Colour warmed her cheeks. ‘As you had never so much as bothered even speaking to her, I am not surprised. Indeed, as I have already told you, my only surprise is that you haven’t found my replacement and married since.’
Zachary looked down at her coldly, only too well aware that his time for marrying, and producing an heir, was ticking by faster than he would have wished. ‘Perhaps that is because I have decided to be more cautious in my second attempt at matrimony.’
‘How sad to know you were the second choice for the Duke of Hawksmere’s duchess!’ she retorted tartly.
He drew in a sharp breath. ‘My wife will not be my second choice, but the correct one. Which you, most assuredly, were not.’
The colour deepened in Georgianna’s cheeks. ‘Then it appears we may both be thankful for having escaped such an ill-matched union.’
‘Indeed, we can,’ Zachary bit out harshly.
They stared each other down for several more long seconds before Georgianna turned sharply on her heel and walked hastily from the room.
Much as he might wish to, Zachary did not trouble himself in following her, knowing he was in no mood at the moment to deal with her gently. Besides, he had meant it when he said he would very much enjoy the pleasure of recapturing her, and extracting payment, if she should try to escape Hawksmere House.
And him.
Chapter Seven
‘It is past time you woke up, Georgianna.’
Georgianna roused slowly from the deepness of her slumbers at the sound of that intruding voice. She’d been sleeping so deeply, lost in a most wonderful dream. A dream where she had felt both safe and warm, something she had not been for so very long.
‘Georgianna!’
She frowned as the impatient voice rallied her for a second time. She was so very reluctant to relinquish those feelings of safety after months of fear and the nervousness of discovery.
‘If you do not open your eyes in the next few seconds, Georgianna, then you will leave me with no choice but to throw this jug of cold water over you.’
It really was Hawksmere talking to her, she realised with a groan.
For surely only Zachary Black, the forceful Duke of Hawksmere, could be so very demanding? So impatient for her to obey his every instruction, he threatened to douse her in water?
She forced her lids to open before going up on her elbows to seek his exact location in the half gloom of the bedchamber. ‘What? That was deliberately cruel.’ She glowered across the room at the duke as she saw he stood beside where he had just thrown back the curtains fully in order to let in the brightness of the morning’s sunshine.
He gave a hard and unapologetic smile. ‘But no doubt preferable to the dousing in cold water. Of course, the water for washing was not cold when it was delivered to your room three hours ago,’ he added scathingly. ‘But it most certainly will be now.’
Three hours ago? ‘What time is it?’ Georgianna pushed the silky curtain of her hair over her shoulders.
Hawksmere strode impatiently to the bedside, revealing he was already dressed for the day, in a dark grey superfine, silver brocade waistcoat over white linen, with pale grey pantaloons and brown-topped Hessians. ‘After eleven.’
Georgianna blinked up at him. After eleven o’clock in the morning? Then she had must have slept for a dozen hours or more after eating a little of the food from the tray that Hinds had delivered to her room last evening. How could she have slept for so long? It had been weeks, months, since she had been able to sleep so deeply.
She recalled her dream. The safety and the warmth she had felt cocooning her. Implying she felt safe in Hawksmere’s home? With Hawksmere just feet away in the adjoining bedchamber? The same gentleman who had threatened and imprisoned her? Impossible!
And yet…
Georgianna could not deny that she had felt that sense of safety and warmth as she awoke, as if nothing and no one could harm her whilst she was in Hawksmere House.
A feeling she had no intentions of sharing with Hawksmere himself.
‘Obviously you slept well,’ he added mockingly. ‘No doubt you will claim it was the sleep of the innocent.’
Georgianna frowned at his harshness, checking that her nightgown was securely fastened up to her throat before sitting up in the bed to glare accusingly at her tormentor. ‘You should have woken me earlier if my sleeping late displeases you.’
He raised dark brows. ‘I do not believe that is included in my duties, as your gaoler.’
