My Lady of Deception

by Christi Caldwell

  It had taken her no time at all to learn that marriage was reserved for beauties…like Adam’s Grace. Georgina’s silly hopes had died a swift death when Father had paraded her around all the wealthiest merchants driven by their goals of securing an advantageous connection. Georgina had been a failure. A miserable failure, to be precise. After that, she’d not given much thought to marriage.

  Until now.

  She wanted to marry him with a physical hunger that ate at her. But there were too many differences, and lies, between them. “You can’t, Adam.”

  The fabric fell back into place, and he jerked his neck around so fast, she imagined he’d given himself a wicked pain.

  She glanced at the earl.

  He stared back at her with a first, faint sign of appreciation. “She’s correct. You cannot marry her.”

  Adam cursed. “I’ve already decided I’m going to wed her. I ruined her reputation.”

  It felt like her heart was being kicked around her chest. The only reason Adam wanted to marry her was because she’d been turned out of her position. His offer, which had never really been much of an offer, was driven by his sense of honor. Of course. Had she really been foolish enough to hope that he cared for her?

  She curled her fingers into tight balls. Her nails dug into the flesh of her palms, but she welcomed the pain.

  The earl folded his arms across his broad chest. “Have you asked Miss Wilcox what she wants?”

  Adam’s gaze snapped to her. The green of his eyes was a stark contrast to the dreary gray of the cold, winter months.

  There was the answer she wanted to give his irrational request for marriage. Then there was the answer the Earl of Whitehaven expected of her.

  “I don’t want to marry you,” she said, her voice hollow.

  Adam flinched like he’d been kicked in the stomach. He pinned a glare on his brother. “It’s because of you.”

  The earl shrugged. “The lady has her own mind.” The carriage rocked to a halt, ending the discussion.

  Adam had different ideas. He leaned close to Georgina. “This is not finished.”

  Nearly an hour later, she was perched on the edge of a small, pale blue settee in a pale blue parlor, and it was still not done.

  Georgina glanced at the ormolu clock on the fireplace mantel, watching the minutes tick by. After Adam had helped her out of the carriage, he’d led her up the front steps of the Earl of Whitehaven’s home. The earl had marched ahead in stoic silence, and there was little Georgina hated more than silence. Quiet was a good indicator of many things—none of them usually good.

  A bellow resonated from a distant room, and she clambered to her feet and all but climbed over the settee in her haste to use it as a protective barrier against the threat—that didn’t come. She drew in a shuddery breath, closing her eyes. Shouts of fury were usually accompanied by a heavy fist or the sting of a lash.

  “Well, I say, did you leap over that settee?”

  Georgina shrieked and slapped a hand to her breast.

  The young man in the doorway lounged with his hip against the frame, his arms folded across his chest. Not as tall as Adam, he still towered over Georgina by a good seven inches. He had a familiar squared jaw with the tiniest hint of a cleft and pale blue-green eyes the color of sea foam. At her obvious inspection, full lips tipped up in an amused smile.

  Heat rushed to her cheeks.

  This had to be Tony, Adam’s younger brother.

  She bowed her head and sank into a deep curtsy.

  He shoved off the wall. “Tsk, tsk. Any lady who can jump as high as you shouldn’t be wasting her energy on things like curtsying and head-bobbing.”

  She blinked.

  He laughed, bowing low at the waist. “Anthony Devon Markham, at your service,” he said, confirming her suspicions. “But please, call me Tony.”

  She’d do no such thing. She wasn’t nobility, but she’d suffered through enough governesses and instructors to know it was highly improper to be alone with a young man, exchanging introductions.

  Another bellow shuddered through the house.

  “Georgina Wilcox,” she said hastily.

  Tony all but threw himself down onto the small, blue sofa she’d occupied. He swung his legs over the arm of the chair and folded his arms behind his head. “I’m assuming you are the source of that.”

  Georgina bit her lip. Perhaps it would be better to feign ignorance; it would invite less questions. “The source of what, Mr. Markham?”

