She did not wish him to want her. Everything was easier without that.
But there was something about the way he looked—thoroughly serious and thoroughly dismissive, as though she were nothing but a door-man to the room he wished to enter—that made her hate the fact that he was not here to see her.
Except, of course, he was.
He just didn’t know it.
“He is not here.” A lie, and somehow not one at all.
He took a step toward her. “I’m sick and tired of you protecting him. It’s time he face me. Where is your master?”
The angry question hung in the air, seeming to reverberate off the stained glass. Georgiana opened her mouth to brazen it through when the Duchess of Lamont interjected, “Well. I think it’s time for Stephen and me to find Temple.”
The words unlocked the rest of the room. “Yes. We must be home as well,” Penelope said as Mara pushed the pram to the door, more quickly than any young mother had in history, Georgiana imagined.
“We must?” Bourne asked, looking as though he weren’t at all interested in leaving the drama unfolding before them.
“Yes,” Penelope said firmly. “We must. We have things. To do.”
Bourne smirked. “What kinds of things?”
His marchioness narrowed her gaze. “All kinds of things.”
The smirk became a wicked smile. “May I choose the things that are done first?”
Penelope pointed to the door. “Out.”
Bourne heeded her instructions, leaving Pippa only. The Countess Harlow had never been very good at perceiving social cues, so Georgiana hoped she might stay and protect her from this man, his questions, her answers, and her silly feelings about the whole thing.
Hope was a fleeting, horrible thing.
After a beat, Pippa seemed to realize she’d been left. “Oh,” she said. “Yes. I should . . . go . . . as well. I have . . . well . . .” She pushed her glasses higher on her nose. “I have a child. Also . . . Cross.” She nodded once and left the room.
West watched her go, his gaze lingering on the door for a long moment before he turned to Georgiana. “And then there were two.”
Her stomach flipped at the words. “So it would seem.”
He did not release her gaze, and she marveled at the way he seemed to see and ask and somehow know everything with a simple look. And then he said her name, soft and tempting in this room she loved so well. “Georgiana.” He paused, and she wanted to go to him. Wanted to curl into him and tell him everything, because if she did not know better—she would think the word was spoken in understanding.
But she did know better. And if she did not understand, it was impossible that he did.
He asked the only question she could not answer. “Where is he?”
She was wearing trousers.
It was the first and only thought he had when he’d entered the room—his gaze flying past Countess Harlow, to the woman who had consumed his thoughts for what seemed like forever. She stood against the far wall of the room against an enormous stained glass mosaic, one he knew well. One he had seen a thousand times from its opposite side.
He’d always assumed there was a room here, on the far side of Lucifer’s fall, but he’d never imagined this was how he would find it, with the beautiful Georgiana framed by the dark angel beyond. Wearing trousers.
It was the most sinful, spectacular thing he’d ever seen, and when she’d come toward him, an avenging queen, insisting that he was trespassing, he’d wanted to catch her in his arms, carry her to that glorious window, press her back against it, and show her all the ways he would like to trespass.
But then the frustration had taken over. She’d been protecting this place in spite of the fact that it was overrun with the wives of The Fallen Angel’s owners and in spite of the fact that the Marquess of Bourne had paid him escort.
Which made him realize she wasn’t protecting the place.
She was protecting the man, just as she had the night before.
He doesn’t own me.
He heard her words again. The lie in them.
Because it was clear Chase owned her, just as he owned every bit of this club and all the men and women who frequented it. There was no freedom at The Fallen Angel. Everything—everyone—belonged to Chase.
And even now, as they stood alone in this dark room, with none but Lucifer to hear them—Georgiana protected the man who had ruined her life. Who continued to do so. And he was through with it. He wanted her out from under him. He wanted her far from this place and its sin and vice and history of taking lives for sport.
He wanted her safe, for God’s sake. Her and Caroline.
He’d get her married. But not because Chase had asked.
Because she deserved a chance at happiness—she, more than anyone he’d ever known.
He only wished he could be the one to give it to her. But he couldn’t, his secrets too legion, too dangerous. And so he would secure it for her in another way. He would face Chase. Free her, first. Protect himself, second.