My Lady of Deception

by Christi Caldwell

  Her father’s yell carried through the door. “Georgina?”

  The blood drained from her cheeks. “I’m coming!” she called.

  She hurried over to the door just as it was flung open to crash into her hip. Georgina grunted at the throb of pain that shot down her leg.

  Her father and Jamie stood in the doorway. Father held a pistol trained on Adam, while Jamie pinned Adam with a glare brimming with loathing.

  “It’s time to tie this animal up,” her father growled.

  Jamie escorted Adam to his bed, but the golden god sprang at Jamie and caught him square in the stomach, felling him. The men wrestled for power like lions vying for control. Adam managed to straddle Jamie. He wrapped his hands around the weaker man’s neck.

  Georgina watched in sick fascination as Jamie’s eyes bulged from his sockets and drool spilled from his gaping mouth. She’d seen a dead man, but she’d never seen a man’s last breath leave his body. She couldn’t tear her gaze away.

  Her father wrapped his arm around her forearm and tugged her to his side. He pinched the soft skin.

  Georgina cried out.

  Adam froze. His head snapped up.

  “Stop. Or she’ll pay for your disobedience.” Father’s promise seemed to penetrate Adam’s single-minded purpose to destroy Jamie.

  His eyes met Georgina’s.

  Father tightened his grip and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. She would not distract Adam again, not when he was handing out the beating Jamie so richly deserved. She gave a slight shake of her head and willed him to see that she was fine.

  “I’ll kill her,” Father promised on a silken whisper.

  It was a lie.

  Then she felt the angry bite of a pistol against her temple. A chill swept over her. Father had descended into such madness she could no longer be sure.

  Hot rage flared in Adam’s eyes. “Stop,” he barked. He scrambled up from his knees, hands held out. His eyes had the crazed look of a man who’d dueled with the devil… And lost.

  Jamie turned over onto his side and gasped as he tried to suck in air, like a fish thrown ashore.

  “Perhaps you don’t care for your well-being, but should you choose to fight us, she is the one who will feel our wrath. Is that clear?” Father snapped.

  Adam’s chest heaved. He took several steps backward and sat on the bed.

  Father released Georgina and nodded to Adam. “I see that we understand each other.”

  Except Georgina didn’t see anything. A swell of emotion clogged her throat. Why would this man, a stranger, protect her—at the expense of his freedom?

  Jamie managed to stand and dusted his hands along the front of his breeches. He took a step toward the bed.

  Adam held his hand out as if in supplication. He could have killed Jamie but he hadn’t. He’d saved her.

  Jamie slammed his fist against Adam’s temple.

  Adam grunted and collapsed onto the soft coverlet. Blood trickled in a rivulet from the corner of his right nostril.

  Georgina gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. Reminded of her presence, Father shoved her toward the door. She tripped over her skirts and caught the edge of the table to keep from toppling over.

  Jamie set to work binding Adam’s wrists and ankles to the corners of the four-poster bed. “Get out of here, gel,” Father snapped.

  She swallowed and turned back around to face Adam.

  “I said, get out!” Father gave her another nudge toward the door.

  Adam’s roar of fury filled the small room and rattled off the windowpanes. “Don’t touch her, you bloody coward.”

  His show of bravery was met with another fist to the head.

  “No, Adam,” she hurried to assure him. “I’m fine.”

  Father gripped her arm and steered her out of the room. “Go.”

  The door closed, the click like the crack of a pistol at night. Her breath hitched painfully in her chest as she waited. She leaned against the wood panel and knocked her head against the solid structure.

  Adam cried out.

  Her teeth sank into her lower lip.

  He cried out a second time.

  She bit the inside of her cheek.

  Then silence. No more screaming. Nor shouting. Or vile curses. And, somehow, that was worst of all.

  Georgina’s fingers sought and found the edge of the doorjamb to keep herself from collapsing. Her heart climbed into her throat and threatened to strangle her.

