Dark Deceptions

by Christi Caldwell

“Your tones are very cultured for a maid’s daughter.”

  Georgina stiffened.

  “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said.

  His words danced too close to the truth. The Crown had known what they were doing when they trained this man to do its work.

  “What happened to them?”

  God, he was tenacious. Despite knowing exactly whom he meant, she asked, “To whom?”

  “Your parents.”

  She looked out the window and shifted, her lies piling onto the already heavy guilt she carried. “They died.” She directed her curt response to the gardens below.

  “How did they—”

  Georgina interrupted him before she had to add to her burden with further fabrications about her imaginary family. She spun around. “Why don’t you tell me about your family?”

  She expected him to go silent as he so often did when she asked him probing questions she didn’t deserve an answer to.

  “My father died when I was young. He suffered an apoplexy.”

  The anguish on his face squeezed her heart. It called her back to the seat beside him. “I’m so sorry.” She sank into the chair.

  Adam glanced down at his hands. “It was a long time ago.”

  “That doesn’t make it less painful.” Desperate to drive back the sad lines at the corners of his lips, Georgina asked, “Do you have any siblings?”

  He nodded. “Two brothers.”

  A wave of wistfulness overtook her. “I would have traded my left hand for a brother or sister.”

  Adam chuckled. “Yes, sometimes I am lucky. It would depend on which given day you ask me.”

  “What are they like?”

  His brow wrinkled. “Well, Nick is the eldest. He’s four years older than I am and always assumed responsibility for us. My younger brother, Anthony, could drive a saint to drink. But they are a good, loving family.” His throat bobbed up and down, and she had to look away again.

  “And what of the woman?” Her cheeks blazed at the boldness of such a question.

  He reached for his glass of water and took a long swallow. “I can’t speak of her.”

  “Because she was your love?” She curled her fingers into the sides of the chair as she waited in hopeful anticipation of his answer.

  “Because she is the only woman I’ll ever love and it is a disservice to her memory to speak of her.”

  Pain knifed at her heart. What she wouldn’t give to have a man speak with that kind of passion about her. The alternative; that his words resonated because they’d been spoken by this enigmatic man, were too terrifying for her to seriously consider. She shook her head, ridding herself of the foolish notion.

  “Have you ever been in love?”

  She started at his question. “Never.” As much as she longed for an honorable suitor, Georgina didn’t think she’d ever find a man who would love and care for her. She’d long ago ceased to believe that she’d find a way out of this hell. “If I marry, it will be for security and stability. Never love.”

  Adam’s brow wrinkled. “Those are unusual words for a young woman. Women like you are supposed to be starry-eyed and dreaming of a handsome, young man to carry you away.”

  Bitterness made her laugh. “My dreams of fairy tale endings have long come and gone. There is no such thing as love.” At least not for me.

  He didn’t counter her words. Instead, he eyed her with that warm concern that was chipping away at the defensive wall she’d constructed around her heart. He was dangerous to the self-protection she’d spent the better part of her life perfecting.

  Georgina scrambled to her feet so quickly she upended her chair. She bit the inside of her cheek hard, drawing blood. She bound his hands and retrieved the sketchpad. “I have to go.”

  “Georgina!”

  She raced from his room and down the stairs, sinking into a heap at the bottom step. She dropped her head into her hands. “What are you doing?” she mouthed into her palms.

  The longer Adam Markham remained in her father’s lair, the more she had to confront her own weaknesses in preventing his evil. This man, another stranger required her help in attaining his freedom. To not aid him would ultimately mean his death. Georgina captured her lower lip between her teeth. How could she manage to free him while taking care to avoid her father’s retribution? Ah God help her. She could not fail. Not again. Not as she had before.

