“Your husband will not let you take on this role,” he pointed out gently.
Bitterness coated her mouth with a filmy layer of regret. She saw herself bent over Lord Ashton’s balcony while Adam took her with punishing strokes then coldly walked away. “You are wrong. My husband will not care.”
“He is angry, but he cares a great deal for you. I’m sure of it. If your husband were to know what we proposed, he’d not allow you take on this mission. No man would,” Archer concluded.
They’d not seen the black hatred in Adam’s eyes, or heard the vile things he’d said.
“When you are done, when your father has been brought to justice, your husband will forgive you,” the duke said.
Georgina managed a small smile. Adam would never forgive her.
But mayhap if I do this, I can prove to him that I am loyal.
Hope stirred within her breast.
“I’d ask that I be able to write my husband a note,” she said, her words a faint whisper.
The duke frowned.
Stone interjected. “What kind of note?”
“An explanation. If anything happens to me, I’d want him to know that I was not disloyal in this. I’d want him to know that I was loyal to the Crown.”
Archer’s mouth flattened. “Nothing will happen to you.”
Georgina waited for the duke to speak.
The nobleman’s eyes were uncharacteristically somber. “I will see that it reaches him.”
Georgina leaned back, sucking in a breath. “How will I be in contact with you? How will I know what information to give? How—”
He held up a finger, silencing her barrage of questions. “Suzanne is to be trusted.”
Her brow wrinkled. “My maid?”
“The very same. All correspondences will go through Suzanne. She will serve as your emissary. When you receive your summons from Fox and Hunter, she will accompany you.”
It would appear the duke had thought out every detail.
He rapped on the ceiling and the conveyance came to a fluid stop.
She reached for the window curtain. This time no one stopped her and she peered outside. “Where are we?”
Stone answered her question. “The Dials.”
She drew in a shuddery breath. No member of the nobility would find himself in the Seven Dials, or if he did…well, then whatever had brought him here would be less than reputable.
“Do you know what I find interesting, Mrs. Markham?”
Georgina inclined her head. “No, but I suspect you’ll tell me.”
Stone stifled a chuckle with his hand.
“You’ve not once wondered about your own fate. You’ve not asked what will happen to you.”
Georgina studied her lap. His words weren’t altogether true. Since Adam had leveled the threat of Newgate at her, she’d not been able to shake the images of a dank, dark cell from her mind.
“You’ve done nothing wrong,” Archer murmured.
Tears blurred her vision. Adam had suffered unimagined horrors at her father’s hands. As had Archer. And others. She clenched her eyes tight.
Two lone drops trickled down her cheeks. “I am guilty by my birthright.”
The duke looked at her with an indecipherable expression. “You’re not responsible for your father’s actions. But you are responsible for yours.” He nodded to Stone, who in turn opened the door.
Stone and Archer jumped out.
The duke lingered then took his leave without a final word.
As the carriage pulled away, returning her home, she watched the duke disappear into the faint London fog, unable to quell the sense of doom that lingered in her heart.
Chapter 23
Georgina sat on the small window seat, staring out at the steady stream of rain beating against the glass pane.
She touched her finger to a single droplet and, through the thin barrier, traced its slow, winding path until it disappeared.
Thunder rumbled in the far distance, making the glass tremble under her hand.
She made the mistake of glancing down at the paper on her lap. Her throat worked reflexively. It had been a fortnight since Adam and Grace had been discovered in flagrante delicato as the scandal sheets had reported, and still the story would not die. The gossips reported on everything from Adam’s long nights, to Edward Helling taking separate quarters from his wife, to scorn for Georgina—a mere nurse, a shameless nobody who had dared to enter the upper echelon of Society. The papers quite gleefully reported that Georgina’s misery was a product of her self-serving desires.
Oddly, they were correct.
Just not in the way they believed.
Georgina had selfishly scratched and clawed for every sliver of happiness she could, and for her efforts, she’d been punished by the harsh echoing silence of loneliness.
She had no friends.
She dined alone.
She slept alone.
Even the somber staff eyed her with equal parts anger and pity for what she’d wrought on their lord and master. Georgina sighed, the faint breath stirring a single curl that had fallen over her eye. Adam deserved their allegiance. Not the daughter of a traitor and murderer.
Georgina squeezed her eyes shut tight. Her chance of redeeming herself in Adam’s jaded eyes was slipping through her fingers. God, how she missed him. She missed his smile, his laughter, his gentle touch, his kind words. This cold, callous man he’d become was not someone she recognized—and in the lies she’d perpetuated through her silence, she’d created this dark, divide between them.
Time was proving that Adam could not move forward because he was stuck in the past, and she feared that was where he would always remain.
“Mrs. Markham?”
Georgina stiffened.
Suzanne stood in the doorway.
“Yes, Suzanne?”
“I’ve brought you your book.”
Book?
Since her world had fallen apart, Georgina hadn’t read anything but the London Times and various other scandal sheets. “Thank you, Suzanne. If you could bring it upstairs, I don’t much feel like reading right now.”
Suzanne frowned. “Mrs. Markham, I must insist. You need to do something.”
She opened her mouth to dismiss the maid then the determined glint in Suzanne’s brown eyes registered.
The maid thrust a book toward her.
Georgina swung her legs over the side of the seat, her muslin skirts rustling as her slippers touched the floor. She accepted the offering.
The thick leather volume shook in her hands as she studied it. It contained the duke’s message.
It is time.
Only moments ago, she’d dreamed of this diversion. Now, she wanted to drop the book, run to her chambers and hide under the thick coverlet upon her bed.
Mouth dry with fear, she looked up at Suzanne.
“Do you need anything else, Mrs. Markham?”
Just my husband. Oh, and if you can managed it, his love and devotion.
“That will be all.”
Suzanne pivoted on her heel, but then paused and turned back around. “One more thing, miss.” She reached into the flat pocket of her crisp, white apron and extracted a thin envelope. “This arrived for you a short while ago.”
Georgina stared at the unmarked envelope. And knew.
She forced herself to take it, knowing without even opening it what it contained.