  Georgina didn’t know how long she stood there but, as the seconds ticked by, her shame grew and grew. What manner of coward was she that she should leave Adam to face her father’s cruelty? How could she have done that, when he’d sacrificed his own freedom for her safety?

  She threw the door open so hard it slammed against the wall.

  Two pairs of angry eyes swiveled in her direction. Jamie had a riding crop poised mid-strike over Adam’s naked chest.

  “Stop,” she cried. She grabbed Jamie’s arm. “Please, you must stop.”

  He shrugged her off.

  Father spun around. “What’s this about, gel?” he barked.

  “Please, I—” She glanced at Adam. Their gazes caught and held. “I must speak with you,” she said to her father. “Both of you.”

  Jamie straightened. The riding crop dangled forgotten by his side.

  Her eyes slid closed for a moment as she sent her thanks up to a God she didn’t believe in. For now, Adam had been spared this abuse. “This can wait until we’re done here,” Jamie growled, a feral gleam of bloodlust in his eyes.

  “No. It cannot,” Georgina protested. She gave her father a pointed look.

  He shifted his mouth from side to side. “We’ll finish this up later, Mr. Markham.”

  Georgina allowed herself to be dragged off, casting one last glance over her shoulder.

  Emmet is amassing the power of the United Irishmen. His men have captured a British spy.

  Signed,

  A Loyal British Subject

  Chapter 3

  When Adam was a small boy, he and his brother Nick had been as mischievous as any other young boy in England. They’d had a very stern tutor and, one time, he and Nick had carefully dug up earthworms from the lush soil and placed them in the man’s gloves. As heir to their father’s earldom, his older brother had escaped punishment. Adam hadn’t been as fortunate.

  For his troubles, the nasty tutor had locked Adam away in his armoire. Even as a man of now eight and twenty, he’d sometimes awake from his sleep, gasping for breath as he recalled the terror. The impenetrable abyss, the quiet hum of silence. He’d pounded away at the makeshift coffin, screaming until his voice had failed him.

  His mother had been the one to find him. The tutor had been sacked on the spot but the horror of that moment would forever linger.

  Tied up as he was now, unable to help Georgina, Adam found himself plagued by the same sense of helplessness that he’d suffered because of his tutor’s abuse.

  It had been clear she was lying. Fox’s partner, known to Adam only as Hunter, had clearly realized that—Adam had seen the flash of understanding in his eyes. He couldn’t stop flagellating himself with the image of what they would do to her. All because she’d protected him.

  Why would she forego her own safety for his welfare? His torture was inevitable. All she’d done was bought him a momentary reprieve. She must have known that, yet she’d still shielded him with her body, as a kind of sacrifice.

  Here he was; a faithful member of The Brethren of the Lords, a group sworn to protect and defend the Crown, needing the protection of a slip of a girl.

  The memory of her anchored to Fox’s side rocked through his mind and he wrenched at his bonds in vain. With a ragged cry, he lay back against the mattress. Sweat trickled from his brow into his eyes, stinging mercilessly. He ignored it, thinking of her. He’d go mad if he imagined them with their hands on her, so he allowed himself to unearth the other thought he’d buried.

 
; She had kissed him.

  He recoiled at the betrayal of Grace and yet…the taste of Georgina lingered. As much as he railed at himself for his fickle desires, he hungered for this capable maid.

  She was nothing like the women he usually desired. Adam had always preferred fair women with long limbs and pale blonde hair, prideful.

  Yet Georgina had drawn him in. With her well-flared hips and generous breasts, she was curved in all the places a woman should be. There was a sultry, seductive quality to her pouty lips. When he should’ve been thinking about Grace and his freedom, those goddamn lips would enter his imaginings. He’d envision her using her mouth for all kinds of forbidden pleasures.

  Adam turned his head and stared at the small window in the corner.

  He was a bastard and deserved every last bit of torture doled by Fox and Hunter.

  Georgina’s mind worked furiously as her father steered her downstairs with a firm grip around her wrist.

  He’d always delighted in hurting her. She glared at him but he remained oblivious to her abhorrence.