  Her body trembled as the image of the stranger killed by her father’s hand slipped into her mind’s eye. He’d been the one to give her the contact information for key figures in the Home Office. In the end, Georgina had been unable to help him. She had sworn she’d never again be responsible for another man’s death. Georgina folded her arms tight across her midsection as the stranger’s face took shape—only this time it was Adam on the floor. Adam’s chest painted red with blood. Adam’s—

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  She picked her head up and stared at her father’s corpulent form. He stood over her, a dark frown etched on his face. She’d be damned if he saw just how much his presence unnerved her. He’d always taken a perverse delight in her fear.

  Georgina schooled her features. “Forgive me, but watching a man suffer needlessly doesn’t sit well with me.” She rose to her feet and faced him.

  Father chortled so deeply he broke into a fit of coughing. His rotund frame shook under the depth of his amusement.

  Gooseflesh dotted her skin. How could she share the same blood as this loathsome creature?

  His bushy, white brows dipped. “You got that look in your eyes, Georgie.”

  Georgina couldn’t imagine her father knew her well enough to recognize any kind of look about her. “What look is that, Father?”

  “The one that reminds me how you betrayed us in the past.” Georgina did not answer fast enough for his liking and he launched into a stinging diatribe. “Did you forget about the soldiers who raped your grandmother and then slit her throat? Are those the people you are loyal to, daughter?”

  Her heart ached for the faceless woman she’d never known, but Mr. Markham was alive now. “Mr. Markham is not guilty of those crimes, Father.”

  He slapped her hard. Blood filled her mouth where her teeth cut the inside of her cheek, and stars danced behind her eyes. She fought the urge to cradle her face, too proud to show him the hurt he’d caused. But she’d be damned if she allowed him to see even a smidgeon of the pain he’d caused.

  Black rage danced in his eyes, giving him the look of a feral animal. He jabbed a finger in her direction. “You’ll do what I tell you to do!” His rough hands closed painfully on her shoulders. “Now listen to me. You will make that bastard upstairs fall in love with you.”

  A haze of confusion descended. “You want me to what?”

  “Stupid girl,” he muttered. “We’ve tried beating the truth out of him. We’ve gotten nowhere. I want you to find out who his leader is. I want the names of all the men in his organization. They are the ones hunting down our members. We need to get to them before they get to us.” A heinous smile tilted the corner of his lips and chilled her through.

  Now it made sense—father’s willingness to trust her with Adam even after she’d set his last prisoner free. She folded her arms and attempted to rub warmth into them. “And if I say no?”

  Father’s lips turned up in a black smile. “If you do, I’ll let Jamie have at you.”

  Ice filled her veins. Having born witness to enough of his sins, she didn’t doubt that vile pledge.

  “Come, gel. You think I don’t see the way he’s panting after you? Why do you think he hasn’t had you yet?”

  Only, she’d believed her father at least valued her enough as a daughter to preserve her honor. Apparently, there were no redeeming aspects about him. He was a monster. Didn’t you already know that? Haven’t you witnessed the lengths he will go to achieve his goals? “Even with what happened to your mother, you would do that to me, your own daughter?”

>   He leaned close, fury dancing in his eyes. “I made a pledge to see Ireland liberated.”

  She gritted her teeth in thinly veiled hatred. Could she betray Mr. Markham to save herself from Jamie? “And how do you propose I make your captive fall in love with me?” The achingly beautiful woman in the sketchpad surfaced in her memory.

  “I don’t care what you do. Just do it.”

  Georgina slid her gaze away. Jamie would violate her. She knew that, knew it with a sick sense of inevitability. The part of her deep down, the part bent on self-preservation, embraced the promise of safety her father dangled before her. She closed her eyes and saw the hard angular planes of Adam’s face, a face too beautiful for words. She saw his long limbs, imagined them twined with hers in thoughts no good, respectable woman should ever have. Her pulse fluttered in remembrance of his thumb stroking the soft skin of her neck. Georgina forced her eyes open. “I won’t do it,” she said in hushed tones. “I’ll care for him, I’ll feed him, but I won’t play this game of treachery.”

  Her father growled and took a step toward her.

