“He’s not, you know,” Tony defended, correctly gauging her silence. “He’s not as stodgy as he might seem to you. You know, one of those priggish, stuffy noblemen.”
Georgina hadn’t seen anything to indicate otherwise.
He carried on. “He loves us. Oh, he’s overbearing and quite annoying most times. But when Adam was gone…” Tony’s blue-green eyes grew shuttered. A solemnity replaced his veneer of brevity.
She needed to hear the rest. “When Adam was gone…?”
He gave his golden head a shake. “I thought Nick would go mad. He would lock himself away in his office, reading each of Adam’s letters. He was convinced there was something amiss.” He slashed the air with his hand. “Said there was something not quite right with the notes, though he never said what exactly. He never wanted Mother or me to worry.” He leaned down, so close Georgina could count the odd smidgeon of freckles along the bridge of his nose. “So how did you meet my brother?”
At his blunt questioning, Georgina shifted. She didn’t know how Adam had explained his absence and had no intention of violating his confidence. Of a sudden, she became aware of the vulnerability of her situation. With Adam closeted away in his meeting, she was alone with Anthony Markham. She would venture neither the countess nor servants would notice if something were to happen to her.
She took a tentative step backward. Tony followed. She continued retreating until her back knocked against the front door, barring further movement.
“Hmm?” he asked.
Georgina had to remind herself that this was Adam’s brother. He wouldn’t try to beat the answers out of her. Still, after years of being kicked around, she’d learned that most men weren’t to be trusted. Tony might appear debonair and charming, but for all Georgina knew, he could’ve been one of the many men who brutalized helpless women.
She licked the seam of her lips. “I believe that is a question for your brother.”
His lips turned down, with what Georgina suspected was annoyed disapproval. “What can you tell me?”
Georgina flattened her palms against the door. “Mr. Markham, I will not speak about Adam’s personal life to you, even though you are his brother. I’d imagine you wouldn’t want either of your brothers running around and pressing young woman for details about your relationship with them?”
He dropped his gaze and his eyes narrowed on her trembling fingers. Then he reached for her hand.
Georgina bit her lip hard.
His gaze flew to her face and he took a hasty step backward, nearly stumbling over himself in his haste to get away. His eyes had gone round in his face. “You think I would hurt you?”
Georgina tossed her head back and forth with such alacrity that her simple chignon came loose, displacing a mass of curls. She shoved them behind her ears. “No,” she lied.
“Then why are you shaking?”
Nervous laughter spilled from her like bubbling champagne. “Are you not violating some rules of propriety with your questioning, sir?”
He folded his arms across his chest. “I’m no simpleton. It hasn’t escaped my notice that you’ve not answered my earlier question. Do you believe I would hurt you?”
Apparently, she still hadn’t mastered the art of lying.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said quietly.
“You didn’t frighten me,” she said, though the assurance tumbled from her lips a little too quickly.
Tony’s brow scrunched up in what appeared to be deep contemplation. Several minutes passed before he again spoke. “I’d imagine Adam handled those responsible for your fears.”
In spite of his youth, Tony had quite aptly determined that there were certain individuals to blame for her skittishness. But no, Adam had not punished Father or Jamie for the pain and hurt they’d inflicted. Nor did she want him to. Georgina was content with her father and Jamie being consigned to whatever hell they’d scurried off to.
Tony held his elbow out. “Would you join me in the parlor while you wait for Adam?”
Georgina hesitated, but then placed her fingers on his coat sleeve. She needed all the friends she could get.
*
Adam stood at the doorway, staring at Nick. Seated behind Father’s great mahogany desk, scribbling away in some ledger, he looked more like an earl than the brother who’d wrought havoc on the same household throughout their boyhood.
Nick dipped his pen into the crystal inkwell.
“Are you going to ignore me for the rest of our lives?” Adam quipped.
Nick paused, pen frozen above the paper. The vein pulsing at his temple and the black ink making a splotch on the desktop were the only real indications that his brother was a hair’s breadth from losing control of his temper.
He threw the pen down. “Oh? I thought you’d said all there was to be said.”
Adam winced. For all his anger with Nick’s treatment of Georgina, he’d never wanted to hurt him. He loved him and, as much as he was loath to admit it, Nick’s approval meant a great deal to him. He could not be happy if his wife and any member of his family were at odds. “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he said quietly.
Nick shoved back his seat. It scraped a grating path along the hardwood floor. “To which hurt do you refer? My broken nose? The embarrassing scene at the hospital? Your total disregard for our family?”
Adam dragged a hand through his hair. “Yes. I’m sorry for all of it—”
“Then you shouldn’t have married her!” Nick exploded. He cursed. “Christ, what possessed you to—”
Adam cut his brother off, not allowing him to say something he would regret and something Adam couldn’t forgive. “I am not sorry for marrying Georgina. And any time you disparage her, you widen the wedge between us.”
Nick’s lips tightened. “Then it would appear we are at an impasse.”
A sharp bite of regret lanced through him. He’d spent months as Fox and Hunter’s captive, longing for his family’s embrace. This frigid, unyielding tension between them hit Adam like a punch to the stomach. He forced himself to nod. “Very well.” He turned on his heel.
Nick cursed. “Would you rather I didn’t care about you? That I didn’t worry after your well-being? If that is the case, then many felicitations on your nuptials.”
Adam stared blankly at the ivory plastered walls. He’d endured hell at Fox and Hunter’s hands. Considering all they’d suffered, he and Georgina were deserving of whatever joy they could grab.
“I wish…” The words died on Adam’s tongue. What did he wish? That he’d never signed on as a member of The Brethren? Then he would’ve been living a carefree life, cavorting around town with his family’s approval. He would never have known the cruel torture exacted on his mind and body…nor the bitter hurt of losing Grace.
But then there would be no Georgina and he couldn’t fathom a life without her in it.
His brother rested a hand on his shoulder.
Adam stiffened.
“What do you wish?” Nick encouraged, his tone devoid of all the acrimony of these past days.
Adam swallowed past a ball of regret. “I wish you would be kind to her. She is a good woman.”