Dark Deceptions: A Regency and Medieval Collection of Dark Romances(3)

A hiss slipped from between his teeth and she bit her lip, hating that she’d caused him further pain. Moments later, the blood was gone, but the bruises stood in dark purple contrast to the olive hue of his skin. Georgina knelt at his feet. When she picked up his bound wrists, a groan grumbled in his throat.

“Forgive me.” Georgina lightened her grip and focused on his left hand, bound to the back of the mahogany shell chair. She’d done this many times before—loosened each prisoner’s bindings one limb at a time in order to massage the bruised skin, knowing even as she did that it was dangerous. But compassion overrode logic. Within moments, she’d worked one binding over his wrist. Georgina probed the area for any breaks but found none. Wordlessly, she continued to rub his injured flesh.

The stranger held up his other wrist, clearly expecting her to release him.

Georgina shook her head. “I can’t.” With every breath in her body, she wished she could set him free of this hell. But it would mean death for him and other horrors for her. In time, she would plan a way to save him, but it couldn’t be right now or her own life would be forfeit.

His hand fell back to the side of the chair.

In a sudden move, he trapped her chin with his large, strong hand. A startled squeak escaped her. She tried to shake loose his grip but he held tight. “What do you want then?”

“I only want to help.”

“The men who brought me here, who are they?”

She shook her head. “I can’t tell you.”

He wrapped long fingers around her neck, his hold gentle, but firm. “Who are they?” Despite the furious demand, his thumb rubbed the spot where her pulse fluttered wildly.

She clawed at his hand, wanting to be free of his touch, to escape the vulnerable feeling of being helpless against him.

His grip tightened the slightest bit.

All Georgina’s earlier resolve to set aside her own well-being and help this man at all costs, slipped. For as dark and lonely as her life was and always had been, Georgina didn’t want to die. Not now. Not like this. She had given too much of her life to her father and the Crown to die here at the hands of this stranger. Enlivened, she raked sharp nails over the flesh of his forearm.

His lips curled in a sneering grin, as though he were amused by her ineffectual attempt at freedom.

“I could kill you right now.” That whisper-soft threat chilled her. Still, he didn’t harm her, proving with that hesitancy how vastly different he was than every other man she’d known. “Give me the answers I need.”

Some of her courage restored, she forced words past dry lips. “Release me.”

With a curse, he let her go. She stumbled backward and tripped over the empty chair. Instead of letting her tumble to the floor, he shot out his free hand to steady her.

Heart thudding hard in her chest, Georgina righted herself. She folded her arms close to her person. The greens of his eyes conveyed regret and some other indefinable emotion. She swallowed, uncomfortable. People did not worry about her and yet the remorse etched in the aquiline lines of his face indicated he cared. And no one cared of her or about her. Not her father, not Jamie, nor the men brought here as captors or captives. The stranger’s concern pierced Georgina’s soul. She cringed. What a silly, pathetic creature she was.

“Are you all right?” His quiet words slashed through her musings.

Well, my father is a traitor. I’m stealing his secrets and sending them off to the British government. Oh, and you nearly strangled me. How could I ever be better?

Georgina walked a wide path around him and paused at the small, chipped, wood table in the corner of the room. “I’m well enough,” she said, with a touch of impatience. She planted her hands on the edge of the hard surface and used her hip to shove the piece of furniture over to the prisoner. All the while her skin burned under the intensity of his gaze. Studiously avoiding his gaze, Georgina picked up the tray and slid it toward him.

“You should eat.” Georgina spun on her heel and hurried to the doorway. She’d come to help him, but this man had stirred a maelstrom of emotions beneath her breast that she didn’t care to examine.

“Don’t go!” His entreaty stopped her. “Please. I’m sorry…” He looked down, shame coloring his neck. “I would never have hurt you.”

Georgina turned around and once more took in his battered features. The truth was etched in painful lines on his face. He wouldn’t have hurt her, but that did not mean she had escaped danger. The longer she stayed here and talked to him, the more compelled she was to help him and risk her father’s wrath.

Leave, Georgina. Leave.

Yet she moved to the empty chair next to him. “I am so sorry about what they’ve done to you.” Even as the words left her lips, she flinched with the uselessness of them.

He arched a golden brow. “But not enough to free me?”

She poured a glass of water into the crystal tumbler and handed it to him.

The powerful man eyed it as though it contained witches’ brew. A strangled laugh escaped his lips. “You’re mad if you believe I would trust you.”

He was right. This man didn’t know about the previous prisoner she’d freed. Or the notes she dashed off to members of the Home Office. No one suspected the truth. This man only saw her as complicit in the ugliness that went on here. “You’ve no reason to trust me,” she said at last. Georgina thrust the glass toward him.