Dangerous Dukes 01 - Zachary Black - Duke of Debauchery

by Carole Mortimer

  Zachary could see that by the strained expression on Georgianna’s face. Her eyes were a dark purple and shimmering with tears, her cheeks pale and hollow, all the colour seeming to have drained even from the fullness of her lips. She was seriously distressed. Enough to scream? He believed so, yes.

  ‘In that case, please continue,’ he invited in a bored voice as he moved to slowly lower his length comfortably down on to the chair placed in front of the dressing table.

  Her eyes narrowed as she glared across at him. ‘I only intend to unfasten a few buttons of my gown, Hawksmere, not provide a striptease show with you as the audience.’

  ‘That is a pity,’ he drawled as he crossed one elegant leg over the other.

  Georgianna closed her eyes briefly in an attempt to dig deep inside herself for the courage needed for her to continue along this course.

  Not an easy feat when Hawksmere continued to treat her with such disdain. Nor was there any guarantee, having literally bared her scarred soul to him, that he would dispense once and for all with the distrust with which he continued to treat her.

  But she had to at least try.

  Her fingers trembled even more than before as she recommenced unfastening the buttons down the bodice of her gown, causing her to fumble several times before the last button was finally unfastened.

  She hesitated, holding the two sides of her gown together, as she forced herself to look across at Hawksmere. ‘Please attempt to hold your derision and scorn at bay, if only for a few minutes, if you please, Hawksmere.’ Her voice shook with emotion.

  Zachary frowned as he looked across at her searchingly, having no idea what it was that Georgianna was hiding from him. He was nevertheless aware that, whatever it was, it affected her deeply. ‘Show me,’ he encouraged gruffly, shoulders tensed.

  Georgianna kept her eyes closed, her lips clamped firmly together, as she slowly parted the two sides of her gown before her fingers pulled down the soft material of her camisole, fully exposing her breasts to him.

  It was impossible for Zachary to hold back his sharply indrawn breath as he saw the discoloured and livid scar between the swell of Georgianna’s breasts for the first time.

  Even from across the room he could see that the redness of the puckered and scarred skin now exposed to him was recent and several inches around. It was the same type of wound and scarring he had unfortunately seen many times during his years of battle against Napoleon’s armies.

  His gaze moved sharply back up to the pallor of Georgianna’s face. Her eyes were once again open as she looked back at him with a flat and unemotional expression. He moistened lips that had gone suddenly dry.

  ‘Is that…?’

  ‘The result of a bullet wound?’ Georgianna finished dully. ‘Yes, it is.’

  Zachary stood up, too restless, too disturbed by what he was seeing to remain seated for a moment longer. He crossed the room in long strides before gently pushing her fingers out of the way so that he might better see the livid red scar. ‘How is it you did not die from such a wound?’

  She gave an emotionally choked laugh. ‘As it was so obviously intended that I should?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How typical of you, Hawksmere, to cut straight to the point.’ She looked up at him coldly. ‘It was pure chance that I did not die, that the force of the bullet was deflected slightly by the locket I wore about my neck at the time.’

  Zachary gave a dazed shake of his head, unable to stop looking at the terrible scarring that had been inflicted on Georgianna’s otherwise beautiful and flawless skin. He was unable to stop himself from imagining a bullet entering Georgianna’s smoothly perfect flesh, and the agony she must have suffered as it ripped through that delicate tissue, no doubt taking her down. Miraculously the locket prevented it from actually killing her.

  He looked up, eyes narrowed. ‘Who did this to you?’

  Her smile turned humourless. ‘Ah, and now comes the intelligence beneath the scorn and derision.’

  ‘Georgianna.’

  ‘Have you seen enough that I might refasten my gown now?’ she challenged tensely.

  His jaw clenched tightly as he demanded again, ‘Who did this to you?’

  Her eyes hardened to glittering violet jewels. ‘Who do you imagine did it to me?’ She refastened her gown without waiting for his permission. ‘Who was it that you yourself said could not allow me to live once I had left him?’

