Dark Deceptions: A Regency and Medieval Collection of Dark Romances(19)

Father gestured to the chair. “Sit,” he barked.

Georgina rushed over to the seat. She froze. A stranger stood off to the corner. Her gaze swung back to her father and then back to the unfamiliar gentleman. She ignored her father and studied his guest. The man had the look of a demonic angel; an aquiline beauty with a sinister twist to his hard lips. His sky-blue gaze took inventory of Georgina. Her fingers trembled as she sat, her stare riveted on the cold, unflappable figure.

She jerked her gaze away from the angel-demon. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“Listen up, gel. You’ve failed with Markham. I’m trying something new. I have a meeting. This is Mr. Stone. He’ll be the new guard.”

Georgina sprang to her feet. “You can’t leave me alone with him.” She looked over at Mr. Stone.

He peered down his hawkish nose at her. A jagged scar ran along his left cheek and down a jawline that may as well have been chiseled in stone.

Panic gurgled up her throat and nearly strangled her. Danger fairly oozed from Stone’s skin.

“Come, gel,” her father said. “After you let Markham bed you, there really isn’t much for you to protect.”

Georgina gasped. Mortified heat climbed up her neck.

He didn’t await a response. “Jamie and I have a meeting. You aren’t to give Mr. Stone or the guards any difficulty. Is that clear?”

In other words, she’d be beaten as she’d never been beaten before. She squared her jaw. “Abundantly clear.”

How had she stayed in this vile place all these years? Her efforts to help the Crown had all been for naught. She’d brought no real change. Father continued in his vile quest. The Irish radicals pressed on in their push for separation.

Her father’s cruel gaze threatened to bore a hole through her. It was as though he sought signs of her deceit.

The steady thump of Jamie’s boots grew louder. He stepped back into the kitchen and closed the cellar door behind him.

Desperate, Georgina turned her entreaty to Jamie.

His pale blue eyes slid away from her. And Georgina knew—there was no one who could protect her from Stone. No one other than herself.

While she listened with fast spiraling terror as her father and Jamie finalized their plans with Stone, her mind turned over possible ways to free Adam. The newest captive presented countless difficulties. How could she free them both? How, when they were imprisoned in two different parts of the house?

Then, as if she mattered no more than a chambermaid, Father and Jamie took their leave and Georgina was alone with the beast.

Squaring her shoulders, she walked a wide berth around the towering man who filled her small kitchen, careful to keep him in her sights. Georgina fetched a plate from the cabinet and proceeded to fill it with a large chunk of crusty, white bread and slices of cheese. Next, she reached for a glass and filled it from a pitcher of water.

All the while, Stone studied her through hooded eyes. “If you’re preparing an afternoon meal, I’d welcome something to eat.”

Georgina fetched a small bowl from the windowsill. She concentrated on grinding up the leaves, comfrey root, and mint leaves she’d blended together earlier that morning. “I’m not preparing a meal,” she snapped.

Stone arched a brow. “Then what are you doing?”

Damn him for being an insolent, deliberately taunting bastard.

Georgina held his intent gaze, refusing to be cowed. “Seeing to my responsibilities.” It was sheer madness to bait him, but Georgina would not give him the pleasure of toying with her the way a cat tormented a mouse. “I have to care for the man you and my father brutalized.”

He bowed his head, gesturing to the door leading to the cellar. “Very well then, Miss Wilcox.”

Georgina picked up the tray and hurried downstairs.

The murky darkness enshrouded her in its fold. As she descended, she gave thanks that Adam had been closed away on the main living quarters away from the nightmarish darkness of the cellars. On the heels of that was guilt for the poor soul her father had trapped down here.

“So you’ve returned, you bastard.”

Georgina paused. A single candle had been lit. Instead of illuminating the constricted space, it cast ominous shadows around the room. This was the kind of place ghosts inhabited. She tamped down childlike fears.

“You’re a bloody coward. Do you hear me? They’ll find you and when they do—”

Georgina interrupted the stranger’s tirade, sparing him his energy. “I’ve come to help you.”

For the span of a heartbeat, the man said nothing. Then, “Are you here to free me?”

It was always the same. The vitriolic diatribe, followed by desperate hope.

She must. She couldn’t wait any longer, but how would that be possible with Stone? Georgina said nothing.

The man sighed.

Georgina set the tray down and eyed him warily.

The stranger bowed his head. “I won’t hurt you.”

She moved closer. A gasp escaped her.

His face was swollen. He could barely open his eyes.

Through cracked and swollen lips, he managed a grin. “That bad?”

She swallowed. “That bad.” She reached for the clean cloth in the washbasin as she swallowed the burning shame that her father had wrought such damage. Ringing out the scrap of linen, she held it out and froze. “May I?”