She could not stall him much longer. She went back to the bureau and chose a chemise. “I cannot imagine how you were able to keep track of me all these years. I saw you in the village occasionally, but have you not spent most of your time in London?”
“’Twere easy once we hired yer ma’s fancy man.”
Fancy man? “Do you mean Hathaway?”
“Aye. He sent word now an’ then. Took that little likeness of you from yer ma and sent it to us so’s we could see how pretty you was. He were the one took care of Allenby an’ Huffington.”
No wonder Hathaway hated her. He’d known who she really was. That little street urchin who is no better than she ought to be....
“He’d bring us some of yer gewgaws so we’d know you was good. Charged us a pretty penny, too.”
So that was the answer to the mystery of all her little missing items, and why she’d found Hathaway snooping in her room on occasion. Oh, she’d been so naive!
“What if Hathaway tells someone? Tries to blackmail you?”
Gibbons snorted. “Hathaway ain’t tellin’ anyone anything.”
Her heart stilled and she swallowed her horror. She did not have to ask to know that Hathaway was dead.
She studied the man for a long moment, trying to find anything familiar, anything redeeming or endearing in him, and failing. Even his supposed fondness for her was merely another means to achieve riches or glory for himself. She was a tool to be used, not a cherished daughter.
As she tucked her chemise into the valise, she thought she saw a movement in the dressing room. Finn? How long had he been there? Oh pray he did not bumble in. Pray he realized the situation before he, too, was killed. Was there some way to warn him?
“I need a dress.” She held Gibbons’s gaze. “I will fetch one from the dressing room.”
“I’ll pick it fer you,” he said, starting for the door.
“Never mind. If we are going home to Kent, I have enough there.”
He frowned at her, glancing between her and the dressing room. “You tryin’ to get away, Georgie gal? Gonna go in there and lock me out?”
“No. I... You did not tell me for certain where we’d be going.”
He grunted. “One dress is enough fer any gal. C’n only wear one at a time, anyways.”
She closed her valise, buckled the straps and lifted it from the bed. “We had better be going.” She wondered how he intended to get her out of the house. Surely not the same way he’d come in. She looked toward the window.
He cackled when he realized what she was thinking. “We’re gonna walk outa here, proud as you please. Yer the woman of the house. Won’t anyone stop you. Not even that man Hunter hired, if you tell him to stand back.”
She glanced at his knife again and nodded, resigned to doing anything he asked to keep him from killing anyone else because of her. “I will need my cloak.”
* * *
Charles, straining to interrupt Gibbons and Georgiana for the past five minutes, shot Wycliffe a warning glance. They’d heard Gibbons confess to everything. Georgiana had led the conversation almost as if she’d known they were listening.
And he’d heard the hopelessness and despair in her voice and knew she believed he’d deserted her. Abandoned her to whatever darkness was awaiting her. In his shock, he’d walked away without giving her any reassurances or a single word of understanding.
What a fool he’d been. What an utter ass. He loved her, and that was all he’d ever need to know about her.
But Gibbons was not going to take his wife anywhere. Wycliffe nodded and released his hold on Charles’s arm.
He slipped the small pistol from his boot and edged forward. As he cleared the dressing room door, he came face-to-face with his old enemy.
Gibbons blinked and brought his knife up even as he seized Georgiana’s arm. “Stay where you are, Hunter.” He began to back toward the door.
Georgiana’s eyes met his and he was struck by her fear—not for herself, but for him. He could feel Wycliffe at his back. Gibbons did not miss with a knife. If he threw it at him, Charles would die, but Wycliffe would save Georgiana. Slowly, he raised his pistol and took careful aim.
Gibbons realized the decision he’d made and jerked Georgiana’s arm to bring her in front of him. He tightened his arm around her waist, using her as a shield, and held the tip of his blade to her throat. “I’ll kill her before I let you have her, Hunter, so you better let us go,” he snarled. “You ain’t good enough fer her.”
Charles kept steady aim. “I daresay you are right, Gibbons. But she stays with me.”
The tip of Gibbons’s blade made a depression in the soft flesh at the hollow at the base of Georgiana’s throat. The bastard would actually do it! And Charles could see in her eyes that she knew it, too. And did not care.
She closed her eyes and swung her arm out from her side. For the first time, he noted that she held a small valise, and that she intended to use it against Gibbons. The jolt would ruin his aim if he threw the knife at Charles, but would surely drive the blade into her throat if he held it steady. Ah, sweet Jesus, she meant to sacrifice herself for him.
But Gibbons was a head taller than Georgiana. In that split second before she could complete her swing, Charles steadied his pistol and squeezed the trigger.
The shot reverberated in the small room and a pungent cloud of sulfur and vaporized blood rose in the air. Gibbons fell backward, dragging Georgiana with him. Once they hit the floor, neither of them moved.
The outer door splintered and dropped flat on the floor as Finn trampled over it like an enraged bull, Clara behind him waving an iron pan.