  ‘Rousseau,’ he breathed softly.

  ‘Exactly. Rousseau,’ she confirmed flatly. ‘Have you seen enough yet to believe me, Hawksmere?’ she challenged tautly. ‘Or would another scar help to finally convince you that everything I have told you is the truth?’ She lifted a hand to move back the cluster of curls gathered on her left temple, revealing a long scar where a second bullet appeared to have grazed and broken her skin without actually penetrating it. ‘This one was to be the coup de grâce, I believe. Unfortunately for André it was dark that night and I must have turned my head away at the last moment, because the second bullet only succeeded in rendering me unconscious rather than killing me outright.’

  A single bullet to the heart and another to the head.

  ‘An assassin’s method,’ Zachary acknowledged gruffly.

  ‘Because André killed me,’ Georgianna confirmed emotionally. ‘Or, at least, he believed that he had when he left me for dead in that deserted forest just outside Paris,’ she continued flatly. ‘Which is where Monsieur Bernard, having heard the two shots and fearing for his livestock, found me unconscious and took me back to his farm.’

  ‘The doctor?’

  ‘The Bernards dare not call in a doctor, because they had no way of knowing who had inflicted such injuries. And, being unconscious, I could not tell them, either.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘Madame Bernard removed the bullet herself, then she sewed the wound back up as best she could. It could have been worse, I suppose, and monsieur might have lived alone and so been the one to attempt to sew the wound.’

  ‘For pity’s sake, be silent a moment, Georgianna.’ Zachary choked as he finally found the breath to speak.

  ‘Why?’ she challenged. ‘Did I not tell you yesterday that we all carry scars, some more visibly than others? Or does it sicken you to see such imperfection? It sickened me at the time. Although, in truth, I did not see the scars for some weeks,’ she continued conversationally. ‘I remained unconscious for several days afterwards and delirious for the better part of a week or more,’ she explained flatly as Zachary looked at her sharply. ‘And then, finally, when I did awaken it was to discover that I was blind, Zachary. Completely and utterly blind.’ She raised her chin as she looked at him in defiant challenge.

  ‘Dear God.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Zachary closed his eyes momentarily. ‘That is the reason you do not like full dark.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

  ‘Yes. The blindness lasted only a couple of weeks, but it was the longest fortnight of my life, as I lay there wondering if I should ever see again. Do you believe me yet, Zachary?’ she continued tauntingly. ‘Or do you require further proof? If so, I am afraid I have none.’

  ‘Stop it, Georgianna. For pity’s sake.’

  ‘Pity?’ she echoed bitterly. ‘And why should I pity you, Hawksmere? You were not the stupid fool who believed she was eloping with the man she believed herself in love with and whom she believed loved her, only to discover that she had been nothing more to him than a useful pawn. A pawn who was totally dispensable once he was safely returned to his native France and fellow conspirators.’

  Zachary gave a dazed shake of his head. ‘I meant only that you have had months to grow accustomed to this, Georgianna. I have had only a few minutes. Rousseau truly believes he has succeeded in assassinating you?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘That is why you did not fear his looking for you after you had left him? Because he believed you already dead?’

  She nodded abruptly. ‘And my body then eaten by
scavenging animals, yes.’

  Now Zachary did feel sickened. But not by Georgianna’s scars. Never that.

  How could he ever be sickened by those, when they were the scars of the war she had been forced to fight alone, and in a country not her own? Indeed, it was the same evidence of war which he carried upon his own throat.

  Georgianna might well have died, but for the kindness of a French farmer and his wife. And she had then placed herself in danger by working in a French tavern for months, followed by days of fearing being discovered at any moment as she waited at the dockside to return to England, so that she might bring back the information she had overheard of Napoleon’s intention of leaving Elba.

  There had been no father to defend her.

  No brother to cherish her.

  No husband to protect her.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘I demand to know where you are taking me,’ Georgianna insisted even as she accepted Hawksmere’s hand to aid her in climbing inside the ducal carriage.

