by Jilian Rouge
She scoffed, “You are just saying that to get your own way, heedless of what I want.”
“And what is that? You are clearly conflicted if you had fallen into bed with me just moments ago, even as you tell me it isn’t me that you want,” Rafe said, accusingly.
It was his tone that irked her more than the truth in his words. Yes, she had given into the temptation that was Rafe Griffiths, and yes, she had thrown out all common sense when he was involved. But she couldn’t let go of their old roles that Society seemed to have them pegged into. To her, he would always be the unattainable rake that no woman could fully hold in her grasp, and it didn’t matter how beguiling or beautiful the woman. He would always be just outside of her reach because of his deception five years ago, and she refused to let herself be vulnerable to such duplicity again.
“Listen to me, Rafe. Really listen!” she urged hotly. “Once we were friends, and then you led me to believe we could be something more. Because of you, I discovered I truly enjoy what happens between men and women in the bedroom. But could we not have discovered that without the need for deception? For years, I wished that you had been honest with me from the beginning. I like to think that between the two of us we could have found a way together to get your father to give up on his harebrained scheme.”
Clearly, she believed he needed a reminder of his past sins, and she hadn’t quite forgiven him for them. Shaking his head, Rafe sighed out, “You knew my father and how stubborn he was about something he wanted. He wanted me married to you because he loved the thought of bringing both of our families together, and he forced my hand by holding my debt over my head.”
“Yes, and I would have appreciated honesty from you at the very start!” she threw back. Calming herself to utter in a quieter voice, she continued, “But what’s done is done, and I am ready to move on.”
And Rafe knew where that line of thought was heading. Cutting her off before she could open her mouth, he said, “But you’re suggesting that I move on without you, when all I want is for you to give me a second chance to make things right between us.”
“And can’t you do that without being married to me? Before you returned, I was on the verge of sending a petition to the House of Lords for the dissolution of our marriage.” In truth, she was only entertaining the idea, but she only threw out that tidbit to get him to shy away and leave her be.
Rafe, numb from the shock of what she had just revealed, could only think of the hardships he endured to claw his way back to her. He risked life and limb for his country with the hope of seeing himself finally home, reunited with his wife. But she had heard enough about that from him, and it hadn’t done anything to sway her mind. It was now time to switch tactics and show her just how ruthless he was in getting his own way.
Lunging for her, he caught her to him in a fierce grip, with their bodies mashed together front to front, their noses scant inches away from the other. In a silky but deadly voice, he warned, “Don’t think for a minute that I will allow that to happen. All it would take for your petition to be denied is the fact that you’ve been deflowered by your own husband on our wedding night.”
Hissing in his face, she fired back, “How would you even prove such a thing?”
Scoffing lightly, he replied, “Firecracker, don’t you know how our courts function? I can name a few witnesses who were in the vicinity the night of our wedding, of course! Godwin, for one, and the maid who must have changed the sheets the morning after. Proof of your maidenhood would have stained those sheets, and I am confident that Godwin can find that same maid for her to testify, if needed.”
Mortification stained Georgie’s cheeks crimson; the thought of others knowing that Rafe had introduced her to the delights of sensual pleasure horrified her to no end. At the time, she had been so caught up in Rafe and the happy hope that their newfound love would blossom. There just hadn’t been room to be embarrassed where the Lyonscar staff was concerned.
Pressing on, Rafe insisted, “You haven’t a leg to stand on, my dear. Divorces are seldom granted in our set, and such an endeavor would be costly not to mention a waste of time.”
Anger practically seethed out of her pores at his smug statement. She wanted to slap him, scream at him for his dogged obstinacy. She was so full of brewing violent emotion that she could only stare up at him, unsure of what she wanted to do first. While she couldn’t deny that she would always want Rafe, she just couldn’t trust him anymore to be the husband she needed him to be.
But she was stubborn, too. She had to make him see the very core of why she wanted out of their marriage. Wrenching herself out of his grasp, she said in a low, hard voice, “You left me.”
Before he could shoot back with the same reason she heard over and over, she interrupted with a blast, “I know it wasn’t your fault! I know that!” Emotion threatened to spill from her, her feelings too volatile for her to suppress behind a calm exterior.
Now, she was forced to come to grips with the ugly feelings she had shored up inside, the very core of what had tormented her these past five years. Looking at him now, she could tell that he withheld from tearing down the room with the violence he kept barely leashed within him—so very different than the Rafe she had known when they were younger. Now, more than anything, she wanted him to be as miserable as she had been since her come out as one of the biggest wallflowers of the ton. And there it was, the very heart of why she couldn’t be his wife: she wanted him to feel as insignificant as she did when she had thought he left her on purpose.
As a wallflower, she had already felt unloved and unwanted by any man, believing that she was doomed to a life alone as a spinster. Then, Rafe had come along, wooed her and quickly married her, making her falsely believe that she was finally loved, treasured, and protected.
