Dark Deceptions: A Regency and Medieval Collection of Dark Romances(34)

She rushed toward the window, covering her mouth to smother a sob. Oh God, it was too much.

“Georgina, please.” His hoarse entreaty threatened to shatter her.

She couldn’t look at him or the damned teardrops blurring her vision would fall and she couldn’t bear for him to see what a silly-heart she was. “Y-you are well?” she managed, not turning around.

He placed his hands upon her shoulders. Georgina’s body tensed at the unexpectedness of his touch. “Look at me, Georgina.”

She shook her head. If Georgina looked at him, the thin control she had of her emotions would snap, and she’d be left exposed.

“Georgina, look at me,” he commanded. With the care he might have showed an ancient relic, he turned her around.

Despair streaked her cheeks, and in that moment she hated him for not allowing her to hold onto the only thing she had left—her dignity.

He tipped her chin up. His thumb brushed back a single tear. There was another to take its place. He shouldn’t be touching her. It was making her yearn for things that would never be hers.

“Why the tears, love?” His gentle whisper only made the tears flow all that much faster.

“H-how is y-your wife?”

Adam’s finger froze. His arm fell to his side. “My wife?”

“Mrs. Markham. Is she well?” Georgina bit the inside of her cheek.

Adam’s body stiffened.

Georgina used it as her opportunity to escape. This was too much. She’d rather endure the lash than this pain. Her hand was on the door handle before he stopped her. This time with words.

“Grace is married.”

Bitterness, as sharp as acid, burned the back of her throat. What remained of her heart cracked into a million shards, jabbing at her insides until she wanted to twist and writhe to escape the pain of losing him—but then, he’d never been hers to lose.

“Congratulations.” She didn’t know how she managed those words. Not when she wanted to hiss and snarl like a wounded cat. There was no way Grace Blakely could possibly love him like Georgina did.

“If I ever see her, I’ll be sure to pass along your felicitations.” His response was dry as leaves in winter.

She spun around.

“She is married,” he held his palms up, “just not to me.”

All the air left Georgina on a whoosh. Grace Blakely had married another man? The woman must be as mad as a hatter.

Grace had been the light that sustained him through his captivity. “Oh, Adam,” she murmured. “I am so very sorry.” She would embrace the agony of unrequited love if it meant he was happy. After what he’d endured—at her father’s hands—he deserved nothing less.

He clasped his hands together and stared down at them. “Apparently I was gone too long.”

Needles of guilt pricked at her. Adam’s captivity had cost him the woman he loved. She hated her father, and herself, all over again.

“I should have freed you sooner. If I had…”

He closed the distance between them in three long strides and pressed a finger to her lips, silencing her. “I didn’t lose Grace because of you.”

She moved his hand. “That doesn’t make it all right, Adam. It is because of…of them that you lost her. I could have helped you. I could have made sure you got back before…” Beautiful Grace married some other man. Georgina didn’t finish. She imagined those words would be too painful for him.

He rested his palms on the door, framing her between his arms. “Lovely, lovely Georgina,” he murmured.

Then he did what she’d longed for him to do since she’d spied him across the ward. He kissed her. The crown of her head. The tip of her nose. On her closed eyes. She waited, breath held, until he claimed her lips with his in a moment so fleeting, Georgina wondered if she’d imagined it.

“You worry about everyone else. Do you ever think of yourself?”

If he knew the depth of her betrayal, he’d know that all she’d worried about her entire life was her own safety, her own comfort. “I’m not good, Adam.” She was as tainted as a witch’s black mark. Her continued deception only proved as much.

The green of his eyes sparkled. He cupped her cheek in his palm. “Dearest Georgina, I have lain awake so many nights thinking about you. Worrying about you.” His hand clenched reflexively on her flesh. “The day I was freed, I nearly went mad knowing I’d left you there.” A tick in the corner of his mouth made his skin twitch. He leaned down, his breath caressing her skin. “Did they hurt you?”

Georgina hesitated. A feral gleam glowed within his eyes and she knew. If she told him about what she’d endured that day, he’d hunt her father down and kill him. She could not let Adam risk his life. Not for her.

So she lied. “No. They didn’t hurt me.”

His eyes slid closed and a prayer escaped him on a whispering sigh. “I thought…”

She touched her fingers to his chest. His heart thumped fast and true against her palm. “They didn’t hurt me,” she assured him. There were so many lies, sometimes she felt she was slogging through a quagmire of deception.

If this brings him peace, what is one more falsity to the hundred others?

There was a faint scratching at the door. “Mr. Markham?”