Romancing the Rogue (87 page)

Diplomats for the United Irishmen will be received in Paris. The leader Emmet will go to France. He has appointed Fox as the English lead during his absence.

Signed,

A Loyal British Subject

Over the years, Georgina had lost count of all the bad things that had happened to her. Yet, she could count on two hands the number of wonderful things that had happened to her, and all of them involved Adam Markham.

Since she’d found work at Middlesex Hospital, she’d lived in constant fear that her Father and Jamie would find her and punish her for her role in freeing Adam. Whenever a stranger visited the facility, tendrils of fear would fan out and wrap around her lungs, making breathing difficult. At those times, she wished she could curl herself into a ball of invisibility. She’d done a remarkable job of going unnoticed—until now.

The tall man striding across the room like an avenging archangel was different than she remembered. Although lean, his body had the healthy weight of muscle to it. At the furious pace he’d set, his unfashionably long golden hair whipped free of the queue at the base of his neck. Her fingers all but trembled from the urge to brush back those strands kissed with golden sunlight.

“Adam,” she whispered.

Georgina’s lids slid closed. It couldn’t be. Moments like this didn’t happen to people like her. Magical moments were reserved for good, deserving people who didn’t share the blood of evil men.

When she opened them, Adam stood in front of her, very masculine and very, very real. She had to tilt her head back to look at him.

Hot emotion glinted in the moss green of his irises. He studied her as if she were the sun, moon, and stars all rolled into one.

Adam took her hand and with infinite slowness, brought it to his lips with the sweet tenderness of which dreams were made.

Nurse Talbert gasped. “Miss Honoria!” The woman’s owl-like eyes were wide with disapproval.

Propriety could go hang. Just then, nothing else mattered. In the months since she’d lived in London and worked at the hospital, Adam had remained with her as a life-sustaining memory.

He continued to hold her hand. Some indecipherable look filled his eyes.

“Miss Honoria, I must insist—”

Adam shot the nurse a withering look that silenced her.

Regardless of the fact that Adam was here, Georgina had to have a care for her reputation. By the grace of God, she’d secured a position at Middlesex Hospital. She could not risk being thrown out in the dead of winter without work.

She tried to tug her hand free to no avail.

Adam leaned close. His breath tickled her kin. “I am not letting you go. Is that clear, Georgina?”

When he looked at her this way, as if she were the most important person in all the world, it made her yearn for foolish, unattainable dreams.

The silence of the room seemed to reach Adam. His hard, powerful stare surveyed the wide-eyed patients, and when his eyes returned to hers, they gentled. “I need to speak to you, Georgina.”

God, how she wanted that. She wanted to be with him and only him, now and forever. But there was Father and— her heart seized
—
Grace Blakely. “I can’t, Adam.” If she spent any more time with him, it would destroy her with the promise of the things that could never be.

He growled and began tugging Georgina from the room as if he were a conquering lord and she the lady of the castle.

She tripped over her skirts, and Adam caught her against him. He slowed his step but did not halt the determined course he’d set.

With the same force of a mountain crashing down atop her, Georgina became aware of the impropriety. She dug her heels in.

“Adam, you must stop!” she implored. In the span of a heartbeat, he’d destroyed the security she’d come to covet.

She cast her eyes back at Nurse Talbert. The woman clutched at her side as she tried to keep up with the rigorous pace set by Adam. Her pale blue eyes flashed sparks of disapproval.

A knot formed in Georgina’s stomach. Her employer would never countenance such scandal. The woman was prouder than King George himself and would rather welcome the mice scurrying around the facility than Georgina, who would become a constant reminder of this humiliation. Georgina would be cast out, and this time there would be no reference, only a ruined reputation. Who knew that panic could be deafening and blinding at the same time? It filled her senses and consumed her until she didn’t know which way was up and which was down. For all the damage Adam had wrought this day, he may as well have been dragging her into the pits of hell.

Adam, however, appeared unaffected by the tremor wracking her frame. He moved like a man possessed. His gaze snapped left and right down the long hall then narrowed on a closed door. Without a knock, he shoved it open.

The two women folding bed linens and towels glanced up. Their eyes widened.

“Get out,” he snapped through clenched teeth.

The women shrieked and, in their haste for freedom, knocked over a small table with folded linens. Their efforts came crashing down like a crumbling snowy white mountain.

Nurse Talbert caught the edge of the doorway. Her chest heaved as she struggled to catch her breath. “What is the meaning of this, sir? You cannot simply accost one of our maids!”

Adam closed the door in her face.

She pounded away at the door. “Open the door this instant, sir. Do you hear me?”

Adam’s response was to turn the lock.

Georgina slapped a hand against her mouth. Oh, she was done for now. Adam would make it through Nurse Talbert’s rage unscathed
—
he was, after all, an earl’s brother. Georgina, herself wouldn’t be as fortunate. Her knees knocked together, and this time she was glad for Adam’s sure grip on her elbow because it was all that prevented her from dissolving into a puddle at his feet.

The pounding stopped.

Adam released her. He stood staring at her through thick, golden lashes. Georgina inched away from him until her back met the door.

He reached for her, but she held up a single finger.

He stopped. “Georgina,” he murmured.

She thrashed her head back and forth. “Stop. Please,” she said, when he tried to reach for her hand.

As much as she loved him, he could never be hers. A spasm seized her heart. It had taken Georgina months to accept that Adam would not come charging in on his white steed and rescue her from the hell that was her life.

Adam had Grace. There would always be Grace.

Georgina sucked in a breath, nearly doubling over from the pain of it. Why, even now he might be wedded to the beauty. Georgina would’ve preferred to spend the rest of her days with nothing more than memories of Adam, rather than knowing he’d married his glorious goddess.