‘Then perhaps in future it should be,’ she snapped irritably.
Hawksmere frowned grimly. ‘I have had other things to occupy me this morning, other than troubling myself to wake you from your lazy slumbers.’
Georgianna almost laughed at his words; there had been no lazy slumbers for her since she’d left England for France the previous year!
The time she had spent with André had been rife with tension and the days had started early on the Barnards’ farm. The tavern had been even worse, with late nights cooking food followed by early mornings spent cleaning in readiness for the next influx of customers.
All so very unlike her previous pampered and privileged life as the only daughter of the Earl of Malvern.
She looked up at Hawksmere searchingly now, immediately noting the grimness about his eyes and the firmness of his mouth. His expression was altogether one of harshness this morning, rather than the lazy mockery he had shown towards her yesterday evening. His movements were restless as he turned away from the bed and began to pace the bedchamber.
‘What other things have occupied you this morning?’ she prompted warily.
Zachary shot her an impatient glance, not sure how much he should reveal to Georgianna, how much he needed to reveal to her, when the information delivered to him earlier this morning was not confirmed, only suspected at this point in time. When his instructions were still to keep her a prisoner here.
He drew in a controlling breath. ‘I shall be leaving London later today and I am uncertain when I shall return.’
‘You are leaving London?’ she echoed sharply. ‘To go where?’
Zachary had known that Georgianna was too intelligent, had grown too unconventional in her ways, to accept his statement without suspicion or question, as most women in society would have done. To most women a gentleman’s activities outside their home were his own affair and definitely not to be questioned too deeply. Not so with the forthright Georgianna, unfortunately.
He glowered down at her, wishing she did not look quite so delectable this morning, her face soft and flushed from sleep, that silky dark hair once again loose about her shoulders and down her spine. The white cotton nightgown also did little to hide the fact that she was naked beneath it, her breasts jutting out firm and tempting against its voluptuous folds.
‘What will you do with me while you are away?’ she added slowly.
Zachary scowled. ‘You will remain here, of course.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You intend leaving me a prisoner in this bedchamber indefinitely?’
‘I see no alternative.’ Much as he might wish it were otherwise. And the thought of keeping Georgianna cooped up in this bedchamber was not a pleasant one. Especially when he had no idea how long her incarceration would last. Or when he would return to England.
‘Where are you going, Zachary?’ she demanded sharply. ‘Tell me,’ she insisted determinedly as his mouth thinned.
He sighed his impatience as he once again wished for a less intelligent and astute woman than Georgianna. ‘As you are to remain incarcerated here, I can see no harm in your knowing that rumours have reached our shores that Napoleon is on the move.’
‘I knew it!’ Georgianna announced, her face aglow with triumph as she threw back the bedcovers before climbing out of the bed and revealing that her nightgown covered her from her throat down to her slender ankles.
Or it attempted to do so, because Zachary could clearly make out the shadowy outline of the rosy tips to the fu
llness of her breasts, as well as the dark shadow of the curls nestled so seductively between her thighs.
He gave an inward groan as his own body instantly reacted to those tantalising glimpses of the shadowy outline of Georgianna’s body, his arousal hardening to pulsing need inside his pantaloons.
‘Did I not tell you it would be so, Zachary?’ she continued excitedly, her face glowing with that excitement as she paced quickly to one of the windows, unknowingly allowing the sun, as it shone through the glass, to instantly turn her nightgown diaphanous.
Zachary closed his eyes briefly in order to shut out the sight of Georgianna’s slender nakedness so clearly outlined through the white material. A brief visual respite that made absolutely no difference to the engorging of his erection as it continued to pulse, to lengthen and thicken, with impatient need.
He gave a shake of his head as he opened his lids to look across at her guardedly. ‘Has no one ever told you it is most unattractive to say I told you so in that triumphant manner?’