  Georgina’s chin ticked up a notch. She held his flinty stare.

  He cursed and spit on the floor. “You’ll do what I tell you to do.”

  She wasn’t foolish enough to believe the matter concluded.

  “Get up there and care for him. Jamie is untying him now.” He jabbed another finger at her chest. “He is only unbound when one of us is present.” A hard nudge between her shoulder blades propelled her feet forward. “I don’t like keeping him around this long. As soon as I get the information we need, I can get rid of him.”

  Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. She swallowed several times before managing to squeeze the words out. “Get rid of him?”

  “Don’t worry yourself with that.”

  Within moments, Georgina found herself staring at an unbound Adam Markham.

  The door closed, the lock settling into place with an ominous click.

  Adam’s frame unfurled was more impressive than anything she could have imagined. He towered like the god Apollo, a golden warrior. Her heart missed a beat.

  “You are taller than I’d imagined.” She flinched.

  Blast it! Shut your mouth, Georgina.

  His lips twitched. “You are a tiny thing.”

  A startled laugh escaped her. That was the first time she had ever been referred to as tiny. She held up the leather folio in her hands. “I’ve brought you this.”

  He crossed the room in three long strides and Georgina panicked. She dropped the sketchpad and took a step backwards. Then another. Until her back met the wall. Her heart thumped wildly.

  He froze. “You don’t think I would hurt you?”

  “No, I…” She let the words trail off. “Desperate men say and do desperate things.”

  Adam studied her. Silence stretched out before them and then he walked toward her. She studied the slow rise and fall of his chest, the indecipherable expression in his eyes as he came to a stop. He reached to caress her reddened cheek. “Who did this?” Barely suppressed violence underlay the whispered question.

  Georgina relished the gentleness of his caress. Never had a man touched her with such tenderness. “Please,” she rasped.

  …don’t stop touching me.

  She was halfway to begging him to hold her in a way no one ever had.

  He dropped his hand back to his side as though he’d been burned. “Forgive me,” he murmured.

  She wanted to weep at the loss of his touch.

  “It was them, wasn’t it?”

  She nodded, grateful someone loathed the two men as much as she did.

  A growl climbed up his throat and it was too much. This expression of someone caring about her welfare. About her. She clenched her eyes shut, willing back tears. He could not be allowed to see her weakness. A drop slipped down her cheek. Then another. Finally a torrent of long-suppressed grief poured out.

  He groaned and pulled her into his arms. She recoiled, but Adam stroked the back of her head and held her to him with a gentle strength. “Shh,” he whispered against her temple.

  She sobbed against his chest, this man her father had asked her to betray. She selfishly took all the comfort and support he offered until her tears soaked the front of his rough cambric shirt.

  Adam caressed the strands of her hair. “Shh,” he whispered. “They are not worth your tears.”

  Except she didn’t cry for them. She cried for the little girl who’d been beaten and forgotten. She cried at the unfairness of being dependent on a man to survive. She cried for Adam, who was as trapped as she was.

  They stood that way until her tears drew to a shuddery halt.

  Georgina wiped her eyes, suddenly feeling very foolish for her humiliating display of emotion. “Forgive me.”

  Adam brushed away a loose curl that hung over her eyes. “You are a brave woman. I meant what I said. If you free me, I will help you.”

  Suddenly it was very important that Adam understood.

  “There was another man,” she whispered. “I freed him and he…” She squeezed her eyes shut “He paid with his life. And I paid the price, too.” Her father and Jamie had dragged her from the room and beat her until she’d passed out.

  Adam cupped her face between his hands. His eyes met hers. “I would rather die than remain in this place.”

  His words transported her back to that dark day, when the last captive had lain dead on her kitchen floor. She would not lead him to his death. “No. You don’t mean that,” she rasped.

  Adam steadied her. “What is it?”

  She shook her head. Her breath came in deep, gasping pants.

  He swept her into his arms and carried her to the bed. “What is it?” he whispered.