His leaving made her feel unimportant, crushing her girlish hopes that she would make anyone a proper wife. She hated him then for leaving her behind only after he made her care for him, leaving her to bleed out any happy, joyous emotion for the next year afterwards. Even knowing that he did not leave willingly, it was painful for her to admit that while she still loved him, she hated him for leaving her. No matter what reasons he had given her, she wanted him to feel just how unimportant she was made to feel after his vanishing act.
Giving herself up to the roiling mass of emotion within her, she wrapped both of her arms around herself, almost doubling over from the pain. With tears streaming freely down her cheeks, she looked him head on and softly said, “I can and do forgive you for deceiving me into marriage. What I absolutely can’t forgive is how your disappearance made me feel like that lost wallflower I had been since my debut to Society. Once again, I felt like I was the least important of creatures, and for a time afterward, I wallowed heavily in my despair. Out of everyone in the world, you were the one person I least expected to make me feel that way, but you did.”
The accusation hit Rafe square in the chest, banding about his heart and making it hurt just to breathe. “Georgina, I didn’t know—”
She cut him off, “Of course, you didn’t, Rafe. You weren’t there. I had thought that you left to spite me. But you were gone so long that I thought I no longer mattered to you, as a wife or at the very least a friend.”
Yet again, Rafe was forced to confront another sin he had committed against her: he had done a piss poor job of protecting her from her own fear of being alone. Since they were children, he had always known she hated being alone. It was why he, Lionel, and Ernest had bullied Nicholas Belhaven into keeping her company while they were away at school. Even then, he had known that his firecracker, for all of her bravado, had relied heavily on the three of them to keep the demon of loneliness at bay.
His wife looked so beautiful standing there across from him, tears welling at her lower lashes only to spill over in tiny wet crystal beads down her cheeks. When he had made love to her earlier in her studio, he appreciated the new, lush curves she now sported that weren’t there five years ago. He
r coltish appearance had morphed into that of the proportions of Venus de Milo, the extra flesh on her slim frame giving her the body of a goddess. And he’d be damned if he let another man discover those curves up close.
In reply, he spoke just as quietly, “You have always mattered to me. You were my talisman, the one thing that got me through the long days at sea. I only wanted to come home to you, hoping you would forgive me everything.”
Georgie remained silent; she had already told him what it was she couldn’t forgive. And while she knew he was being sincere, she just could not let herself be open to more heartache with this man.
“Georgina Montagu, I love you with everything I have in me,” he said, above a whisper, his head hanging low. “And I want to give you every reason not to hate me for what I did to you, but I can’t.” He looked at her with anguish darkening the green of his eyes, but Georgie hardened her heart, wanting to keep him at an emotional distance. This time, she was going to do what was best for her and her future and not have to worry about anything else.
She didn’t dare tell him that she loved him back, when no good would come of it. Such an admission would only entice him to renew his efforts to make her stay with him. And she couldn’t handle the future what-ifs and maybes when it involved Rafe. Thanks to him, she would always be wary of any promises of love from any man.
“I’m sorry, Rafe,” she apologized with firmness tinging her voice. “Life just can’t pick up where you left it, the way you want, now that you’re back. You will soon get used to life without me once I’m gone.”
Rafe’s head snapped up, and he asked, “Gone? Where would you go?”
“For now, I have loose ends to tie up at home and in London before I leave for the Continent. And I have yet to hear a forthcoming engagement from Cousin Bernadette before I leave.”
In passing, Rafe had heard the rumors of Georgie’s younger cousin being sought out by none other than Nicholas Belhaven. If he could, he would like to personally shake the man’s hand for being blind to Georgie’s charms as it left the way open for him to pursue his own wife. But another thought occurred to him: Georgie had always held a soft spot for Belhaven and might have her sights set on him! Not on his life would he let Belhaven have her!
Coldly, he asked, “Or do you mean to say that you are waiting for Belhaven to reject your cousin for you?” At Georgie’s gasp, his suspicions were quickly confirmed. He snarled, “After all this time, you still hold a tendre for him, don’t you?”
She fired back at him, “What of it? I never got my chance with him when I was one-and-twenty, and here you are thwarting me once again!” While she liked Nicholas, it was nothing Rafe had to be jealous over, not when she suddenly came to the realization that Nicholas would only ever be a friend to her. But he didn’t need to know that.
Leaving him dumbfounded, Georgie thought the moment warranted her to make good her escape. But before she could storm out of his bedchamber, Rafe exclaimed, “I’ll be damned if I let him have you, firecracker! Not when you belong with me!”
Without looking back, Georgie sped towards her own room, her mind racing as to how she would extricate herself from a marriage that had been doomed from the start.
11
Once she reached her rooms, Georgie decided she could not stay at Lyonscar for another minute, not with Rafe in residence. Her maid, who had been sewing quietly in the corner of the room, stood quickly to attention once Georgie began barking out orders to have her things packed immediately. On her speedy flight to her room, she had asked a chamber maid to have a carriage waiting for her within the hour and did not blink twice when the maid had looked at her oddly.
