Dark Deceptions

by Christi Caldwell

  “Sir?”

  He froze mid-step.

  The young man bowed. “If you’ll follow me?”

  Adam walked beside the servant. They moved through the silent, cheerless halls. With each step he took, his anxiety doubled.

  What if she isn’t here?

  Or worse, what if she is here and turns me away?

  They paused at a dark paneled door. The servant motioned him inside.

  A plump, matronly woman of non-descript years stood in the middle of the room, hands clasped in front of her rounded belly. She dismissed the servant with a slight nod. All the while her attention remained focused on Adam. “I am Nurse Catherine. You requested an audience with me, Mr. Markham?”

  Adam rocked on the balls of his feet. He glanced around the room and searched for the right words. He expected after the three days it had taken him to travel to Bristol Hospital, he should have found some words, any words that would be adequate for Georgina. Then, what could one say or do after all the heartache he’d caused his wife.

  “Mr. Markham?” she prodded.

  He coughed into his hand, humbled to admit to this stranger that he’d come to find his wife…who’d left him. “Forgive me. Do you employ a woman by the name of Georgina Mar—Wilcox?”

  The faintest tick appeared on the woman’s right eyelid and he suspected if his role with The Brethren hadn’t required his strictest attention to detail, he might have not detected the telltale gesture.

  But he did.

  And he knew with a certainty he’d wager his very life on that Georgina was here.

  “It is my understanding she might be here,” he pressed.

  Nurse Catherine arched a single brow. “So, you are looking for your wife Mr. Markham.”

  His back stiffened at the condescension in the older woman’s tone, but he did not respond to it. She couldn’t possibly loathe him any more than he loathed himself.

  “And you believe she is here,” she went on.

  “I do.” He knew she was here.

  The nurse’s hand fluttered about the base of her severe chignon. “Forgive me, sir, this is a most unusual meeting. I don’t know a woman by that name.”

  “Oh?” he drawled.

  The corner of her eye twitched again.

  Yes. Georgina was here. He’d rather maintain a semblance of gentlemanliness and not storm Nurse Catherine’s halls in search of his wife.

  Her lips compressed into a tight line. “What do you want, sir?” Impatience danced in her eyes.

  Adam held his palms up. “I love my wife. I need to see her. I need to know if she is here, and that she is safe.”

  Nurse Catherine’s hands tightened, rustling the fabric of her stark, white dress. “May I speak plainly, sir?”

  He inclined his head.

  “If your wife is here, and I’m not saying she is, it would indicate that she ran away from you. What would make me trust that your intentions are driven out of love and a sense of concern for her well-being and not out of a desire to bring her back home where you can continue to hurt her?”

  He strongly suspected his answer was paramount to being granted an audience with Georgina. He knew the only thing Nurse Catherine would respond to was truth. “I wronged her. I believed the worst things about her and because of that, drove her away. My life is incomplete without her.”

  She took a step toward him and ran her gaze over his face. “It took your wife leaving for you to realize your life is incomplete without her?”

  Adam accepted the lash of her disapproval. It was no less than he deserved. He couldn’t expect this woman to forgive him when he couldn’t forgive himself. He spoke quietly. “If after she hears what I have to say, if she chooses to remain, I promise to leave and never return.”

  Being able to lie without remorse was one of the many skills he’d acquired in his work for the Crown. Now that he’d found her, not even the mighty Lord could keep him from her.

  “I don’t suppose you are aware of the condition Miss Wilcox was in when she last came to me?”

  His heart thudded painfully. He tried to force words out past numbed lips but they lodged in his throat. He shook his head once.

  “She was badly beaten,” she said with a bluntness that made him flinch. “In all my years caring for people I have never seen a woman more battered and bloodied than the day Miss Wilcox arrived on my doorstep in the middle of the night.”

  The world tilted on its axis. Adam’s knees buckled beneath him, and he sought something, anything to grip on to to keep from falling to his knees. His hands found purchase on the back of a scarred, wooden chair.

  “It was done at her father’s hands.” Nurse Catherine continued to flay him with the truth. “She was brought here by an honorable gentleman some months past.”

  A loud humming filled his ears as he pieced together the woman’s words. The timing…the nobleman…

  It had to have been after she’d freed him. Yes, it would seem he had found his freedom that day, but Georgina had paid the ultimate price. He pressed the backs of his hands against his eyes to blot out the horror of imagining Georgina at the mercy of Fox and Hunter.

  “Her ribs were fractured,” the nurse continued, her telling cold and methodical. “Her eyes so swollen she was unable to open them for more than a week.”

  Adam struggled to swallow past a wave of emotion. Not for the first time, he wished Georgina’s father had lived so Adam could beat him with his bare fists. Pummel the bastard for the way he had abused his daughter. “Thank you for caring for her. I can never repay your kindness.” Such hollow words.

  “It wasn’t kindness that drove me to help Georgina,” she snapped.

  The muscles in his body went taut. That there had been another person there to help Georgina, when it should have been Adam protecting her, pricked at his heart.

  “So I’ll ask you again. What do you want with Miss Wilcox?”

  “I love her.”

  I need her. I am nothing without her.