  Adam held her and stroked smooth circles over her back. Georgina wanted it to go on forever. “Thank you. No one has ever…” Her pride prevented her from finishing her sentence.

  He frowned. “No one has ever held you? What about your—”

  Georgina tripped over the web of lies she’d already spun. To stop the question on his lips, she did the unthinkable. She leaned up to kiss him.

  The shock of their lips meeting struck her like a flash of lightning. A foreign hunger for his touch snaked through her limbs and Georgina wound herself about him like a vine of ivy.

  He groaned, the sound a primal, masculine grumble from deep within his chest.

  She twined her hands about his neck and caressed the golden locks of spun silk in her fingers.

  Adam put his hands on her waist, paused, and then, as if exploring, moved his search lower, down to the curve of her hips. She angled her head, opening herself to his kiss. Parting her lips, she allowed his tongue entry. He moaned as if in pain. Georgina’s lids fluttered open and she studied this golden god as he kissed her. His eyes were clenched tight as if creased by agonized pleasure. All because of her.

  With a small cry, she threw her head back, exposing her neck for his attention.

  He set her away so fast she tumbled to the floor.

  It took a long while for the cloud of passion to lift. When it did, she wished she could pull it firmly back in place. Horror wreathed the hard-angled planes of Adam’s face.

  Her heart sputtered to a slow halt. His revulsion had the same effect as a punch to her belly.

  “Christ,” Adam whispered.

  As much as she hoped his horror came from having shoved her aside, she knew it was not. In a desperate attempt at preserving the little pride she had left, she rose and brushed out her skirts.

  Adam’s throat moved up and down as he seemed to force the words out. “I am in love with another woman. I will not betray her.”

  Not for a woman like you, her mind silently jeered.

  A stinging jealousy for the woman who had laid claim to his heart filled her.

  He’d merely been providing her with a comforting embrace and she had flung herself at him like a shameless wanton! A scarlet blush stained her
cheeks.

  Adam extended his hand.

  Georgina looked at his long, gentleman’s fingers. With every fiber of her being, she wanted to reject it, but pride dictated that she show him how unaffected she was by his rejection. She placed her hand in his and allowed him to help her up.

  He took her chin between his forefinger and thumb. “This is not about you, Georgina. I told you before—”

  She angled her chin away from him. “I know.”

  The last thing in the world she needed to hear was how in love he was with the nameless beauty in the sketchpad. It only reminded her that some women were born beautiful, with the love and adulation of good men, while women like her dwelled in the shadows.

  In the grand scheme of lies she’d told this man, what was one more? “I am sorry I kissed you. I don’t know what came over me.” She had many regrets. Kissing him was not one of them.

  “You are a lovely woman. I’m just in love with someone else.”

  And there it was, a second time. Punishment for coveting what belonged to the goddess on his parchment.

  She wanted to find a dark corner of the house and nurse her wounds like an injured pup. Georgina managed a jerky nod and turned to leave.

  Her father’s yell carried through the door. “Georgina?”

  The blood drained from her cheeks. “I’m coming!” she called.

  She hurried over to the door just as it was flung open to crash into her hip. Georgina grunted at the throb of pain that shot down her leg.

  Her father and Jamie stood in the doorway. Father held a pistol trained on Adam, while Jamie pinned Adam with a glare brimming with loathing.

  “It’s time to tie this animal up,” her father growled.

  Jamie escorted Adam to his bed, but the golden god sprang at Jamie and caught him square in the stomach, felling him. The men wrestled for power like lions vying for control. Adam managed to straddle Jamie. He wrapped his hands around the weaker man’s neck.

  Georgina watched in sick fascination as Jamie’s eyes bulged from his sockets and drool spilled from his gaping mouth. She’d seen a dead man, but she’d never seen a man’s last breath leave his body. She couldn’t tear her gaze away.

  Her father wrapped his arm around her forearm and tugged her to his side. He pinched the soft skin.