She knew everyone expected that she and Rafe would continue on as the latest Duke and Duchess of Lyonscar, but she could not go on living with a sham of a marriage. While marriages of convenience abounded throughout the country, she did not want to settle for such a life for herself. Besides, it wasn’t as if men were jumping out of the woodwork, falling over themselves in hopes of snagging her hand in marriage. Better that she treasure what independence she was afforded and live her life as she saw fit without Rafe in the picture.
Her sudden haste to leave Lyonscar Castle had just as much to do with avoiding Rafe as it was keeping a promise to Rue. Rue made her promise to come see her shortly after the fiasco that was the Merrick Midsummer ball, stressing her need for a friend after the emotional upheaval they had all endured. She had penned a note yesterday to Rue in the direction of Rue’s childhood home, the Abelard Estate, stating that she would be at her doorstep by tomorrow.
With the day already half over—no thanks to the maddening distraction that was Rafe Griffiths—she had only scant moments to prepare for the journey east. Packing light with one trunk, she soon had herself, her maid and two burly footmen accompanying her out the front door of Lyonscar, with Rafe none the wiser. She hadn’t a clue where Rafe was at the moment, but rather than ask Godwin about His Grace’s whereabouts, she handed Godwin a note instead.
“Please see that Rafe gets this, Godwin. It explains where I will be if he needs to find me.”
Godwin did not raise a brow in question and made a slight bow of his head in acknowledgment. “Yes, Your Grace.” Thanking the Lyonscar butler, she hastily vaulted into the carriage with the help of a footman, not daring to look back. With the movement of the carriage jolting forward, Georgie heart squeezed, feeling for all the world like she was missing an integral piece of herself behind. Steeling herself against the feeling, Georgie looked straight ahead, willing herself to remain ice cold.
“Milady, are you all right?” her maid asked, looking alarmed.
Georgie snapped to attention and belatedly realized that her cheeks were wet from the tears streaming down her face. She emitted a small, “Oh,” and fumbled about for her handkerchief. Mopping at her eyes and cheeks, she assured her maid, “I’m fine, Annie. I think I may have been overwhelmed by everything of late, is all.”
Dubiously, Annie only nodded and settled herself against the seat to look out the carriage window.
Georgie endeavored to do the same but found that the view she was afforded was that of Lyonscar Castle in the distance. As the carriage rumbled swiftly down the lane and with a heavy heart, she realized too late that she was leaving a vital part of herself behind with Rafe.
…
By the time Rafe had received Georgie’s note, it was too late in the evening to chase after her. He had been riding in the fields, accompanied by his foreman to inspect the crops meant for harvest in the fall. As his father’s direct blood heir, Rafe could not let his responsibilities inherent with his new title slide; the fate of many people living on his lands depended on him. He had needed the simple diversion of estate duties to keep his thoughts from sliding towards his immovable wife. While it wasn’t the same physical labor of running his own ship and crew, he welcomed the exercise as something to keep his mind and body otherwise occupied.
Once he had washed away the grime and dust from his time spent outdoors, Godwin had presented him with the note which immediately had him seething in outrage after reading it. None but his wife dared to figuratively slap him in the face with such an affront. If he were back on his ship, such a desertion would have resulted in hunting the chap down to either be marooned on some unknown island or be put to death. He wasn’t a pirate captain by reputation, but he had garnered the loyalty of his crew with some of the same tactics. He had aimed to be fair and just in his dealings, and with Georgie, he had tried to be the same.
With her inconspicuous departure, the rules of conduct suddenly changed. Gone was the time for teasing, seductive words with the purpose of cajoling her back into a marriage with him. He had foolishly thought that if he acted anything like the foppish fool he had once been in his youth, it would put her at ease, but she proved resistant to charm. As such, he should have known that the reminder of who he once was would only make her averse to anything he offered.
Except the glorious, m
ind-numbing sex. She hadn’t refused him there.
Now, the time had come for the ruthless sea captain to come to the fore. No longer would he play the gentleman who acted the tame spaniel for the sake of a lady, a lily-livered version of himself. Smiling deviously to himself, he planned to use everything he had in his arsenal to convince Lady Georgina Montagu that she was the only one for him; no one else other than her would do.
“Godwin!” Rafe yelled out, knowing his butler hovered somewhere nearby. Without fail, the Lyonscar butler appeared at the door of his dressing room, and addressed him, “Yes, Your Grace?”
“When did she leave?” Rafe asked.
Knowing instinctively to whom his master referred to, Godwin replied, “Two hours past, while it was still full light. I had the foresight to send her with two of our most capable footmen for her safety.”
Anthropshire was almost a full day’s ride from Lyonscar and travelling on the roads late into the night would be treacherous in some parts. Rafe was only somewhat reassured that Georgie was travelling with a modicum of protection, as he silently cursed her rash decision to leave under the cover of night. There were some spots along the route she had taken where highwaymen and thieves were reported to have been active, and Rafe was unsure if that was still the case.