  “Tony,” he corrected. A thundering roar, like that of a wounded bear, rocked the room. “That is the that to which I referred.” His lips twitched with amusement again.

  She felt like she’d been spun around in a dozen dizzying circles.

  He clarified. “The shouting.”

  She worried her lower lip. “Uh…yes, I did think that may have been the that to which you were referring.”

  “You’re going to chew right through it, you know.”

  Another shout and Georgina jumped, looking back at the door. Finding no immediate threat, she turned back to Adam’s younger brother. “What did you say?” The last thing in the world she wanted to do in that moment was exchange banter with Adam’s vexing, if abundantly charming, brother.

  He motioned to his lip. “You keep biting at your lip like that and you’re going to go through it.”

  “I’ve bit my lip enough times to assure you that will not happen.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized by the glittering specks of gold in his eyes that he was jesting. “Oh,” she said, another blush heating her skin. “You were making light of me.”

  Tony shoved himself upright and frowned. “I wasn’t making light.”

  She raised a brow.

  He sighed. “Very well, perhaps I was. I apologize.”

  Then he smiled. It fairly oozed roguish appeal. He was going to be deadly to the young debutantes—and, she’d venture, the older dowagers, as well.

  “So, tell me, what’s that all about?” Tony nodded toward the doorway.

  Georgina had her lower lip between her slightly crooked teeth before she realized he was looking at her pointedly. She stopped immediately. “I-I…have no idea,” she lied.

  He snorted. Fortunately, he was wicked but not deliberately cruel, for he didn’t press her for details.

  Not that Georgian would have given them. What was she to say?

  Oh you see, my father abducted your brother, took him captive, but I helped free him. Now the honorable lummox has decided to marry me…whether I like it or not.

  “Mother is going to be quite disappointed that she’s missing all this,” Tony mumbled beneath his breath.

  She fanned her cheeks. His mother! Goodness, Adam had brought her into his family’s home, through the front entrance no less. Why, the scandal would surely rock his family. Suddenly, taking her chances alone on the streets seemed infinitely preferable. She glanced at the window.

  “Oh no. It’s far too high a jump.”

  Georgina jerked her gaze back to Tony.

  He nodded toward the window. “You look like you were thinking of jumping to freedom.” With a beleaguered sigh, he added, “I’ve considered it on many occasions myself.”

  Being reunited with Adam, losing her position and security, being dragged into the middle of a battle between the Earl of Whitehaven and Adam…all of it was suddenly too much. Georgina began laughing. She covered her mouth to stifle the giggle but it was little use. Laughter poured out of her like a torrential London rainstorm. Of course, it was infinitely better than crying, but there’d be time enough for that later, when Adam and the earl decided to include her in a discussion that pertained to the rest of her life.

  Suddenly she was tired of waiting. To be rescued. To be taken care of. To have a decision made about her fate. She looked at Tony. “Will you show me the way to his lordship’s office?”

  Tony smiled, revealing a very Adam-esque row of perfectly straight, pearl-white teeth. “It will
be my pleasure, Miss Wilcox.” He held out his elbow.

  Nicholas sat with his hip perched on the edge of his mahogany desk. The façade of nonchalance was belied by his broken nose and crumpled clothing.

  It had been a good six minutes since they’d last shouted at one another. It would appear they were making progress.

  Nick swiped a hand across his brow, dashing back an errant trace of sweat. “Surely you see the wisdom in my words. You cannot marry this woman. Why, it would be ruinous.”

  Apparently they were making far less progress than he’d hoped.

  Adam closed his eyes and counted to ten. When he still felt like hitting his brother, he counted another five. He tried appealing to Nick’s sense of honor. “As a gentleman, you have to see that I’ve ruined Georgina. She is alone in the world. Without work…”

  In a wholly un-earl-like show of emotion, Nick slammed his fist down on the desktop. “Christ, you are not thinking with your head!” He drew in a deep breath, and when he spoke again, his tone was even. “I don’t know anything about this woman other than that, in addition to being a maid, she was the reason for your overindulgence in whiskey.”

