My Lady of Deception

by Christi Caldwell

  Bennett arched a brow. “No?”

  Adam spun around and took a step forward. Then another. And realized…he couldn’t flee. There was no escaping this agony. It lanced through him like the edge of a burning torch held against his skin. It seared him, ate at him until his heart went up in flames…and crumbled into ash.

  Except…he touched his chest and his heart beat hard and fast beneath his palm. How could it be? How when he felt dead, inside and out?

  “No. No trial.” Adam’s jaw tightened. “Not yet. I’d like to spare my family the scandal. Surely ‘The Sovereign’ can make my wife…disappear in a way that isn’t so public?”

  Bennett and Helling exchanged another look. “We can do that,” Bennett said after a pause. “Make her disappear.”

  The silken promise threatened to cleave Adam in two. Even with all she’d done, when he tried to imagine a world without her in it, he found it a world he didn’t want to live in. Adam’s breath came in quick, gasping pants. “I don’t want her killed.”

  “What do you want, then?” Bennett said with a touch of impatience.

  That she should live somewhere with Fox and Hunter where they would continue to aid the Irish in their quest for independence from England? Let them all keep aiding the Irish on their quest for independence from England.

  Helling came around and rested a hand on Adam’s shoulder.

  He shrugged off the gesture of camaraderie. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was commiserate with Grace’s husband.

  Helling spoke. “It is imperative that you continue to keep your wife in sight. Attend ton events—”

  A bitter laugh escaped Adam. “With an Irish radical?”

  “I’m not saying you have to present a happy façade to the world,” Bennett snapped. “Your marriage really isn’t all that different from the rest of Society.”

  With the exception of my deceitful wife who will hang for her crimes.

  He fisted his hands at his side to keep from tossing his head back and railing like a tortured demon.

  He swiped a hand over his face. “I believe we’re done here, gentlemen?”

  After a round of polite bows, Bennett and Helling left.

  He stood and stared at the closed door, welcoming the solitude. He was alone with the bloody file, his tortured thoughts, and—his gaze snagged on the glimmer of crystal—a decanter of brandy.

  He picked up Georgina’s file, the bottle of spirits and a lone glass, and sat down to read. His lip curled.

  Georgina Wilcox, born 14 April 1782.

  It would appear his wife had had a birthday since they’d married. A pang of regret pulled at him. He should know such a detail about this woman who’d come to mean more to him than himself. Then, why would she mention such a minute detail when there were so many other great secrets between them?

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. It all made sense. Adam had ignored so many obvious unexplained details: her cultured tone, the ease with which she’d mastered the lessons by the dancing instructor he’d hired for her.

  He tossed the pages aside and reached for his tumbler of brandy.

  He’d only seen what he’d wanted. It had been far easier to view Georgina as a courageous woman in need of rescuing, because it had given him strength. He’d felt less alone in his hellish prison.

  Adam poured himself a healthy glassful and did what he swore he’d never do again…

  He drank.

  Chapter 19

  A bolt of lightning split the black, late afternoon sky. The resounding boom of thunder rattled the foundations of the townhouse.

  “Come away from that window, Mrs. Markham,” her maid, Suzanne, murmured.

  “Georgina,” she corrected without missing a beat. An ominous foreboding surrounded her, hinting at doom. “It is a bad omen,” she whispered.

  Suzanne made a comforting sound. “Come away from that window, ma’am. This is the night you’ll make your entrance into Society. Surely you must be excited?”

  Georgina let the curtain fall back into place. The young maid couldn’t be more wrong.

  “I need to prepare your hair, Mrs.…Georgina,” she amended when Georgina glanced back at her.

  Panic crashed into her more forcefully than the next boom of thunder to rattle the windowpane. She’d been well-versed in dancing, proper deportment, and all that was expected of a merchant’s daughter. This, her entrance into Society, was something altogether different. Georgina Wilcox did not belong in this world. She was only moving forward with the pretense of belonging because of her husband.