Charles stepped forward and kicked the knife away from Gibbons’s limp hand. He needn’t have bothered. A pool of blood was forming beneath him, and a ragged black hole in the center of his forehead gave evidence that he would never wield a knife again.
He lifted Georgiana in his arms and carried her to the bed, relieved that her only sign of injury was a small bead of blood at the base of her throat. At the very point where, when he kissed her there, she would sigh and tighten her arms around him.
He wiped the single bead of blood away with the pad of his thumb, only vaguely aware of Finn hoisting Gibbons over his shoulder and taking him away.
Wycliffe gave orders to remove the Persian carpet and any traces of the incident. He ushered Clara, craning her neck in curiosity, from the room. When they were alone, he lowered his mouth to that vulnerable spot and brushed his lips across it.
Georgiana’s eyelids fluttered even as she curled her arms around his neck. “Oh, Charlie. Oh, thank God.”
“Thank you,” he corrected.
“I nearly got you killed.”
“No, Georgiana. You gave me back my life.”
Epilogue
Georgiana kneeled on the deep grass bordering the flower beds and began digging weeds. So much had changed in just one week, and she had found a sense of peace, though she still did not know her future. Something would need to be settled soon. She could not go on living here, loving Charles and knowing it could all be over the next second.
She had met with the ladies of the Wednesday League and Mr. Renquist to explain the events of that night, though she hadn’t found the heart to tell them the whole truth. She’d said only that Mr. Gibbons was a man who’d become obsessed with her when he’d seen her in her village many years ago, and that his delusions had set her husbands’ deaths in motion. They’d all been relieved it was over at last. When she was finished, Mr. Renquist had smiled and nodded at her and she wondered if he knew more than he was saying. If so, she knew her secret was safe with him.
Shockingly, she’d learned that Richard Gibbons and his brother, Arthur, had amassed a sizeable fortune. Somewhere in the range of one hundred thousand pounds, their solicitor informed her. She was their sole heiress, and she wanted none of it. Since there was no way of knowing from whom they had stolen, extorted or blackmailed it, the ladies had helped her establis
h a philanthropic fund for the purpose of housing and educating foundlings.
Finn’s services had not been required and he had been dismissed, and yet she would find him lurking around the kitchen, loitering in the garden and sighing as he watched Clara go about her duties. She feared she would be losing a maid when she returned to Kent.
But, most comforting of all, she had finally come to terms with her mother. Instead of wondering why her “aunt” had been unable to love her, she marveled that her mother had loved her enough to lift her from the poverty she’d been left in, take her home and show her kindness and consideration every single day, protect her from the disturbing truth, provide for her future and leave her all her worldly goods. She’d been a good woman who’d tried her best to do what she believed was right. She’d only wanted to find Georgiana a safe harbor and an honorable life. That was love enough for her.
Charles had been busy every day and long into the night, working with Lord Wycliffe to unravel the full extent of Mr. Gibbons’s—she would never be able to think of that man as her father—crimes. And in the still hours before dawn, he came to her, wordlessly making a passionate, almost desperate, love to her, as if he was trying to tell her something for which he couldn’t find words. Was he simply telling her that he still craved her body? Was it an attempt to sate his desire before she was gone? Or was it a lingering and bittersweet goodbye?
The sun dipped behind the house and Georgiana removed her bonnet as she worked the soil. The simple work was rewarding and soothed her nerves. Her hand spade hit something solid and she dug carefully around it. A rock?
She turned and looked up as a shadow fell across her shoulder. Charles. Her peaceful feeling abandoned her and her pulse sped. Was he finally free to deal with her?
He sat on the grass beside her, an uncertain expression on his face. She looked into his eyes and wondered if this was the last time she would feel as if she were drowning in the violet-blue depths or lose her train of thought when he smiled.
She left the trowel stuck in the dirt and sat back, ready to hear him out. Annulment? Divorce? Denouncement? Quiet retirement to Kent and banishment for life so that he would not have to see her every day? Whatever he had decided, she braced herself to agree and accept it with good grace. She would remain as much a lady as her mother had been.
He inclined his head toward the trowel. “Did you find it?”
“What?”
He pushed the trowel deeper and scooped the object out of the earth. When the dirt fell away, she saw the laudanum vial. She gave him a puzzled look.
“I had to get rid of it. Wycliffe warned he would send men to search the house. Because of Hathaway’s lies, that is all they would have needed to arrest you, Georgiana.”
“I wondered what had become of it.” She smiled, touched by all that Charles had risked for her sake. “You wouldn’t have let them arrest me?”
“Over my dead body.”
She laughed. “That was a distinct possibility, Charles.”
“Aye. If Gibbons had had his way.”
She bowed her head and removed her gardening gloves. “I have tried to think what to say to you. How to explain—”
“It has taken us a while, Georgiana, but we now have the loose ends tied up. Wycliffe and I have gone to the families and explained that you are completely innocent and that the murderer has been caught and dealt with. We told them only that he was a madman who had become obsessed with you and did not feel anyone was good enough for you.”