  Adam looked away. His role with The Brethren precluded him from sharing key pieces of himself with his brother. He couldn’t mention how he’d come to know Georgina, nor did he care to get into details about Grace Blakely.

  Nick placed his hand upon Adam’s shoulder, and Adam met his gaze square on.

  “There is something about her I simply do not trust, Adam. You offer me very little about her background, and if I might speak plainly—”

  Adam shrugged off his touch. “You haven’t been up to this point?”

  Nick ignored his sardonic question and continued. “If this is about work, I’ll find her work. I am not suggesting you leave the woman to her own devices.”

  Adam gritted his teeth. “Her name is Georgina.”

  “Very well, then. I’m not suggesting you leave Miss Wilcox to her own devices. I can have my housekeeper set her up with a position in the household. Hell, set her up as your mistress but, by the good Lord, you cannot wed her!”

  “He’s right, Adam. You cannot marry me.”

  The color leeched from his skin as he swiveled on his heel, his heart lurching in his chest.

  Georgina stood there, a perfect, pale, porcelain doll—small, fragile, and helpless amidst a room of life-size beasts. Based on the faint quiver to her lips and the white-knuckled grip on her skirts, she’d heard Nick’s scandalous proposal. A wave of hot fury licked at his insides and he wanted to hit his brother all over again.

  Tony popped up behind Georgina. He wagged a finger at Nick. “Ain’t the thing, discussing a mistress, in front of a young lady.”

  And now he wanted to hit his younger brother for showing Georgina to Nick’s office and exposing her to his brother’s priggish, bombastic views on status.

  “Get out,” Adam ordered quietly.

  When Tony didn’t move, Nick pointed to the door. “Out.”

  Adam locked eyes with Georgina. Her gaze bled with hurt and humiliation. This was a wrong he’d committed. He’d be the one to soothe those wounds. “You, too, Nick. Out.”

  Georgina braced for the earl’s protest, but to her surprise, he turned on his heel and left his office. The door closed behind him with an ominous click, leaving her and Adam alone. She rather suspected the earl’s willingness to leave had more to do with his confidence that Georgina would not capitulate to Adam’s harebrained offer. She studied the tips of her serviceable black boots atop the Aubusson carpet, the stark contrast a glaring reminder of who she was and who they were.

  “Aren’t you going to look at me?” Adam asked quietly.

  No. It was too hard to have all she’d ever longed for stretched out before her, hers for the taking. Except, as the minutes ticked by, she remembered Adam was the only other person who could weather silence with the same aplomb.

  She glanced up and gasped, forgetting her dismissal, cruel Nurse Talbert, and the lofty Earl of Whitehaven. Adam looked horrific. “Adam, your face!” She rushed over and gingerly touched his swollen lip. He flinched. His blackened eye was a blend of purple and blues. Transported back to those hellish days of his captivity, she closed her eyes.

  Adam rested his hands on her shoulders. “Georgina, this isn’t your fault.”

  She swallowed, not opening her eyes because she didn’t believe him. It was. All of it. More than he knew. To compound all the ways in which she’d wronged him, she was now responsible for this friction between Adam and the earl.

  “Adam, you mustn’t argue with him.”

  Not for me. Not about me. I’m not worth it.

  He lowered his brow to hers and inhaled deeply, as if she were a fragrant bud, and he wanted to forever remember her scent. “I’ll not allow anyone to disparage you, Georgina.”

  If only he knew what kind of blood flowed through her veins, he wouldn’t so much as sully his hands by throwing her out onto the street. She couldn’t continue the lie, not to a man who was willing to battle his powerful brother—a brother he loved—for her honor.

  “I-I n-need to tell you something, Adam.” Her insides fairly shriveled in fear of the condemnation she would see once she made her revelation. How long did it take a glimmer of admiration to die? A heartbeat? A second? The blink of an eye? “I don’t deserve your kindness.”

  He held a finger to her lips. “Shh. You are a good woman—”

  “Stop saying that,” she cried, spinning away from him. She hugged her arms to her chest. “I am not a good woman. I’m the opposite of a good woman.” Evil. Vile. Cunning. And a coward, because she couldn’t even say those words aloud. “I can’t marry you.”