She rushed toward the window, covering her mouth to smother a sob. Oh God, it was too much.

“Georgina, please.” His hoarse entreaty threatened to shatter her.

She couldn’t look at him or the damned teardrops blurring her vision would fall and she couldn’t bear for him to see what a silly-heart she was. “Y-you are well?” she managed, not turning around.

He placed his hands upon her shoulders. Georgina’s body tensed at the unexpectedness of his touch. “Look at me, Georgina.”

She shook her head. If Georgina looked at him, the thin control she had of her emotions would snap, and she’d be left exposed.

“Georgina, look at me,” he commanded. With the care he might have showed an ancient relic, he turned her around.

Despair streaked her cheeks, and in that moment she hated him for not allowing her to hold onto the only thing she had left—her dignity.

He tipped her chin up. His thumb brushed back a single tear. There was another to take its place. He shouldn’t be touching her. It was making her yearn for things that would never be hers.

“Why the tears, love?” His gentle whisper only made the tears flow all that much faster.

“H-how is y-your wife?”

Adam’s finger froze. His arm fell to his side. “My wife?”

“Mrs. Markham. Is she well?” Georgina bit the inside of her cheek.

Adam’s body stiffened.

Georgina used it as her opportunity to escape. This was too much. She’d rather endure the lash than this pain. Her hand was on the door handle before he stopped her. This time with words.

“Grace is married.”

Bitterness, as sharp as acid, burned the back of her throat. What remained of her heart cracked into a million shards, jabbing at her insides until she wanted to twist and writhe to escape the pain of losing him
—
but then, he’d never been hers to lose.

“Congratulations.” She didn’t know how she managed those words. Not when she wanted to hiss and snarl like a wounded cat. There was no way Grace Blakely could possibly love him like Georgina did.

“If I ever see her, I’ll be sure to pass along your felicitations.” His response was dry as leaves in winter.

She spun around.

“She is married,” he held his palms up, “just not to me.”

All the air left Georgina on a whoosh. Grace Blakely had married another man? The woman must be as mad as a hatter.

Grace had been the light that sustained him through his captivity. “Oh, Adam,” she murmured. “I am so very sorry.” She would embrace the agony of unrequited love if it meant he was happy. After what he’d endured
—
at her father’s hands—he deserved nothing less.

He clasped his hands together and stared down at them. “Apparently I was gone too long.”

Needles of guilt pricked at her. Adam’s captivity had cost him the woman he loved. She hated her father, and herself, all over again.

“I should have freed you sooner. If I had…”

He closed the distance between them in three long strides and pressed a finger to her lips, silencing her. “I didn’t lose Grace because of you.”

She moved his hand. “That doesn’t make it all right, Adam. It is because of…
of them that you lost her. I could have helped you. I could have made sure you got back before…” Beautiful Grace married some other man. Georgina didn’t finish. She imagined those words would be too painful for him.

He rested his palms on the door, framing her between his arms. “Lovely, lovely Georgina,” he murmured.

Then he did what she’d longed for him to do since she’d spied him across the ward. He kissed her. The crown of her head. The tip of her nose. On her closed eyes. She waited, breath held, until he claimed her lips with his in a moment so fleeting, Georgina wondered if she’d imagined it.

“You worry about everyone else. Do you ever think of yourself?”

If he knew the depth of her betrayal, he’d know that all she’d worried about her entire life was her own safety, her own comfort. “I’m not good, Adam.” She was as tainted as a witch’s black mark. Her continued deception only proved as much.

The green of his eyes sparkled. He cupped her cheek in his palm. “Dearest Georgina, I have lain awake so many nights thinking about you. Worrying about you.” His hand clenched reflexively on her flesh. “The day I was freed, I nearly went mad knowing I’d left you there.” A tick in the corner of his mouth made his skin twitch. He leaned down, his breath caressing her skin. “Did they hurt you?”

Georgina hesitated. A feral gleam glowed within his eyes and she knew. If she told him about what she’d endured that day, he’d hunt her father down and kill him. She could not let Adam risk his life. Not for her.

So she lied. “No. They didn’t hurt me.”

His eyes slid closed, and a prayer escaped him on a whispering sigh. “I thought…”

She touched her fingers to his chest. His heart thumped fast and true against her palm. “They didn’t hurt me,” she assured him. There were so many lies, sometimes she felt she was slogging through a quagmire of deception.

If this brings him peace, what is one more falsity to the hundred others?

There was a faint scratching at the door. “Mr. Markham?”

Oh God, Nurse Talbert.

“I’ve returned with His Lordship.”

Georgina scooted out from under the bridge of his arms. Nurse Talbert’s voice grated like fingernails being scraped across a windowpane. She clamped her hand over her ears, trying to blot out the sound.

Nurse Talbert would sack her. She tried sucking breath into her constricted lungs. It felt like someone had dragged her below water and was holding onto her feet, as she was seized by the same desperation she’d felt in Bristol after her father had beat her and left her for dead.

Adam called out to her. “Georgina, it will be all right.”

Even his tender concern couldn’t drag her from the dark abyss. She was sinking. Deeper. Deeper. Soon she’d disappear, forever gone. A panicky laugh bubbled up from her throat. Disappearing was the preferable option to being discovered with Adam here.

Her gaze scoured the room for escape. It landed on a solitary window. She squinted.

Is there a tree out there?

Someone jiggled the door handle. “Open this door.” It was a man.

Georgina could only assume the voice belonged to the earl of Whitehaven, a mythical beast she’d rather not face. Austere, regal, and polished, he was everything Georgina was not.

She looked to Adam for help. His lips were turned up, revealing even, pearl-white teeth. “How can you be smiling?” she choked out.