“Cold comfort, I would imagine. They still must hold me a little responsible.”
He shrugged. “They must deal with that however they can. That is the official story and is what will appear in the files. The case is closed.”
She nodded as she busied herself wiping the dirt from the laudanum vial.
“I want you to know that the only one aside from me and Wycliffe who will ever know the truth is Lord Carlington. I thought he deserved to know what Lady Caroline...your mother...had gone through and what had formed her reason for never seeing him again.”
“I hope that brought him comfort.”
“It did. Though he said he was not entirely certain he was not your father.”
She looked up and met his gaze. “How very kind of him, though we both know that is not the case.”
“Nevertheless, he swears he will claim you as his should Lady Caroline’s secret ever come out—though we’ve been quite careful that it will not.”
“But the facts of my parentage remain.”
He nodded somberly. “They do indeed. And the facts are these—that you are the daughter of a peeress. She alone formed you and nurtured you. You are well educated and intelligent. You risked your life to save mine though I wouldn’t have been able to live without you. And I have loved only you since the first day I saw you.”
“But you said—”
“Do not remind me what I said. I was...I am a complete idiot and my foolish prejudices nearly cost me the one thing I hold dearest.” He took her hand and lifted it to his lips. “When I saw you standing there with Gibbons holding a knife to your throat, I realized, with clarity uncommon to me, that you were all I cared about. That I could not breathe without you. He was right, Georgiana. You are too good for me. But I would be honored if you would consent to remain my wife, to bear my name and my children as well as my occasional idiocies.”
Tears stung her eyes. She could not speak for the lump in her throat, so she nodded instead. He threw his arms around her and they fell back on the soft fragrant grass. As he looked down at her, she only had one last apology to make.
“I am so sorry to have turned your life upside down, Charles. And I regret the scandal, gossip and danger I have brought you.”
“No apologies necessary, my love. I am counting on our daring liason to keep me from growing bored. Have I not told you that I have a deep passion for loving dangerously?”
* * * * *
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Chapter One
May 1817—Highbury House, London
‘Do smile, Pandora; I am sure that neither Devil nor Lucifer intends to gobble you up! At least...it is to be hoped, not in any way you might find unpleasant.’
Pandora, widowed Duchess of Wyndwood, did not join in her friend’s huskily suggestive laughter as they approached the two gentlemen Genevieve referred to so playfully. Instead she felt her heart begin to pound even more rapidly in her chest, her breasts quickly rising and falling as she took rapid, shallow breaths in an effort to calm her feelings of alarm, and the palms of her hands dampened inside the lace of her gloves.
She did not know either gentleman personally, of course. Both men were in their early thirties whereas she was but four and twenty, and she had never been a part of the risqué crowd which surrounded them whenever they deigned to show themselves in society. Nevertheless, she had recognised them on sight as being Lord Rupert Stirling, previously Marquis of Devlin and now Duke of Stratton, and his good friend, Lord Benedict Lucas, two gentlemen who had, this past dozen years or so, become known more familiarly amongst the ton as Devil and Lucifer. So named for their outrageous exploits, both in and out of ladies’ bedchambers.
The same two gentlemen Genevieve had moments ago suggested might be considered as likely candidates as lovers now that th
eir year of mourning for their husbands was over...
‘Pandora?’
She gave a shake of her head. ‘I do not believe I can be a party to this, Genevieve.’
Her friend gave her arm a gently reassuring squeeze. ‘We are only going to speak to them, darling. Play hostess for Sophia whilst she deals with the unexpected arrival of the Earl of Sherbourne.’ Genevieve glanced across the ballroom to where the lady appeared to be in low but heated conversation with the rakish Dante Carfax, a close friend of Devil and Lucifer.
Just as the three widows were now close friends...
It was sheer coincidence that Sophia Rowlands, Duchess of Clayborne, Genevieve Forster, Duchess of Woollerton, and Pandora Maybury, Duchess of Wyndwood, had all been widowed within weeks of each other the previous spring. The three women, previously strangers, had swiftly formed an alliance of sorts when they had emerged from their year of mourning a month ago, drawn to each other by their young and widowed state.
But Genevieve’s suggestion a few minutes ago, that the three of them each ‘take one lover, if not several before the Season was ended’, had thrown Pandora more into a state of turmoil than anticipation.
‘Nevertheless—’
‘Our dance, I believe, your Grace?’
Pandora had not thought she would ever be pleased to see Lord Richard Sugdon, finding that young gentleman to be unpleasant in both his studied good looks and over-familiar manner whenever they chanced to meet. But, having found it impossible to think of a suitable reason to refuse earlier when he had pressed her to accept him for the first waltz of the evening, Pandora believed she now found even his foppish company preferable to that of the more overpowering and dangerous Rupert Stirling or Benedict Lucas.
‘I had not forgotten, my lord.’ She gave Genevieve a brief, apologetic smile as she placed her hand lightly upon Lord Sugdon’s arm before allowing herself to be swept out on to the ballroom floor.
A Daring Liaison Page 24