  She’d not seen him since they’d made love last evening. When she’d awakened, he’d been gone. He’d not come to breakfast. All day she’d waited for him to make an appearance, but he’d been conspicuously absent. Her pride prevented her from asking one of the servants.

  Georgina wet her lips. She needed to see him. She sprinted for the door and yanked it open.

  “Mrs. Markham?” Suzanne’s voice echoed around her but Georgina ignored her as she all but flew down the corridor.

  She raced down the stairs as if the devil himself were chasing her, her breath came fast and heavy.

  A large figure stepped into her path.

  Georgina shrieked as she skidded to a halt in front of Watson.

  “Mrs. Markham.” He greeted her as if she were casually strolling through the garden and not racing through the house with her curls undone like a woman bound for Bedlam.

  She murmured a greeting and stepped around him. This time, she took care to slow her steps, lest she earn any more suspicious looks from the servants. She paused outside her husband’s office and then, before her courage deserted her, pressed the handle.

  Georgina peeked inside.

  She took a deep breath and entered the quiet room. “Adam?” She closed the door. Silence met her query.

  She leaned against the wood panel, a frown playing about her lips.

  Silence confirmed her misgivings.

  She hated this urgent desire to see him. She’d prided herself on not needing anyone these many years. Only, since she’d met and fallen in love with Adam, she had been forced to confront the truth. She didn’t want to be alone any longer. She wanted to share the burdens of life with someone else. Her own strength had helped her survive and yet, it had not been any kind of warm, companion for her over the years.

  Another rumble of thunder sounded. She shivered and wished her husband was near to chase away this black doom that surrounded her.

  Ugly suspicion nibbled at her mind. Adam’s aloofness, Jamie’s charges about Grace and Adam resuming their relationship, his mysterious absence on the day she would enter Society. Her gaze alighted on his perfectly neat desk. Not a thing out of place. She glanced over her shoulder toward the door and then back to the mahogany desk at the center of the room.

  She walked hesitantly over to the desk. “This is wrong,” she muttered to herself. “He’s given you no reason to mistrust him.”

  Guilt twisted about her insides. Unlike she who’d betrayed him from their first meeting.

  Still…

  She tugged open the first draw and sifted through the papers. Business ledgers.

  Georgina moved on to the next and rustled through a series of invitations to events. Her guilt doubled. She shook her head. Snooping on her husband…her fingers brushed an oddly coarse sheet. She pulled out the badly burned page. Most of the words had been destroyed. Her heart froze. Stopped beating within her chest. Withered. And died.

  Adam, I must speak with you on a matter of utmost importance.

  Ever Yours,

  Grace

  “Can I help you find anything, wife?”

  Georgina screeched. The note in her hands danced through the air and fluttered to the floor, the burned note damning.

  To her.

  To him.

  Adam stood framed in the doorway. He glanced at the sheet and then back to her.

  Her lips trembled. Attired in the same clothes
as yesterday, he looked a good deal more rumpled. His red-rimmed eyes bespoke a sleepless night.

  A wave of heat rushed to her cheeks. Goddess-like Grace flitted through Georgina’s mind, and Georgina’s heart broke open and bled. “Hello.” She bit the inside of her cheek hard to stifle the mortified guilt she felt at being discovered going through her husband’s private things.

  Adam smiled—a cold mirthless grin that iced her veins. She cleared her throat.

  He’s merely angry that I’m going through his things. He won’t hurt me.

  But he closed the door, and when he looked back at her there was such loathing in his tightly clenched jaw that a familiar fear licked at her insides, transporting her back to another home, another man. Her husband took a step forward. She retreated. He continued his advance and she backed away, until her shoulder knocked against the wall. The plaster bit into her flesh, but she ignored the dull, throbbing ache.

  Adam drew to an abrupt halt. “You didn’t answer me, wife.” He studied her through hooded eyes.

  Had there been a question there? “Uh, I…I…” She curled her fingers tight into the palms of her hands, making crescent marks upon her flesh.