  Hawksmere waited until she was seated before climbing in behind her and sitting on the seat opposite as the door was closed. His expression was as grimly forbidding as it had been this past hour, since he had informed her she would be leaving Hawksmere House at the same time as he. ‘Somewhere you will be safe.’ He turned away to look out of the carriage window as it moved forward.

  Georgianna had no idea what to expect from Hawksmere after her revelations to him earlier in the bedchamber. She had waited nervously as he went exceedingly quiet, restlessly pacing the room, so deep in thought he seemed almost to have forgotten she was there. Zachary had then come to an abrupt halt and instructed her to repack her bag and be ready to leave within the hour, before he had then departed her bedchamber.

  There had been very little for Georgianna to repack. The things she had originally taken with her to France had all, apart from what she had carried in her reticule, been left behind when André took her to the forest outside Paris with the intention of killing her.

  The Bernards had later provided her with a couple of worn gowns left behind by their daughter when she went off to marry her French soldier. And Georgianna had added two more gowns to that meagre wardrobe with the wages she’d earned at the tavern. She was wearing one of the only two sets of undergarments she possessed. As she had last night worn one of her only two nightgowns. Otherwise she had no other possessions.

  Consequently she had spent most of that hour sitting in a chair beside the window, worrying about what Hawksmere intended to do with her now. As his final words had implied, he intended doing something.

  ‘Is there such a place?’ she prompted softly now.

  Zachary turned back to look at her, his expression unreadable beneath the brim of his beaver hat as he answered her. ‘I believe so, yes.’

  Georgianna gave a pained frown. ‘Is it your intention to foist me off on to one or other of your close friends? Perhaps that was the reason for Wolfingham’s visit to you this morning?’ she asked heavily.

  Zachary now had cause to regret many things in his life. The nature of his marriage proposal to Georgianna Lancaster certainly being one of them. But the cruelty of his distrust of her these past two days, in light of the things she had revealed to him this morning, the terrible scars he had seen upon her body, and no doubt a reflection of the scars she also carried inside her, by far and away exceeded any previous regrets.

  And Georgianna was as yet unaware of the worst of the cruelties of which he was guilty.

  Once she did know then her disgust with him, her hatred of him, would no doubt be complete.

  Zachary had consulted with no one on the decision, the change of plans, he had made in regards to what he should do with Georgianna when he left for France. He took full responsibility for that decision. And he challenged anyone to question him on it. If they dared.

  As far as he was concerned, Georgianna had suffered enough. For her naïveté in regard to love, for her youthful belief and trust in a man who had used her and then attempted to kill her. Damn it, as far as Rousseau was concerned, he had killed her.

  As Zachary now wished to kill Rousseau.

  His hands clenched on his thighs with the need he felt to encircle the other man’s throat and squeeze until no more air could enter Rousseau’s lungs. To make him suffer, as Georgianna had surely suffered. First, by her humiliation in the man’s duplicity. Then by being shot and left for dead. Regaining consciousness days later, only to find she was blind and in terrible pain. And then the months spent in Paris after that, and still fearing for her life. The latter because of her loyalty to England. A loyalty Zachary had distrusted and mocked her for, again to the point of cruelty.

  Zachary was heartily ashamed of his harsh behaviour towards Georgianna these past two days. For having disbelieved her. For taunting her. And for then having made love to her, as if she were no better than that whore she had earlier denied being.

  He could only try to make amends for those wrongs and hope that Georgianna might one day be able to forgive him.

  And Rousseau deserved to die for his treatment of her.

  Zachary intended seeing that it happened. Before too many days had passed, if he had his way. And he would. Because, in his eyes, Rousseau was no more than a rabid dog in need of being put down. Not for his loyalty to Napoleon, but for using an innocent, such as Georgianna had once been, to achieve his ends. For attempting and believing he had killed her when she was of no further use to him.

  None of which helped to ease the burden of what Zachary now had to reveal to Georgianna, before then watching the hatred and contempt that would burn in those beautiful violet-coloured eyes towards him.

