaven was not most men. He appeared bored, stifling a yawn with his hand. “You’ll do no such thing.”

  What such thing?

  “I’
m marrying her.”

  And she remembered. Adam was speaking of her. Not Grace Blakely. Her. Short, plain Georgina Wilcox. Her heart soared.

  Until the earl spoke.

  “You cannot wed her.” He looked down at her and realized she was awake. “She is a commoner. A mere maid. You will not marry a woman of her station.”

  Georgina returned his bold stare. The earl was as broad and muscular as an old oak tree. From the harsh angles of his cheeks to the square jawline, this was a man who would rouse fear in man and child alike. Noblemen weren’t supposed to be hulking figures. They were supposed to be painted and clad in all the nauseating colors of an artist’s pallet. And he should’ve been wearing padding. Didn’t all nobles wear padding?

  Her eyes narrowed on his waistline. It looked like it could be stuffing.

  He shifted and the expensive line of his sapphire coat tightened across the rippling muscles of his abdomen.

  No, there was no stuffing involved.

  Perhaps it was her bold perusal, or mayhap just his utter disdain, but his upper lip curled in a sneer and Georgina thought of the tale her father had told of her grandmother’s murder. Was this how her grandmother had felt when the English guards spat on her?

  She scrambled off Adam’s lap, landing on the floor with a loud thump.

  “Georgina!” he cried. He picked her up and returned her to his lap.

  Her face colored furiously. “You must release me, Ad…Mr. Markham. This is highly improper.”

  Adam held firm. “I am going to marry you.”

  As if that would make any of this right? Surely he realized that what he proposed was not possible?

  “You cannot marry me, Adam.” She shoved herself off his lap and sat down on the seat next to him.

  “I can. I will.”

  He fell silent and, tugging back the curtain, peered out at the passing scene.

  Georgina studied him. When she had been a young girl, before she’d made her come out, she’d dreamed of her someday husband. He would be wickedly handsome, excessively kind, abundantly caring. To be precise, the man she’d dreamed of was Adam.