  He tapped the bridge of her nose almost teasing and taunting all at once. “Did you find anything of interest?”

  Georgina’s heart spasamed. She detested this hard, cruel side of a man who’d once been so gentle. “I f-found a note.” She’d not allow him to browbeat her. He had as much to answer for as she did in snooping through his things.

  Adam inclined his head. “Did you?” he said, a trace of humor lacing his words. He spun around and fetched said note. “This?” He turned back to face her.

  She managed a jerky nod.

  “Poor, poor Georgina.” Except his faintly slurred words sounded anything but sympathetic. “I hadn’t intended to hurt you, dear wife.” Again, the hard lines at the corners of his eyes, the tight way in which he held his mouth, belied his words.

  Georgina went immobile, hoping he’d leave, wishing him gone. This stranger wasn’t the man who’d saved her from an empty existence, who’d battled his family for her honor. Tears blurred her vision and she dropped her gaze to his boots. She’d never expected Adam to hurt her. Father and Jamie, yes. Never Adam. And she suspected it would be easier to feel Adam’s fists on her flesh than this subtle game of cat and mouse he played with her.

  “Adam, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  He pressed a finger to her lips, silencing her. “What exactly are you sorry for?”

  Georgina angled her head, the earlier chill of foreboding surging to life as she began to suspect this was about more than being caught looking through his private letters. She opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come.

  Adam’s lips flattened into a single, hard line. He spun on his heel. He turned to his desk, reached under the top and popped open a hidden compartment. He pulled out a leather folio.

  “Do you know what this is?” He walked around the other side of the desk.

  Her mouth went dry. She looked to the packet in his hands.

  “Georgina?” he pressed.

  She jerked her gaze back to his and shook her head.

  Adam propped his hip on the edge of the desk and flipped it open. He perused the inside contents, a cold smile playing about his lips. “I’m a terrible husband. I forgot to wish you a Happy Birthday, wife. It was only last week.”

  Georgina’s dull mind tried to keep up with her husband’s confounding words. “I…uh. That is fine.” Tony had known. She’d mentioned it to him when they were walking in Hyde Park. He’d insisted on taking her to Gunter’s for ices.

  Adam’s head snapped up so fast she imagined he’d given his head a nasty jolt. “Tell me, Georgina, I’ve not heard you sing in so long. Why is that?”

  Her gaze shifted to a point beyond his shoulder. She’d not sung since the day that he’d twirled her around his prison. Music and the joy it brought had ceased to fit into her world. “I don’t know, Adam,” she said quietly. She didn’t want to speak about those dark days.

  “I feel I don’t know enough about you. Tell me more about your loving mother and father. What types of servants were they?”

  Warning bells of panic clamored inside her head. “Adam?”

  He waved the folio about the air. “Your parents, dear wife. I want to know more about these loving pillars of society. Tell me the sweet tales of how you were the darling daughter of two now-dead angels.” The faintly jeering note reached her ears.

  Georgina crossed her arms and tried to rub warmth back into them. “Why are you doing this, Adam?” she whispered. Why did he assault her with a barrage of questions about her past? Why—? She sucked in a deep breath.

  And she knew. Oh God, she knew. Her chest constricted, making breathing difficult.

  Adam smiled the same, ice-cold grin he’d worn since he’d discovered her going through his desk.

  Her eyes slid closed. He knows.

  The world was falling down around her, crumbling into ashes and dust, and she was being sucked into the disastrous heap. Still, she clung to the fragile hope that—

  “Tell me, Georgina, what name is given to the daughter of a fox? Or,” he took a step closer and leaned down, his breath heavy with the scent of brandy, “the mistress of a hunter.”

  Stars dotted her vision. His words were more devastating than had he dealt her a swift backhand. Georgina’s legs buckled and she stretched her hand out, searching for something, anything, to keep her stable, but found no purchase. She sank into a puddle of nothingness at his feet.

  Adam took a hasty step away from her, as if even touching her would forever stain him.