  He drew in a long, controlling breath. ‘I am taking you to your brother at Malvern House.’

  Georgianna sat forward with a start, her face paling beneath her black bonnet. ‘You cannot.’ Her eyes were wide in her distress. ‘Zachary, how can you be so cruel as to humiliate me further, by having my own brother turn away from me? I told you the truth earlier. I showed you.’

  ‘There will be no humiliation, Georgianna.’ Zachary sat forward on his own seat to reach out and grasp both of her tiny gloved hands in his, knowing it was possibly the last time she would allow him such familiarity. ‘There will be no humiliation for you, Georgianna, and your brother will not turn away from you,’ he assured evenly, ‘because there was no scandal.’

  She stilled at the same time as she blinked rapidly to hold back the tears now glistening in her eyes. ‘I do not understand,’ she finally murmured huskily.

  And Zachary had no wish to tell her when he knew it would result in those beautiful eyes hardening with hatred for him. But his behaviour towards Georgianna this past two days allowed for no mercy being given on his own behalf. He deserved no forgiveness from her, no mercy. For any of the things he had said and done to her.

  He released her hands to sit back against his seat as he looked across at her between narrowed lids. ‘The notification of the ending of our betrothal appeared in the newspapers only a week after it was announced.’

  Guilt coloured her cheeks. ‘I expected no other.’

  ‘That announcement stated,’ Zachary continued firmly, ‘that Lady Georgianna Rose Lancaster had decided, after all, against marrying Zachary Richard Edward Black, the Duke of Hawksmere.’

  ‘But that is not what happened!’

  ‘It also stated that it was your intention to retire to the Malvern country estate for the remainder of the Season,’ Zachary completed determinedly.

  Georgianna now looked at him with wide, disbelieving eyes.

  ‘Your father died in a riding accident only a month later,’ Zachary continued evenly, ‘at which time it was decided between your brother Jeffrey and myself that he would announce that you both intended to remain secluded at Malvern Hall for your time of mourning.’

  She swallowed. ‘What are you saying?’

  Zachary drew in a deep breath before answering softly. ‘That ther
e was no scandal. As is acceptable, you were the one to end our betrothal and since then it is believed you have been living quietly at Malvern Hall with your brother.’

  ‘How can this be?’ Georgianna gave a dazed shake of her head.

  The duke moved restlessly. ‘Your father, brother and I discussed it after it was discovered you had eloped with Duval, or Rousseau, as he was later discovered to be. It was your family’s hope that you would be found and returned before—well, before any harm might be done to your reputation and without any but the close family, and myself, being the wiser for it.’

  Georgianna’s cheeks became even more flushed in acknowledgement of the harm to which Hawksmere referred. ‘And you agreed with this decision?’

  Hawksmere’s mouth tightened. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because such an announcement lessened your own humiliation?’

  His mouth thinned. ‘No doubt that was part of it,’ he allowed drily. ‘But I hope I also thought of you, and your family, in that decision. I am not a vindictive man, Georgianna,’ he assured evenly as she now looked at him blankly. ‘No matter the impression I may have given to the contrary these past two days,’ he acknowledged heavily.

  Georgianna did not believe Hawksmere’s behaviour to have been particularly vindictive towards her. She knew that she had fully deserved his anger, for her having eloped with another man so soon after the announcement of their own betrothal, causing him embarrassment. As she also deserved the distrust Zachary felt in regard to her return, when he knew that the man she had eloped with was actually a spy for Napoleon.

  But this? Having allowed her to continue to think, these past two days, that she was unforgiven by her father and a pariah to her brother, the only family she had left in the world, as well as ostracised in society, was another matter entirely.

  She frowned. ‘Does no one in society know of my elopement with André?’

  Hawksmere shrugged. ‘A few may have guessed at the truth of the matter, but none knows for certain.’

  ‘Then I am not shamed? Or ostracised?’

  ‘No.’