‘Hah to that.’ Georgianna was too excited at being proved right to behave in the least ladylike about it, despite Hawksmere’s rebuke. ‘I was right, Zachary, and you were wrong, and you may mock all you like, but…’ She stilled, excitement dying as she took in the full import of Hawksmere’s statement. ‘He is already on the move, you say?’
The duke gave a haughty inclination of his head. ‘So it is reported, yes.’
‘Then I was too late to be of help, after all.’ Georgianna groaned, shoulders slumping in defeat. ‘I delayed too long and arrived too late, Zachary.’ She buried her face in her hands. ‘Too late.’
Zachary was instantly torn between the need to go to Georgianna and comfort her by taking her into his arms, and the certain knowledge that if he did so he would be unable to stop himself from making love to her again. Last night had been a tortuous hell for him after he and Georgianna had parted so ignominiously. Knowing Georgianna was in the adjoining bedchamber, that silky ebony hair no doubt once again loose about her shoulders and breasts, and wearing nothing more than one of the two white nightgowns he had packed into her bag earlier in the day at her lodgings, had played havoc with his efforts to find rest, let alone sleep.
So much so that he had quickly worked himself up into a fine temper, his annoyance with both Georgianna, and his own weakness in desiring her, making it impossible for him to relax.
He had finally given up all attempt of sleeping just before two o’clock in the morning. He’d thrown back the bedcovers to get out of bed and pull on his brocade robe over his nakedness before pacing about his bedchamber instead. All the time aware, so totally aware, that Georgianna was just a door-width away from satisfying the lust that coursed so hotly through his body.
A lust Zachary could not, dare not, allow to rule him, when he still distrusted the woman responsible for that emotion.
Only to then realise, when Georgianna had slept in so late this morning, that while he had been suffering the torments of the damned the night before, she had been perfectly at peace in the adjoining bedchamber, sleeping like the dead—or innocent?—and so totally unaware of his own tormented longings.
His visitor earlier this morning, bearing news of Napoleon’s possible flight from Elba, had done nothing to improve the already short fuse on his overstretched temper. To so much as touch her now would be insanity on his part.
Oh, to hell with his caution, Zachary dismissed as he took the two long strides that brought him to her side, before reaching out to take her in his arms. He wanted this woman, to kiss her, to caress her, and God knew when he would have the opportunity to do so again.
She was so very slight, in both height and stature. Her head rested against his chest just beneath his chin. So slender, it was almost like holding a child in his arms.
Almost.
Because it was a certainty that Georgianna did not bring out even a spark of paternal instinct in him.
‘I should not have delayed my departure from France for so long.’ Her voice was muffled against his chest, her breath a warm caress through the thin material of his shirt. ‘Should not have been so cautious, so worried, that I might be discovered attempting to leave. And now Napoleon will return to France and— My God—’ she lifted her head to look up at Zachary searchingly, her face paling as realisation dawned ‘—that is where you are going, is it not?’
It so happened that that was exactly where Zachary was going.
But he was not allowed to discuss his mission. Even with the woman who was responsible for bringing him the news that it was Napoleon’s intention to leave Elba. If, as was suspected, the Corsican had not already done so.
Zachary gave a mocking smile. ‘I had not realised you had such a vivid imagination, Georgianna.’
‘Do not even attempt to treat me like the foolish young girl I once was, Zachary,’ Georgianna warned fiercely.
His expression was grim. ‘Oh, I assure you, I am only too well aware that you are no longer that young innocent, Georgianna, foolish or otherwise.’
‘Then do not… Umph!’ The last came out as a protesting squeak as Zachary silenced her by claiming her mouth with his own, his arms like steel bands about her waist as he held her so tightly to him her body was melded close against his own.
Georgianna fought against the confinement of those arms as she also tried to wrench her mouth from beneath his. All to no avail, as Zachary merely tightened his arms and deepened the kiss by parting her lips beneath his with the invasion of his tongue into the moist heat of her mouth.