  Nurse Catherine continued to study him, seeming to weigh the veracity of his promise. “I will call her.” His heart leaped. She held up a finger. “I understand you are a powerful man and that you are of noble birth, but I will not let her leave this place unless she wishes it.”

  Adam watched the woman as she rang for a servant. She asked for Georgina.

  He waited.

  Chapter 31

  Georgina poured water into a glass and handed it to the young woman, Madeline. When she’d arrived back at Bristol Hospital asking Nurse Catherine for work, the woman hadn’t hesitated. She’d even found a home and lot for Georgina.

  “Here, sit up.” Georgina gently guided the woman forward and held the drink to her lips.

  The woman took several sips before settling back into the bed. “You are an angel, Miss Wilcox.”

  Georgina winced. “I’m no angel.”

  I’m just a woman, flawed and imperfect.

  “Are you Eve?”

  Adam’s taunting whisper curled around her brain, the memory of their first meeting as clear as a clean Bristol sky.

  “Miss, are you all right?”

  She gave her head a clearing shake. “Forgive me,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  “Miss Wilcox?”

  Georgina jumped at the unexpected intrusion and she scrambled to her feet. “Yes?”

  The young maid, Jane, smiled. “Nurse Catherine has requested your presence in her office.”

  Her heart raced. Georgina lived in constant fear that one day Catherine would find Georgina guilty for the crimes of her father and toss her from Bristol Hospital. Then Georgina would be well and truly lost.

  Jane cleared her throat and Georgina started. “She just said it was an urgent matter, miss.”

  Oh God, an urgent matter. While Georgina made the long trek to Nurse Catherine’s office, she told herself it could be anything or nothing at all but the worst possible scenarios played out in her head.

  The young maid sc
urried off.

  Georgina leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, willing away memories of Adam though they refused to stay buried. He was everywhere. There was no escaping him.

  She knocked on the door.

  “Enter,” the woman called.

  Georgina opened the door, but hesitated at the threshold. “You wished to see me?”

  She gestured her forward. “My dear, there is someone who requested an audience with you.”

  She furrowed her brow. The only people who would ever have a need for her were Father and Jamie—and they were both dead.

  “Hello, Georgina.” That deep baritone that haunted both her dreams and nightmares filled the room.

  She spun around and her hand flew to her breast.

  Adam!

  In her darkest moments she imagined he’d forgotten about her. She’d tortured herself with the truth—he’d surely not thought of her. Only he was here now. Her mind went blank and she searched for words. “Adam.” Why are you here?

  An indecipherable look passed over her face.

  Odd, she should know him so very well and yet he may as well be carved from stone for the stiffness to him. She wet her lips. “Why you here?” Then a niggling of fear pebbled in her belly. Gooseflesh dotted her skin at the sickening possibility that he’d come for no other reason than to retrieve her, to bring her to justice, to…She took a step back, toward the door.

  He stretched a hand out. “Don’t go,” he said hoarsely. “Please.”

  Please. This man who’d endured countless days of torture at her father and Jamie’s hands had never pleaded once. Now he would beg her. To what end?

  Georgina nodded once.

  “May I speak to my wife alone?” he said quietly.

  Georgina’s lips twisted. “I’m not your wife.” He’d not wanted her. She hated the inherent weakness in her that the pain of his betrayal should still ravage her heart.

  He closed the distance between them. He stopped a hair’s breadth apart from her. “You are my wife and I’d like to speak to you alone.”

  Catherine interjected. “If Georgina will not speak to you, I will have to insist you leave, sir. I merely allowed this extraordinary meeting because I believed you were her husband. However—”

  “I’ll speak to him,” Georgina said. She looked back to Adam. “I’ll speak to you, but when you are finished you must leave.”

  He hesitated and then gave a curt nod.

  Nurse Catherine walked toward the front of the room but paused at the doorway. “If you require anything, Georgina…” She closed the door behind her with a soft click. The meaning was clear. If he were to harm her, Georgina need just call out and help would be there.

  Adam would never lay a hand on her. He’d inflicted a different kind of pain—the kind which would never go away.

  “What do you want, Adam?” She didn’t allow herself to look up his towering, lithe form. His moss-green eyes could weaken a woman’s resolve and Georgina was not willing or able to turn herself back over to him. He’d hurt her too greatly, and she feared if she welcomed him back into her life, she would always be on a steep cliff that she could teeter over at any moment. She wasn’t strong enough to survive another fall—not at his hands.

  Adam brushed her jawline with his fingertips, directing her chin up. Warm shivers radiated out from the point of his touch.

  She closed her eyes, hating her body’s awareness of him, hating herself for her weakness.

  “Look at me,” he ordered.

  She bit the inside of her cheek. “Why are you here?” she tossed back.

  Ah, she’d always been bold and proud. He admired her now more than ever. Framing her face between his hands, he lowered his brow to hers. “I have thought of you and nothing else since you walked out of my life. I lied awake and imagined what I would say to you if I ever found you again, and now you are here, and I am remarkably without words.” He drew in a shuddery breath. “Nothing I can say would be adequate to convey how sorry I am—”

  Georgina shoved his hands off her person. Was that was this was about? His sense of remorse? She spun away from him. “If you’ve come to apologize, there is no need. We were both wrong. I was wrong to lie to you and…”

  You were wrong to believe the absolute worst of me. You were wrong to abandon me with Jamie.

