Dark Deceptions: A Regency and Medieval Collection of Dark Romances(33)

“Adam,” she whispered.

Georgina’s lids slid closed. It couldn’t be. Moments like this didn’t happen to people like her. Magical moments were reserved for good, deserving people who didn’t share the blood of evil men.

When she opened them, Adam stood in front of her, very masculine and very, very real. She had to tilt her head back to look at him.

Hot emotion glinted in the moss-green of his irises. He studied her as if she were the sun, moon, and stars all rolled into one.

Adam took her hand and with infinite slowness, brought it to his lips with the sweet tenderness of which dreams were made.

Nurse Talbert gasped. “Miss Honoria!” The woman’s owl-like eyes were wide with disapproval.

Propriety could go hang. Just then, nothing else mattered. In the months since she’d lived in London and worked at the hospital, Adam had remained with her as a life-sustaining memory.

He continued to hold her hand. Some indecipherable look filled his eyes.

“Miss Honoria, I must insist—”

Adam shot the nurse a withering look that silenced her.

Regardless of the fact that Adam was here, Georgina had to have a care for her reputation. By the grace of God, she’d secured a position at Middlesex Hospital. She could not risk being thrown out in the dead of winter without work.

She tried to tug her hand free to no avail.

Adam leaned close. His breath tickled her skin. “I am not letting you go. Is that clear, Georgina?”

When he looked at her this way, as if she were the most important person in all the world, it made her yearn for foolish, unattainable dreams.

The silence of the room seemed to reach Adam. His hard, powerful stare surveyed the wide-eyed patients, and when his eyes returned to hers, they gentled. “I need to speak to you, Georgina.”

God, how she wanted that. She wanted to be with him and only him, now and forever. But there was Father and—her heart seized—Grace Blakely. “I can’t, Adam.” If she spent any more time with him, it would destroy her with the promise of the things that could never be.

He growled and began tugging Georgina from the room as if he were a conquering lord and she the lady of the castle.

She tripped over her skirts and Adam caught her against him. He slowed his step but did not halt the determined course he’d set.

With the same force of a mountain crashing down atop her, Georgina became aware of the impropriety. She dug her heels in.

“Adam, you must stop!” she implored. In the span of a heartbeat, he’d destroyed the security she’d come to covet.

She cast her eyes back at Nurse Talbert. The woman clutched at her side as she tried to keep up with the rigorous pace set by Adam. Her pale blue eyes flashed sparks of disapproval.

A knot formed in Georgina’s stomach. Her employer would never countenance such scandal. The woman was prouder than King George himself and would rather welcome the mice scurrying around the facility than Georgina, who would become a constant reminder of this humiliation. Georgina would be cast out, and this time there would be no reference, only a ruined reputation. Who knew that panic could be deafening and blinding at the same time? It filled her senses and consumed her until she didn’t know which way was up and which was down. For all the damage Adam had wrought this day, he may as well have been dragging her into the pits of hell.

Adam, however, appeared unaffected by the tremor wracking her frame. He moved like a man possessed. His gaze snapped left and right down the long hall then narrowed on a closed door. Without a knock, he shoved it open.

The two women folding bed linens and towels glanced up. Their eyes widened.

“Get out,” he snapped through clenched teeth.

The women shrieked and, in their haste for freedom, knocked over a small table with folded linens. Their efforts came crashing down like a crumbling, snowy white mountain.

Nurse Talbert caught the edge of the doorway. Her chest heaved as she struggled to catch her breath. “What is the meaning of this, sir? You cannot simply accost one of our maids!”

Adam closed the door in her face.

She pounded away at the door. “Open the door this instant, sir. Do you hear me?”

Adam’s response was to turn the lock.

Georgina slapped a hand against her mouth. Oh, she was done for now. Adam would make it through Nurse Talbert’s rage unscathed—he was, after all, an earl’s brother. Georgina, herself, wouldn’t be as fortunate. Her knees knocked together, and this time she was glad for Adam’s sure grip on her elbow because it was all that prevented her from dissolving into a puddle at his feet.

The pounding stopped.

Adam released her. He stood staring at her through thick, golden lashes. Georgina inched away from him until her back met the door.

He reached for her, but she held up a single finger.

He stopped. “Georgina,” he murmured.

She thrashed her head back and forth. “Stop. Please,” she said, when he tried to reach for her hand.

As much as she loved him, he could never be hers. A spasm seized her heart. It had taken Georgina months to accept that Adam would not come charging in on his white steed and rescue her from the hell that was her life.

Adam had Grace. There would always be Grace.

Georgina sucked in a breath, nearly doubling over from the pain of it. Why, even now he might be wedded to the beauty. Georgina would’ve preferred to spend the rest of her days with nothing more than memories of Adam, rather than knowing he’d married his glorious goddess.