His marauding tongue that explored every sensitive and heated contour of her mouth, before stilling her as that tongue stroked against her own in a slow and sensuous caress, claiming, possessing, and sending rivulets of pleasurable heat coursing through the whole of Georgianna’s body.
She had never… No one had ever made her feel like this before.
The sheer carnality of Zachary’s kiss was beyond anything Georgianna had ever experienced before, beyond anything she had ever imagined, and she had no defences against it.
No defence against Zachary as he continued to plunder and claim her mouth even as he lifted her up into his arms and carried her across the room to lay her down upon the bed before joining her there. He draped one of his legs across her thighs to keep her in place beside him as he continued to kiss and taste her even while one of his hands began to roam restlessly along the length of her body.
Her neck arched as Zachary broke that kiss to explore the column of her throat. She gasped as his hand cupped beneath her breast, instantly seeking out the sensitive berry at its tip, caressing, stroking and causing a tingling ache that spread like wildfire from her nipple down to between her dampening thighs.
Nevertheless, she knew she must seek some semblance of sanity, to put an end to the madness that had so rapidly overtaken them. ‘Zachary.’
‘Do not deny the desire that exists between us, Georgianna.’ He raised his head to look at her, his eyes glittering fiercely, a flush across the sharp blades of his cheekbones, his lips thinned.
As evidence that his own desire for her angered him rather than pleased him?
No doubt it did, when Zachary had every reason to believe she had been André Rousseau’s lover.
‘I will allow you to think of nothing and no one else whilst you are in my arms, Georgianna,’ he warned harshly, as he seemed to guess some of her thoughts. ‘And I fully intend to have you before I leave,’ he continued determinedly as he rose above and then over her, pushing her nightgown up her thighs as he settled between her legs. ‘All of you.’
She swallowed at the lustful violence she now saw in the fierceness of Zachary’s gaze. A violence of emotion that threatened to overwhelm completely Zachary’s previous cautions where she was concerned.
Georgianna ran the moistness of her tongue across the dryness of her lips. ‘You will only regret it.’
‘As you warned me yesterday I should regret having insisted you remove your veil?
’ he retorted harshly as he slid slowly down the length of her body, able to smell the sweet lure of her arousal once he was comfortably settled between her thighs.
‘Yes.’
‘And I did regret it. I regret it still. But it seems that regret does little to change the fact that I also desire you.’ Zachary gave a shake of his head, his endurance, and his patience, pushed beyond his control after his second sleepless night in succession. Because of this woman. Because of the desire he felt for her. A desire he had every intention of satisfying before he left England later today.
‘Please, Zachary.’
‘Oh, I intend to please you, Georgianna.’ He looked down as his hands moved up her thighs, pushing her nightgown up to her waist, revealing smooth, ivory skin and the dark thatch of curls nestled between her thighs. ‘And by pleasing you I also intend to please myself,’ he promised darkly, even as his fingers parted those curls to reveal the lushness of her rosy red folds with the little nubbin peeking out temptingly from beneath the hood above. ‘Open your legs wider and let me in, Georgianna,’ he encouraged gruffly.
‘I cannot.’
‘You can.’ Zachary moved even lower, the width of his shoulders pushing her thighs further apart, and allowing the heat of his gaze to feast on the slickness of her folds. So deep and rosy coloured, the lips there already swollen, moist, with Georgianna’s own arousal. ‘You are so beautiful, Georgianna,’ he murmured as his thumbs moved to part those folds, revealing the moist and welcoming centre. ‘Like a flower unfurling petals touched by the morning dew.’
Georgianna was not sure which mortified her the most, the suddenness of this intimacy, or her unmistakable arousal. Certainly she could not deny she was aroused, but at the same time she felt embarrassed by that response. At having a man, any man, look at and touch her so intimately. To have Zachary look and touch where she had never even looked or touched herself.
‘I had not taken you for a poet, Hawksmere.’
Dangerous Dukes 01 - Zachary Black - Duke of Debauchery Page 10