  When she’d turned eight and ten, he’d begun presenting her to his social circle and the beatings had stopped. He’d had grand hopes of her making a profitable arrangement with a wealthy merchant. Father had always been obscenely wealthy, but it had never been enough. He seemed to relish material things, status, and power a good deal more than he’d ever cared for any living creature—her included. She didn’t care. It didn’t matter.

  Georgina hated that she still couldn’t lie to herself after all this time.

  In the two years Father had presented her to possible suitors, it had become obvious that even his wealth was not enough to entice the most eligible gentlemen. So the beatings had resumed and she’d faded into the background.

  Jamie looked at her. The flecks of gold in his pale blue eyes sparkled with fury. “What could merit this insolence?”

  She swallowed, refusing to answer him.

  When they reached the kitchen, Father shoved her into a chair. He folded his arms. “Well come on then, I don’t have all day.”

  “I agree to your request.” In her lap, she crossed her fingers. “You are correct, Father. It is likely Mr. Markham will simply turn over the information you seek.”

  Father tapped his chin. “Why are you so suddenly willing to help?”

  “It is conditional,” Georgina lied. “I ask that when I find the names of those in his organization, you set him free. I’ll not be responsible for another man’s death.”

  Silence fell as her father appeared to consider her offer. “Hmm.”

  She waited, unfurling her fingers which she’d unknowingly clenched into tight fists at her side.

  “I don’t trust her,” Jamie snarled. “She’s protecting him.” He turned to Georgina and stuck a finger in her direction. “You’re falling in love with him!”

  No! Georgina gripped the edge of her seat, her nails dug into the hard wood. She shoved aside the panicky fear that twisted in her gut. She would never do anything so foolish as to fall in love with one of her father’s captives. She was merely caring for him as she had many others before him.

  Oh God, why did that feel like a lie?

  Jamie slammed his fist down on the table. “You do not even deny it.” His voice rumbled off the walls.

  She stood firm even as her heart raced.

  “Enough!” Father hollered. “She is doing her job, Jamie. Did you see Markham? I’d venture she could seduce the secrets out of him this day if we wanted.”

  Revulsion rippled through her at his crude words. What manner of father spoke of his daughter in such a way?

  Jamie’s eyes went wide. “No,” he said between gritted teeth.

  “No?” her father asked.

  Father was across the room in an instant. He had Jamie by the shirtfront and pressed against the wall. “Have you forgotten our goal? We lost most of our leadership in ’98 and cannot afford another setback.” He released Jamie and turned back to Georgina. “I’m proud of you, girl. Find out his secrets. Even if it means seduction. And to you, Jamie, each of us has a role. Georgina knows what hers is. I suggest you remember yours.”

  The hard glint in her father’s eyes chilled her.

  Jamie all but growled. “She’s not a whore.”

  “Think of the information she can get out of him,” her father needled. “We’ve been running from those bloody bastards since ’93. Georgina destroyed our last chance…but she’s agreed to redeem herself.”

  She kept her mouth closed. Better to let Father believe she’d agreed to his harebrained scheme. Father and Jamie could both order her to seduce Adam and she wouldn’t do it. She’d not whore herself for their vile goals.

  Father drummed his fingertips against his chin. “You haven’t lost your courage, have you, gel?”

  It took her moment to realize they were both studying her.

  Georgina shook her head. She knew what she needed to do. “No.”

  “Very well then,” her father murmured. “See to it. If you must seduce him, see to that as well.” Her stomach turned. Father spoke of her ruin as casually as if speaking of the weather. He continued, directing his attention to Jamie. “I’ve a meeting with Emmet. I want you to remain here with Georgina.”

  Her mind screamed out in protest. She wanted Jamie gone. Only then could Adam be truly safe—even if for a short while.

  Father turned back to her. “Prepare something for him to eat and return to his room.”

  Georgina watched him leave and stared blankly at the crusty bread atop the table.

