blinked at the harshness of his tone. As if he might actually have cared about her ten months ago?
But of course he had cared, she reminded herself heavily. Oh, not about her, but he most certainly cared about the blow she had dealt him by running away with André. But it was Hawksmere’s pride which had been injured, not his heart. Because he had no heart to injure?
He drew in an impatient breath. ‘I do not have the time to discuss this any further just now, Georgianna. I have a wedding to get to.’ He eyed her irritably. ‘If you were to stop being so damned difficult, then I might arrange for a bath to be brought up to you later this afternoon. You would like that, would you not?’
Georgianna had no interest in dining with this cold and insulting man, no interest in eating, nor being in Hawksmere’s company any more than she had to be.
But if agreeing to wear the lilac gown, and sitting down to dinner with him this evening, also ensured she was allowed the luxury of a bath, then perhaps it would not be so bad? She might even find the chance to escape this house some time during the evening.
‘You obviously know something of a woman’s weaknesses, your Grace.’
He gave another of those humourless smiles. ‘You have the honour of being one of the women from whom I have learnt that particular lesson, Georgianna.’
Her gaze dropped from meeting his at the obvious reference to her elopement with André. ‘Very well, I will wear the lilac gown and sit down to dinner with you,’ she conceded quietly. ‘But I warn you again, I have little appetite.’
Her breath caught in her throat at the intensity of Hawksmere’s gaze as he now crossed the distance between them on stealthy feet, her heart fluttering wildly in her chest as she refused to give ground when he came to a halt in front of her.
He smiled slightly at her defiance as he raised his hand and once again cupped the side of her face. He ran the soft pad of his thumb across the swell of her bottom lip. ‘Not to worry, Georgianna, I believe I can find appetite enough for the both of us this evening,’ he promised gruffly, his gaze continuing to hold hers for several long seconds, before he abruptly lowered his head to sweep the firmness of his lips across hers. ‘So soft,’ he murmured appreciatively, his breath warm as those lips now trailed caressingly across the paleness of her cheek to her earlobe, teeth gently biting.
Georgianna was too stunned by the unexpected intimacy to be able to move, could barely breathe, as her heart pounded erratically in her chest.
Hawksmere raised his head to look down at her for several long seconds, silver eyes glittering, before he straightened abruptly and turned on his heel to cross the room and depart, followed seconds later by the sound of the door locking behind him.
Leaving Georgianna in a state of complete emotional turmoil.
‘You see how much pleasanter it is when you do as I ask, Georgianna?’ Zachary mocked several hours later as he pulled back a chair for her to sit down at the dinner table before taking his place in the chair beside her.
He had left instructions that he and Georgianna would be dining together in the smaller, more intimate dining room. A fire crackled merrily in the hearth, and two three-pronged candelabra illuminated the crystal glassware and silver cutlery. A bowl of pale pink roses had also been placed in the centre of the small round table.
To her credit, Georgianna had been ready and waiting for Zachary when he’d unlocked the door and entered the bedchamber adjoining his own, her expression one of cool composure as she stood in the middle of the room.
The darkness of her hair was smooth and shining and once again secured at her crown, with those tantalising bunches of curls at her temples and nape. The lilac gown had darkened her eyes to that deep violet. Her face was a pale ivory, her lips a full and rosy pout against that pallor.
Zachary shifted uncomfortably now as he realised he was once again aroused by the sight and scent of her.
No other woman had ever physically aroused him as easily as this one appeared to.
Zachary’s gaze narrowed on her critically as she smiled her thanks up at Hinds as he poured wine into her glass. What was it about this woman in particular that she managed to hold him in a constant state of arousal?
She was undoubtedly a beautiful young woman, her hair so dark and silky, and her delicately lovely face dominated by those violet-coloured eyes. And the lilac gown was certainly an improvement on that unbecoming black. But even so the style of the new gown still left a lot to be desired. It was not particularly fashionable, with its high neckline buttoned all the way up to her throat, revealing none of the tempting swell of her breasts as so many other women did nowadays, some of them to a degree of indecency.
Zachary had seen, and bedded, many beautiful women in his lifetime and all had been more fashionable and some more beautiful than Georgianna. So why was it that she affected him in a physical way he appeared to have absolutely no control over?
He should not have kissed her earlier, of course. Certainly should not have enjoyed the softness of her lips quite so much as he had, to the point that he had almost said to hell with attending Worthing’s wedding and carried Georgianna back to the bed instead. It was not a pleasant realisation for a man who had always put duty, and the well-being of his close friends, first.
‘I should have worn the lilac gown this evening in any case.’
It took Zachary several moments to pull out of the bleakness of his thoughts and realise that Georgianna was now answering his own earlier comment. Defiantly. Challengingly.
And there he had it.
This was the way in which Georgianna differed to every other woman Zachary had ever met. Because no man, or woman, had ever dared to defy or challenge the will of the Duke of Hawksmere.
That plump pigeon of ten months ago had undoubtedly feared him, as much as she had feared becoming his wife, but this Georgianna gave the impression that she feared nothing and no one. Except...
‘Have you always disliked being in complete dark?’
Georgianna had not been expecting the question. Although perhaps she should have done; Hawksmere was a man who liked to disarm his adversaries rather than put them at their ease. As he had just done by unexpectedly mentioning her fear of darkness.
As he had disarmed her a short time ago, when he had unlocked and entered her bedchamber through the door which adjoined that room to his own. Looking every inch the handsome and highly eligible Duke of Hawksmere, dressed in impeccably tailored black evening clothes and snowy-white linen, his fashionably overlong hair a damp and ebony sheen about that saturnine face. A face dominated by those piercing silver eyes.
As sitting beside him now at the dinner table, the warmth of his thigh almost touching her own, was also disarming her.
Only because he had unexpectedly kissed her earlier, she reassured herself impatiently. A totally unwelcome kiss.
A kiss she had nevertheless been unable to forget in the hours that followed.
Instead of the suppressed violence she might have expected, Hawksmere’s kiss had been gentle, searching, as
