“Where is your father, Georgina?”
A chill raced along her spine. Georgina’s teeth chattered.
Catherine pulled a coverlet up to Georgina’s chest.
It didn’t help.
She took Georgina’s hands in her own and rubbed them. “Shh, you are safe here.”
For how long? It was only a matter of time before her father came looking for her. Georgina knew too many of his secrets.
What am I going to do? Where will I go?
Oh God, how she wished Adam was here. Georgina wept. Not the pretty droplets shed by young debutantes and flirty beauties. And not tears of self-pity. She cried over the loss of Adam Markham. After twenty years of being nothing more than an afterthought in life, he had treated her like someone to be cherished and cared for.
Hers were great, big, gasping tears that shook her whole body. Uncaring about the pain in her torso, she rolled onto her side and hugged herself.
She’d known it was the height of foolishness going and falling head over silly heels in love with Adam Markham. There were a thousand and one reasons she shouldn’t have done it. The most obvious being that he loved another woman. The second most obvious being that she shared the same blood as his captor.
Defying the logic that had dictated her life, Georgina had tossed it aside—all for the love of a man who would never, could never, love her in return.
She cried until her eyes were dry. Until her lungs ached and her muscles hurt from the exertion of her efforts. Through it all Nurse Catherine sat at her side and rubbed soothing circles over the expanse of her back.
Adam hadn’t returned.
Mr. Nathaniel Archer had come for her.
She squeezed her eyes tight. Adam hadn’t had a choice but to leave. He’d had to escape. Even as she told herself that, in her bone-weary fatigue, she hated him for being as much of a liar as the rest of the men in her life. It had been just as she’d said from the beginning—when presented with the opportunity for freedom, he would invariably forget her. He’d put up a convincing denial each time but, in the end, Georgina had been right.
And she found she hated herself even more for having been such a fool.
She drew in a shuddery breath. She had to mourn Adam, but not at the expense of her well-being.
“What will I do?” she whispered into the quiet.
“You’ll stay here as long as you need.”
And Georgina did just that. For another week, she spent time resting. Nathaniel Archer came and went like a phantom.
“Miss Wilcox?”
She glanced up from the chintz-patterned chair. The hard angular planes of Mr. Archer’s face were softened by the smile that curved his lips. She made to rise, but he held his hand up, motioning her to stay.
She stood anyway and dipped a curtsy. “Mr. Archer.”
He held his arm out. “Will you walk with me?”
Georgina hesitated before placing the tips of her fingers on his sleeve. He led her into Nurse Catherine’s office and closed the door behind them. “Mr. Archer—”
Catherine stood off to the side of the room, hands clasped in front of her.
Georgina’s words for Mr. Archer were forgotten as she studied the woman’s snow-white visage, the way she fisted the brown fabric of her skirts.
A cold sheen of sweat popped up on Georgina’s brow. She unwittingly took a step closer to Mr. Archer.
The plump, older woman cleared her throat. “Georgina, would you please sit?”
Georgina looked from Nurse Catherine to Mr. Archer and shook her head. “I-I’d rather not.” She didn’t want to hear what either of them had to say.
Nurse Catherine sighed. She sat. Then proceeded to pinch the bridge of her nose. “My dear, you received a visitor today.”
Georgina curled her hands into tight fists. She closed her eyes.
Don’t ask. You do not want to know. If you don’t ask it then it’s not real.
“W-who?” she whispered.
Mr. Archer spoke. “Miss Wilcox, your father has come by several times looking for you. In spite of Nurse Catherine’s adamancy that she’s not seen you, he has not believed her. And he’s growing impatient.”
Georgina reached out for the nearest piece of furniture to keep herself upright and found support from the back of the leather sofa.
For too long she’d allowed herself a false sense of security, hoping beyond all hope that Father and Jamie had taken themselves off to wherever it was that traitors to the Crown went. That they’d left her alone.
She sank into the chair. Her momentary reprieve from the hell of her life was now at an end. Father and Jamie wouldn’t rest until they found her.
Why? she raged within.
She couldn’t go back to them. Not ever again.
Mr. Archer dropped to a knee beside her. He spoke in hushed undertones. “We need to get you away.”
Georgina continued to study her lap. “Why would you help me? Why after…” She fell silent and buried her head in her hands.
A delicate hand came to rest on her shoulder. “You saved my life.”
“I have to leave.” Her mind spun. She had no one. No family, no friends, and it was only a matter of time until she was once more at the mercy of her father.
He looked at Nurse Catherine. “We need to get her away from here. Miss Wilcox will need to find suitable employment, in a place her father will not expect. She’ll need letters of reference.”
Georgina tried to muster some kind of care that they discussed her as though she were invisible.
She came up short.
Catherine nodded and hurried to her desk. She reached for a blank sheet of paper on her immaculate desktop, dipped her pen in a crystal inkwell, and proceeded to write.
Georgina embraced the frantic scribbling of the pen as it tapped away, because focusing on that staccato rhythm prevented her mind from trailing down the path of the unknown.
The older woman finished and stuffed the parchment into an envelope. “It’s done,” she murmured. Catherine stood up and came back around to Georgina. She handed the letter over.
Georgina accepted the offering. It may as well have contained the Holy Grail for what it represented: freedom, security, and something more, something she’d been without for such a very long time—hope.
Nurse Catherine spoke, bringing Georgina to the moment. “Here.” She reached into the front of her apron and withdrew a small, red velvet sack. She pressed the sack into her palm. “I want you to take this.”
Georgina pulled back the drawstring and peered inside. She made to return it. “I cannot take this.”
Nurse Catherine gave her a stern look. “I’ll be insulted if you don’t.”
Georgina wanted to protest but the reality of her situation, the uncertainty of her future, killed the polite rejection.
She bowed her head. “I can never repay you.”
Nurse Catherine took her hands between her own. She gave them a gentle squeeze. “There’s nothing to repay.”
Mr. Archer held his arm out. “Miss Wilcox, we have to leave.”
Georgina swallowed hard and, with a final thank you, left with Mr. Archer.