  “Adam,” she whispered. Except there were no answers. No explanations. Nothing she could say would justify her betrayal. Her love would never mean anything to him, not when her father’s blood coursed through her veins. But she needed to make him see reason, needed to try. She held a tremulous hand out to him.

  He ignored it, directing his attention to the sheets of paper that had destroyed everything. “Do you know what these papers say, Georgina? Do you?” His tone grew harsher.

  She shut her eyes tight against Adam’s deadened tone.

  “You lied to me Miss Wilcox!” he hissed.

  She was no longer that woman. She was his wife. Georgina opened her eyes and again reached for him. She’d wronged him with her lies, but she loved him. She would battle the devil himself for her husband. And had fought two demons to help free him from her father and Jamie’s clutches. “Adam, I can explain.” The words emerged broken and hollow.

  Adam flung the damning folio at her. The papers fluttered and danced about her in a mocking remembrance of the scandalous waltz they’d twirled in his too small room in Bristol…days? Weeks? Years?…ago. Tears seeped from her lashes and fell down her cheeks.

  “Lies,” he hissed. “Everything about you has been a lie.”

  She shook her head frantically, scrambling to her feet. “No. That’s not true. I love you.” That had been the one truth, the truth that mattered more than all others—or it had. To her, anyway.

  A sharp, barking laugh burst from his lips. Adam clapped his hands together with slow, precise movements. “Brava, my dear. Brava. An act fit for the London stage. Tell me, what exactly are you looking for? Information to bring to your father and lover?”

  Georgina blinked back confusion. “My lover?” she repeated dumbly.

  “Yes, what is his name? Mr. Jamie Adleyson Marshall.” Adam stormed over to the drink cart and splashed several fingers of whiskey into a tumbler. He raised it in mock salute. “I must commend you on a very convincing show when you came to me teary-eyed following his attack. Oh, the laugh you must have had about poor, pathetic Adam Markham who tried to comfort you.” His face contorted as if in pain. He downed the alcohol in a single swallow.

  Georgina rushed to him and clasped his free hand. “Jamie was never my lover.” Her skin crawled at the remembrance
of Jamie’s vile touch.

  Adam wrenched free of her then reached for the bottle. He poured another tumbler full. “To be honest, my dear, if you are indeed who these papers claim, I won’t care when you’re forced to spread your sweet, beautiful thighs for all the guards in your rotting cell at Newgate.”

  Georgina recoiled at the vile words spewing from his mouth. The image he’d painted took hold—her on her back in a cold, dank cell while man after man took turns violating her. The horrific images nearly blinded her with terror. She told herself he only lashed out at her because he was hurting. It didn’t lessen the agony that threatened to rip her apart.

  Adam caught her gaze and held it. He drew in an audible breath. “Is Fox your father?”

  Georgina’s heart tightened. If that was the only question he had for her then he’d never forgive her. She had many regrets, but she’d already realized she could not help the circumstances of her birth. She squared her shoulders and met his gaze. “He is,” she said quietly.

  Adam hurled his tumbler across the room. It slammed into the wall behind her, spraying Georgina with amber liquid and shards of glass. She winced, fully expecting him to charge her and choke the life from her as he’d first tried to do in her father’s house.

  Of course, even in his rage, Adam was a different man than her father and Jamie. He spun away, as if the sight of her made him physically ill, drawing in several deep breaths before speaking again. When he did, his words were flat. “I married you against my family’s better judgment. I ignored the very obvious signs of your identity, and for that I am to blame.” He turned back to face her. “If you think to hurt my family, by God, I’ll see you hang. Is that clear?”

  The color drained from her cheeks. How can I mean so little to you? How, when you are the reason for my every joy, my every smile?

  She managed a jerky nod. “It is clear,” she choked out.

  He turned as if to leave and panicked words bubbled up from her throat. “What will happen to us?” Would he have her thrown in prison? A wave of nausea hit her at the mere thought of life in Newgate. She considered herself a survivor but she would die if sent to the bowels of Newgate.