  So that was why Father had tolerated the lavish meals she’d prepared for Markham. It had all been a part of his deeper plot for Georgina to earn Adam’s trust. Her stomach turned at her unknowing complicity in her father’s plan.

  She gave her head a shake and set to work making a plate of food for Adam. Even with her back to Jamie, she was aware of him at the kitchen door, watching her.

  Gooseflesh dotted the skin on her arms. She picked up a knife and sliced the bread. How difficult would it be to turn around and bury the makeshift weapon in Jamie’s black heart?

  “I’m right, you know.”

  Her blade froze above the flaky, white bread. She brushed back the stubborn curl and resumed cutting. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He crossed the room in an instant and wrapped his hand around her wrist. The knife clattered to the countertop.

  She gasped as he dragged her tightly against him, crushing her body to his chest. “You’re falling in love with him.”

  “I am not,” she said a touch too quickly.

  It would be sheer madness to give her heart to a man who’d been taken captive by her father. Especially when his heart belonged to another. Why, it would be a level of foolishness that would merit committing her to Bedlam. She drew in a steadying breath. “I don’t even know him.”

  Jamie lowered his forehead to hers. “I see the way you look at him and the way he looks at you.”

  The only way Adam ever studied her was with bitterness and sympathy. The thought lanced her heart. She detested the idea of being the object of anyone’s pity, most especially Adam. “He does not feel anything for me.”

  Jamie’s eyes went to her lips.

  Her blood froze.

  He snaked a hand around her arm.

  She slapped at his hand. “What are you doing?”

  He focused his hot, lascivious stare on her breasts. “Isn’t it obvious, love?”

  Bile burned in her throat at the idea of him touching her. She yanked her hand free and turned to flee. A cry tore from her throat as he dragged her into his arms and kissed her. His lips pushed against hers, hard and unyielding, punishing. She tried to plead with him to stop and he pressed his vantage, slipping his tongue into her mouth.

  Georgina gagged at the cool, moist invasion. His breath, a sick blend of stale brandy and violence filled her senses. He worked a hand between their bodies and roughly squ
eezed her breast. A moan rumbled from deep within his chest.

  Her body shuddered at his violation. She gave a hard nudge. Though stronger, Jamie was so engrossed in his efforts she managed to stun him into releasing her.

  He stumbled backward.

  Heart hammering wildly, she swiped the back of her hand across her mouth, trying to drive the taste of him away.

  Jamie studied her from beneath hooded lids, a glimmer of satisfaction in his cruel eyes. “Finish preparing Markham’s meal.”

  Her fingers shook as she followed Jamie’s instructions. When she had the tray in hand, Jamie clasped her wrist. “Perhaps I should thank Markham for breaking you in.”

  Oh God, he was pure evil. She stared pointedly at his hand until he released her. With a flounce of her hair, she hurried above stairs. Jamie followed at her heels. He unlocked the door and pushed her inside.

  From the bed he was strapped to, Adam studied her.

  She flinched as Jamie brushed a curl away from her neck. He leaned down. His hot breath fanned her nape. “Remember me, love.” With that, he took his leave and the door closed behind him.

  The sound of the lock turning filled the small space.

  Georgina set the tray down beside Adam’s bed and immediately dropped to her knees. Filled with a restive energy, she set to work on his bindings. The memory of Jamie’s advances so fresh and potent it burned like a poison, until she threatened to choke on the horror of his assault.

  “Georgina?”

  Adam’s voice came as though down a long hall. The knots of his bindings came undone and she sank back on her haunches. “Hmm?” To keep from descending into madness, she fixed on the purpose of caring for Adam, taking his hand between hers.

  “Georgina?”

  She didn’t pick her head up but continued to rub his bruised flesh.

  He laid his free hand on hers, staying her movement. “Georgina, stop.”

  At last she picked her gaze up.

  Adam ran his gaze over Georgina. A faint tremor wracked her stiffly held body. He thought of Hunter with his hands on her silken nape, his lips close to her creamy, white skin and had to fight to keep from tossing his head back and roaring like a wounded bear.