  He stood there for a long time, watching her through hooded eyes. Finally, he said, “You can.”

  “Fine, I won’t marry you. There are a thousand reasons,” or more, “why I can’t marry you. And only one reason I should.”

  She shouldn’t have said that last part, because he dug his teeth into that statement and clung on. “What is the one reason, Georgina?”

  Her throat swelled with emotion. She shook her head.

  He closed the distance between them in four long strides and framed her face with his strong fingers. “What is the reason, Georgina?” he pressed.

  It was the gentle prodding that weakened her resolve, shattered her, and humbled her enough to admit the truth. “I love you.” The words came out strangled.

  A fat teardrop squeezed out the corner of her eye. He brushed it back with the pad of his thumb.

  “Oh, Georgina,” he pressed a kiss to the top of her head, “that is reason enough.”

  Not, “I love you, too”. Her heart wilted in her chest.

  What did you expect, Georgina?

  “You took care of me,” Adam continued in a husky whisper. “You protected me, and what did I do, Georgina? I left you. Let me marry you.”

  Good, honorable Adam. He would marry her all out of a misplaced sense of obligation. She’d never imagined that a marriage proposal from this man could cut like a knife.

  “I didn’t protect you—”

  He made a sound of protest. “You did. You—”

  She held a finger up. “Please!” she cried.

  He fell silent.

  “I could have helped you. I could have done more. And…” She sucked in a fortifying breath. “I’m just as evil as they are.”

  Adam growled low in his throat. “Don’t say that!” He closed his eyes. When he opened them, calm had been restored. “You are nothing like them—”

  “I—”

  “Enough!” The one word resonated off the plaster of the Earl of Whitehaven’s palatial office. “This is not the time to discuss what happened in the past. Marry me. If for no other reason than because you have no employment prospects and nowhere to go.”

  She wanted him. Oh, how she wanted him. Yearned for him with the same intensity that had gotten Eve cast out of paradise.<
br />
  The Earl of Whitehaven’s vile suggestion twisted around her brain like a slithering snake, shaping an idea. “I…” Her cheeks burned hot. “I can be your mistress.”

  Another man has been taken captive. His name is Adam Markham.

  Signed,

  A Loyal British Subject

  Chapter 12

  I can be your mistress.

  Adam had to remind himself to breathe. His body stiffened and an uncomfortable ache settled in his groin. Throughout his captivity, he’d longed for her, but then there had been Grace and because of that—his love for her, his honor—he’d not succumbed to his base desires. Instead, he’d tortured himself with thoughts of her pale, white thighs quivering as he stroked her center. He’d imagined himself plunging into her heat.

  Now she was offering herself to him. He needn’t wed her. So why did he persist? Because she didn’t feel worthy of him. That much was clear. Considering Nurse Talbert’s condescension and Nick’s priggish treatment of her thus far, why would she feel any differently?

  Jagged fury slashed through him. Georgina had braved more than lauded war heroes. She was a better person than all members of the haute ton combined. It was he who didn’t deserve her. And, suddenly, it was very important that she say yes to his suit. For reasons he didn’t fully understand or care to examine.

  “I don’t want you to be my mistress. I want you to be my wife.”

  She troubled her lower lip, the ruby-red flesh he had dreamed about. “Why?”

  Her question brought him up short. He suspected his answer would determine hers. “When I…left Bristol, I tortured myself imagining the worst. I…” He looked beyond her shoulder, seeing the chambers that had served as his prison. “I feared they’d killed you and the thought of that almost killed me. I looked for you. I need you to know that. I didn’t forget you.”

  A brown tendril escaped the harsh bun at the base of her neck. She brushed it away. “I—I know.” The strand bounced right back, refusing to be tamed.

  It didn’t take an expert spy to detect the lie in her words. He caught the dark curl, rubbing the silky tendril between the pad of his thumb and forefinger. He brought it to his nose and inhaled the pure, clean, honeysuckle scent that was Georgina.