The Regency Season Collection: Part One. Кэрол Мортимер

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      A deceptive picture of innocence, if not beauty.

      So she might once have looked in their marriage bed, Zachary acknowledged with annoyance as his traitorous body stirred, hardened, as he continued to look down at her. And he had no doubt that until a year ago she had been an innocent, those violet-coloured eyes full of joy, of the expectations of life, rather than swirling with dark shadows as they had been earlier today.

      Feeling any sort of empathy, sympathy, for this woman would be a mistake on his part. Most especially when he still questioned her real motives for seeking him out.

      Zachary’s mouth thinned as he turned away impatiently and walked determinedly from the bedside with the intention of pulling the curtains completely across the windows. He had no time to rest himself—he had Wilding’s wedding to attend—but Georgianna might as well continue to sleep peacefully.

      Zachary was in need of a bath and a change of clothes after his own sleepless night, before he then attended the wedding in just a few hours.

      ‘Leave them. Please.’

      Zachary gave a start at the sound of Georgianna’s voice. A voice that sounded as if it were underlined with panic. Or possibly fear? Simply because he had been about to draw the last of the curtains fully across the windows to shut out the daylight?

      He turned to see that Georgianna had moved up on to her elbows, those ebony curls falling past her shoulders and cascading back on to the pillows behind her.

      Her face was still that ghostly oval, her eyes so dark they appeared almost purple as she looked across at him pleadingly. ‘Please,’ she beseeched earnestly.

      ‘What is it, Georgianna?’ Zachary prompted sharply as he crossed, frowning, to her side.

      Her breasts quickly rose and fell. ‘I—I am afraid of... I do not like complete dark.’ She sat up abruptly to curl her arms defensively about her drawn-up knees, looking for all the world like that frightened deer of earlier.

      ‘What foolishness is this, Georgianna?’ Zachary chided impatiently. ‘If you think to appeal to my softer side with exhibitions of feminine—’

      ‘How could I possibly do that, when we both know you do not have a softer side for me to appeal to!’ she came back sharply as she moved swiftly to the side of the bed before standing up and crossing to the window on stockinged feet. There she pulled back the curtains to allow in the full daylight. ‘And I assure you I speak only the truth.’ Her hands, no longer hidden in those black lace gloves, were clasped tightly together in front of her, the knuckles white as she looked up at him. ‘I do not like to be in the complete dark. Ever.’ Her lips firmed as she raised her chin in challenge.

      Zachary ignored Georgianna’s insult as he continued to study her through narrowed lids. Her face was ashen, but that could be because she had not slept for long enough, nor had she eaten the breakfast he had had brought to her.

      No, it was those tightly clasped hands, and the defiance in her stance, which now convinced Zachary that she was sincere in her dislike, even fear, of the complete dark.

      ‘And why is that?’ he prompted softly.

      Georgianna swallowed, hating that she had shown any sign of weakness in front of Zachary Black, the mocking Duke of Hawksmere. She hated him for dwelling on that weakness, whereas before she had merely feared him.

      Nor did she have any intention of telling this hateful man of the head injury she had suffered and which, for two weeks, had left her blind. For that short time she had been caught in eternal darkness, afraid that she would never be able to see again.

      It had been fear unlike anything Georgianna had ever known before, including the bleakness of those hours after André had attempted to murder her, leaving her body in the woods for the wild animals to devour.

      She accepted she had wronged Zachary Black in the past and had apologised for it, but surely, surely she did not have to now reveal all of her humiliations so that he might taunt her further?

      She hoped to keep some dignity.

      ‘How did you get that?’ she demanded sharply, eyes wide as she saw and recognised her travelling bag sitting on the floor just inside the door of the bedchamber.

      Hawksmere gave it a cursory glance before turning back with a dismissive shrug. ‘It was collected from your lodgings this morning, of course.’

      ‘I— But— How did you know where...? I told you earlier the name of the street where I had taken lodgings,’ Georgianna confirmed heavily.

      ‘You did, yes.’ Zachary gave a hard smile of satisfaction. It had not taken long at all for one of his footmen to be sent to Duke Street to discover in which lodging Georgianna was staying. ‘It was not too difficult to guess that the Anna Smith, who arrived in London yesterday, was in fact Georgianna Lancaster,’ he added coolly as she seemed to have been struck momentarily dumb. ‘And the two small portraits on the dressing table of your mother and father together, and another of your brother, confirmed it was so.’

      Those violet eyes rose quickly to meet his. ‘You went to Mrs Jenkins’s house yourself?’

      He shrugged. ‘I did not think you would appreciate having one of my footmen pawing through your more personal items.’

      She bristled. ‘Obviously you did not hesitate to do so yourself.’

      ‘Obviously not.’ Zachary gave a mocking nod. ‘We may have fought a war with France, but I have always considered that they do make the most sensual of ladies’ undergarments.’

      Two spots of colour appeared in the paleness of Georgianna’s cheeks. ‘And no doubt you have seen enough of them to be an expert on the subject?’

      ‘No doubt.’ Zachary’s mouth quirked in amusement. ‘Is it not a little late for you to be exhibiting such maidenly outrage, Georgianna?’ he added hardly.

      He was right. Of course he was right, Georgianna acknowledged heavily. She knew she had forfeited any right to feel outrage, maidenly or otherwise, in Hawksmere’s eyes, as well as those of all decent society, the moment she left her home in the middle of the night and eloped with André.

      Except, unbelievable as it would undoubtedly be for others to learn, she was still a maiden...

      She and André had spent the first night and day of their elopement travelling by coach to the port where they intended to board the boat bound for France, their intention being to marry there rather than linger overlong in England. And André had explained, once they reached that port, that they stood more chance of remaining undetected if they travelled as brother as sister. A logic for which Georgianna had been exceedingly grateful.

      Not least because, by that time, she had begun to doubt the wisdom of her actions.

      It had all seemed so romantic, so exciting, when she and André made their plans to elope together in the middle of the night. But the long hours spent in the coach together, the rattling and jostling too severe to allow sleep or even rest, and fraying both their tempers and patience, had enabled Georgianna to see André as rather less than the romantic hero she had thought him to be.

      To realise that, by running away with André in the middle of the night, she had cut herself off completely from her family, СКАЧАТЬ