  Folding her arms beneath her stomach, she hugged herself tight.

  * * *

  Adam rested his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him.

  She shrugged him off and proceeded to speak. “I do not know for what purpose you’ve come. I’ve already told you the reasons for my lies.”

  “I know—”

  Georgina glared him into silence. “You asked why I lied to you about my father and yet your treatment of me from the moment you discovered the truth, confirmed the need for my deception.” She shook her head sadly. “It is as I said, you would have only seen Fox’s daughter and…what was it you called me? Hunter’s whore?”

  Adam jerked as though he’d been run through with a blade. His throat worked. Hunter’s mistress. He’d called her Hunter’s mistress. Mistress. Whore. She was right. It was all the same. He’d debased her with his words and tone. His neck heated with shame.

  Georgina continued, either unaware or uncaring of his own tortured thoughts. “In the beginning, I painted a world of make-believe for myself as much as for you. It was easier to share a world with you where I was the loved and cherished daughter of two honorable people, rather than the useless daughter of a man who loathed me.”

  Ah God, he needed her to stop talking. He would forever bear the nightmares of his short time in captivity and yet his brave, courageous Georgina had lived her whole life in such a state. He held his palms up. “I didn’t know.”

  “Of course you didn’t,” she scoffed. “Would you rather I showed you my scars?” She held her right hand up and displayed the white scar between her thumb and forefinger. “Should I have told you how my father stabbed me with a fork?”

  His heart cracked. He wanted to clamp his hands over his ears and drown her words out. “No!” Nausea burned in his belly at the hell she’d endured.

  “Would you have rather I told you that when I ran off chasing rainbows, my father had a servant fetch me then proceeded to beat me for my foolishness?”

  He sucked in a shuddering breath. “Oh God, Georgina.” His words were an entreaty. He tried to gather her into his arms but she shrugged free of him.

  “There is nothing more for either of us to say or do, except move on.”

  He growled. His cloak snapped angrily at the alacrity of his movement. “I cannot live without you.”

  She smiled back at him sadly. “At one time, I would have given anything and everything to hear you utter those words. Now it is too late. There is too much for us to overcome.” He reached for her, but she held up a staying hand. “You never wanted to marry me. Your one and only love is Grace. You married me out of a sense of obligation, and that obligation is the only reason you’re here.”

  His patience snapped. “Do not presume to know what brings me here, love.” He’d not thought of Grace since the last he’d seen her on the balustrade and had his needed good-bye. “I’m here to tell you what I should have told you a long time ago. I love you, Georgina Patience Wilcox, and I’m asking you to marry me. Again.” He dropped to a single knee and withdrew the signet ring from the front of his jacket pocket.

  Georgina gasped and her hand flew to her mouth. Hope soared in his chest and he allowed himself to believe for an infinitesimal moment she intended to capitulate and accept his unworthy hand.

  Then her glance slid away. “I lied to you about something else, Adam.”

  He froze.

  “I once told you that I didn’t dream, but that was a lie. I did dream. I used to dream there would be a man who would fall in love with me.” Her lips turned up in a heartbreaking smile. “In my dreams, I would be a mother to these incredibly plump, angelic babies
with rounded cheeks and sweet giggles.”

  He was lost in the dream of those children. He wanted those babies. He wanted them with her. Only her.

  “Let me give you—”

  Grace touched her fingers to his lips. “I spent the past three months warring between anger for your total lack of faith in me and my love for you.” She sucked in an audible breath. “You broke my heart, Adam.” Those words were flat. Matter-of-fact. “You ruined that dream beyond repair. I can’t marry you.”

  A vise like pressured tightened about his lungs making it difficult to draw in a breath. Adam came to his feet. “No,” That one word utterance was wrenched from deep inside his soul. Determination coursed through him. He had not found her only to lose her. Not again. Fate had already separated them too many times. “You can.” You have to, because I am nothing without you. I am an empty shell of a man when you’re not near.

  She shook her head, dislodging a single strand of chocolate brown hair. “As much as I love you, I cannot wed you.”

  He didn’t move.

  Georgina brushed the loose curl behind her ear. “There are too many lies. You’d never truly be able to forgive me for being your captor’s daughter and I would always be waiting for you to realize you couldn’t truly be happy with me.” She turned her palms up. “It is easier this way.”

  This was easier? Than what? Having his heart pulled from his living, breathing body? A muscle ticked at the corner of his mouth. “You’re wrong. It doesn’t matter to me who your father is. I thought it mattered, but it doesn’t.” And it didn’t. He’d only just fully realized that now.

  Tears filled her eyes. A fat, lone tear trailed down her cheek. It was followed by another, and another. She swatted at them as though embarrassed of the show of emotion. “Please go,” she begged.

  Adam’s jaw flexed. She thought he would leave and never look back. But then, he’d never given her much reason to believe in his constancy. He gave a curt nod and walked stiffly to the doorway.