A Daring Liaison(94)

Charles had been busy every day and long into the night, working with Lord Wycliffe to unravel the full extent of Mr. Gibbons’s—she would never be able to think of that man as her father—crimes. And in the still hours before dawn, he came to her, wordlessly making a passionate, almost desperate, love to her, as if he was trying to tell her something for which he couldn’t find words. Was he simply telling her that he still craved her body? Was it an attempt to sate his desire before she was gone? Or was it a lingering and bittersweet goodbye?

The sun dipped behind the house and Georgiana removed her bonnet as she worked the soil. The simple work was rewarding and soothed her nerves. Her hand spade hit something solid and she dug carefully around it. A rock?

She turned and looked up as a shadow fell across her shoulder. Charles. Her peaceful feeling abandoned her and her pulse sped. Was he finally free to deal with her?

He sat on the grass beside her, an uncertain expression on his face. She looked into his eyes and wondered if this was the last time she would feel as if she were drowning in the violet-blue depths or lose her train of thought when he smiled.

She left the trowel stuck in the dirt and sat back, ready to hear him out. Annulment? Divorce? Denouncement? Quiet retirement to Kent and banishment for life so that he would not have to see her every day? Whatever he had decided, she braced herself to agree and accept it with good grace. She would remain as much a lady as her mother had been.

He inclined his head toward the trowel. “Did you find it?”

“What?”

He pushed the trowel deeper and scooped the object out of the earth. When the dirt fell away, she saw the laudanum vial. She gave him a puzzled look.

“I had to get rid of it. Wycliffe warned he would send men to search the house. Because of Hathaway’s lies, that is all they would have needed to arrest you, Georgiana.”

“I wondered what had become of it.” She smiled, touched by all that Charles had risked for her sake. “You wouldn’t have let them arrest me?”

“Over my dead body.”

She laughed. “That was a distinct possibility, Charles.”

“Aye. If Gibbons had had his way.”

She bowed her head and removed her gardening gloves. “I have tried to think what to say to you. How to explain—”

“It has taken us a while, Georgiana, but we now have the loose ends tied up. Wycliffe and I have gone to the families and explained that you are completely innocent and that the murderer has been caught and dealt with. We told them only that he was a madman who had become obsessed with you and did not feel anyone was good enough for you.”

“Cold comfort, I would imagine. They still must hold me a little responsible.”

He shrugged. “They must deal with that however they can. That is the official story and is what will appear in the files. The case is closed.”

She nodded as she busied herself wiping the dirt from the laudanum vial.

“I want you to know that the only one aside from me and Wycliffe who will ever know the truth is Lord Carlington. I thought he deserved to know what Lady Caroline...your mother...had gone through and what had formed her reason for never seeing him again.”

“I hope that brought him comfort.”

“It did. Though he said he was not entirely certain he was not your father.”

She looked up and met his gaze. “How very kind of him, though we both know that is not the case.”

“Nevertheless, he swears he will claim you as his should Lady Caroline’s secret ever come out—though we’ve been quite careful that it will not.”

“But the facts of my parentage remain.”

He nodded somberly. “They do indeed. And the facts are these—that you are the daughter of a peeress. She alone formed you and nurtured you. You are well educated and intelligent. You risked your life to save mine though I wouldn’t have been able to live without you. And I have loved only you since the first day I saw you.”

“But you said—”

“Do not remind me what I said. I was...I am a complete idiot and my foolish prejudices nearly cost me the one thing I hold dearest.” He took her hand and lifted it to his lips. “When I saw you standing there with Gibbons holding a knife to your throat, I realized, with clarity uncommon to me, that you were all I cared about. That I could not breathe without you. He was right, Georgiana. You are too good for me. But I would be honored if you would consent to remain my wife, to bear my name and my children as well as my occasional idiocies.”