Adam chuckled, the sound rusty from ill-use. “I’d hardly consider myself an artist. My tutor once gave me a copy of Francois Boucher’s work. I decided to try my hand at drawing.” He didn’t know why he’d disclosed such an intimate detail to her. Perhaps it simply stemmed from the bleak loneliness of his captivity.
When he said nothing else on the matter, Georgina gave a slow nod and rose. He called out to her, and she stopped at the threshold of the doorway.
“Thank you. You were correct. I prefer chicken.”
She angled her head over her shoulder and a small smile turned the corners of her lips.
The next day she appeared with a dish of boiled chicken in a white spinach sauce and an empty sketchpad. She hovered uncertainly at his shoulder. His fingers flexed for the charcoal and parchment.
She reached for his right hand then froze. “Which hand do you use to sketch?”
“My left.”
Without another word, she released his left hand and opened the sketchpad.
He eyed the page. A thrill of excitement coursed through him as it always did when presented with a blank sheet. He trailed the callused tip of a finger on the parchment. An image of Grace, Viscount Camden’s elegant daughter—her wide, beaming smile, her violet eyes—flitted through his mind, and he froze. He didn’t want to draw her face. He didn’t want to bring her here into this bleak, violent world. He preferred her lakeside in the green pastures of Leeds where he’d last seen her.
In the end, the desire to see her one more time, even if it was just as a charcoal rendering in a sketchpad, consumed him. His fingers danced over the page, reacquainting him with the feel of a pen in his hand, the feeling of old lovers meeting. Grace took shape. The riotous crown of tight curls dark on the page but golden blonde in his mind gave him pause. A surge of pain climbed up his throat, and nearly strangled him.
“Are you all right?”
Adam blinked then forced himself to release a breath. “Fine.” His fingers resumed their efforts.
Georgina sat beside him for the two hours he sketched. When at last he finished, he studied the face that filled the parchment. Beautiful Grace. He’d last seen her once upon a lifetime ago.
“She is beautiful,” Georgina’s reverent whisper cut into his musings.
His throat moved up and down. “She is.”
“Who is she?” He ignored the slight catch in Georgina’s voice, fixing his gaze on the page with Grace’s image on it.
To speak of Grace in this den of traitors would be a sacrilege to Grace’s purity and goodness. Oh God, what must she think? He’d promised to return for her and yet, between his last mission and his captivity, it had been nearly six months since he’d seen her last.
“She’s just a lady,” he lied. He snapped the folio closed, ending any further questions about Grace Blakely.
“Is she your wife?”
A spasm wrenched his heart. He tried to conceal the flash of pain, but the woman was perceptive.
“She is your wife,” she concluded.
“She is not my wife.” Mayhap in another life, at a different time.
Georgina leaned forward. “But you love her.”
“Your questioning leads me to believe you are, in fact, working for the men here.” The words came out as an animalistic growl.
An indignant gasp burst from her lips. She leaped to her feet. “How dare you?”
Adam hurled the book across the room.
Georgina recoiled, the color seeping from her cheeks.
He arched a brow. “Is my assumption so far-fetched?”
Seeing her frozen, with trembling fingers gripping the edge of the table, stabbed at him like needles of guilt. Still, he could not prevent the biting edge to his words.
“You come here and learn my interests. You bring me foods that are hardly the fare of prisoners. What is the benefit in learning anything about me?” He slammed a fist down on the table and it rattled, sending the remnants of his tankard of water sloshing over the sides. “Goddamn it! Who are you? What do you want from me?”
“I am merely a loyal British subject.” She paused and gave him a lingering stare; as if that pronouncement was a monumental one that should mean something. Georgina sighed. “I only want to help you.” Something else flickered in her eyes, but was quickly gone.
“Then, for the love of Christ, free me. I have a family waiting for me. Surely that must mean something to you?”
A sadness too profound to measure filled her eyes. “It does. But would you exchange your life for mine?”
Sensing she was wavering, his raspy promise burst forth like cannon fire. “I can help you! I will take you with me.”
*
I will take you with me.
Despite the risks, despite Adam’s beautiful lover, Georgina’s pulse quickened at the promise he dangled before her.
Could she trust him? There had been others before him and they’d taught her that desperate men did and said desperate things. They’d bargained their families, their wealth, and all they had, to obtain their freedom. For all the help she’d given, they had left her behind.
Not one had thought her worth saving.
She studied Adam. In her breast, guilt warred with fear. He was in love. Her eyes wandered to the now-closed leather folio. Correction, he was in love with a stunning lady.
Georgina touched a curl and brushed it behind her ear.
He didn’t deserve to be a prisoner in this vile place.
“Your expression is pained.”
Georgina jumped at Mr. Markham’s softly spoken words.
“And you always do that. Flinch as if you’ve been struck.”
That was, of course, because she had been. On more occasions than she could count.
“Mr. Markham…”
“We’ve known each other for what? A month? You keep me company nearly every day. I think we can dispense with formalities.” His lips turned up in a sardonic grin.
“Formalities?”
“My name is Adam,” he clarified.
“Georgina.”
“Georgina,” he teased in an almost seductive murmur.
Her skin warmed at the sound of her name on his lips. It was as though the one word utterance tumbled off his tongue like a lover’s caress. She brushed her foolish longings aside. She’d not survived these many years by being foolish. “I mean, you should call me Georgina.”
“Will you tell me about your family?”
She hesitated. His questions were dangerous. Nay, all questions were dangerous. If he discovered the truth… Her eyes wandered to a point beyond his shoulder as she imagined a very different world than the one she’d been born to.
“My mother was a maid. She was beautiful.”
Well, the latter part was true. At least, that’s what her father had told her of the woman who’d died giving birth to her. She often wondered if that was why he hated her. If he blamed her for her mother’s death?
“She would sing to me. I would sit at her feet each night and she’d brush the tangles from my hair.” Oh, how much more beautiful this image was than the horrid truth.
“What of your father?”
She closed her eyes and summoned an idea of the father she’d always dreamed of. “He loved to tell stories. Mother and I would sit beside him and he’d tell great tales.” She paused. It was far harder to craft even false memories for the monster who’d sired her. A ruthless merchant who’d harbored a bitter animosity for everything English, including his own daughter.
“Your tones are very cultured for a maid’s daughter.”