halt beside the fireplace, her head bowed, revealing the vulnerable arch of her nape.
Zachary rose more slowly to his feet, more inwardly pleased than he cared to contemplate, at hearing Georgianna use his name for the first time.
He crossed the room silently until he stood just behind her, not quite touching, but enough to feel the warmth of her body just inches away. ‘My actions then were selfish and totally without thought for how you might have felt in regard to marrying me. For that I am deeply sorry.’ His apology still sounded awkward. As evidence, perhaps, that it did not come easily to him?
As it did not. Zachary was unable to remember the last time he had apologised to anyone for anything he had said or done.
Georgianna’s shoulders moved as she sobbed quietly. ‘It does not matter any more, Zachary.’
He reached out to lightly grasp the tops of her arms. ‘It does matter if it forced you into unnecessary anger towards your father and consequently into a course of action you might otherwise not have taken—’ He broke off as the door opened quietly and Hinds stood uncertainly in the doorway. ‘I will ring when I need you.’ Zachary dismissed him grimly, waiting until the butler had left again before resuming the conversation. ‘Is that what happened, Georgianna? Was it my selfishness that pushed you into taking the step of defying your father, leaving your family, and eloping with Rousseau?’
‘What does it matter?’ She shook her head. ‘What is done cannot now be undone.’
‘Georgianna.’ His hands slid down the length of her arms until he clasped the bareness of both her hands in his. ‘What the—?’ Zachary turned her to face him before looking down to where he held her hands palms up in both of his, noting how red and roughened the skin was, with several calluses at the base of her fingers on both hands.
Georgianna almost laughed at the shocked expression on Hawksmere’s face as he looked down at her work-worn hands. Except it was no laughing matter. ‘They are not as pretty as they once were, are they?’ She grimaced, knowing her hands were no longer those of a pampered and cosseted lady.
Zachary ran his thumbs across the calluses. ‘How did this happen?’
Georgianna had learnt this past few dangerous months that it was best, whenever possible, to keep to the truth as much as possible. Far less chance of making a mistake that way. ‘After André had... After he made it clear he did not want me any more, I left Paris for a while.’ She raised her chin determinedly as she pulled her hands from his. ‘I was lucky enough to be taken in by a kindly farmer and his wife.’
‘And they obviously used you like a workhorse.’ Hawksmere scowled his displeasure.
‘Not at all.’ Georgianna smiled slightly. ‘I did work for them, of course; I could not accept their hospitality without repaying them in some small way. But it was never hard labour, just—just milking cows and feeding chickens and such. And Madame Bernard taught me how to cook. Stews, mainly. I think because...’ Georgianna drew in a breath. ‘They had a daughter, but she had married the year before and gone off with her soldier husband. I think they were pleased to have a young woman about the place again. In any case, they allowed me to stay with them for almost two months, after which time I decided I should return to Paris.’
‘Why, when you were so obviously safe and with people who cared for you?’
She shrugged. ‘I decided that I was behaving the coward by hiding away in the countryside and might be of more help to England if I were to return to the city and keep my ears and eyes open to the plots and intrigues that so abounded there. I found a job working in a tavern.’
‘A tavern!’ Hawksmere repeated, obviously more shocked than ever.
‘In the kitchen, preparing food, rather than the tavern itself,’ Georgianna assured ruefully. ‘The lady who owned the tavern assured me I was not...was not buxom enough to work in the tavern itself.’
The duke raised dark brows. ‘You are thinner than you were, certainly, but that does not detract... Never mind,’ he said dismissively. ‘I suppose this is another of those occasions when we must be grateful for small mercies?’
Georgianna smiled slightly. ‘Indeed.’
‘The name of this tavern?’ he prompted sharply.
Georgianna had no doubt that, as she had suspected might be the case, Hawksmere would make it his business to check as to the truth of what she was now telling him. That he would not simply take her word for any of it. So, yes, better by far that she had kept to the truth as much as was possible.
Her gaze met the duke’s unflinchingly. ‘It was the Fleur de Lis.’
‘And?’ Hawksmere stilled as he looked down at her between narrowed lids. ‘Surely that is the name of the tavern owned by...’
‘Helene Rousseau, the sister of André Rousseau,’ Georgianna confirmed evenly as she turned away to once again stare down at the fire. ‘I did not go there as Georgianna Lancaster, of course, but assumed the identity of Francine Poitier, the married daughter of the farmer and his wife.’ Again, she had kept to the truth as much as possible when she returned to Paris, knowing that if her identity were to be checked by Helene Rousseau, that the other woman would learn that the Bernards’ did indeed have a married daughter called Francine.
Zachary released her hands to step back, not sure if he dared believe this fantastical tale. But he wanted to. Oh, yes, he found that he dearly wanted to believe it.
But, in truth, it seemed too much to accept that the young and flirtatious Georgianna Lancaster, that indulged and plump pigeon, the daughter of the Earl of Malvern, could possibly have worked as a labourer on a farm for several months, and then in the Paris tavern owned by Helene Rousseau, albeit in the kitchen. ‘And how did you manage that?’ he prompted in perfect French.
‘I managed it very well, thank you,’ Georgianna replied just as fluently. ‘My father was unaware of it, of course...’ she grimaced ruefully as she reverted back to English ‘...but during the winter months we spent at Malvern Hall before I...before I left, I had attended all of Jeffrey’s French lessons with him.’
Zachary’s mouth twisted humourlessly. ‘No doubt drawn more by the charming and handsome Frenchman teaching the subject, than an interest in the language itself.’
‘No doubt,’ she conceded quietly. ‘But, as you now hear, I did learn it.’
‘That must have made it doubly choking for you when the duke who offered for you was neither charming nor handsome,’ he rasped harshly.
Georgianna’s eyes widened incredulously. Hawksmere could not be serious, could he?
Oh, he definitely lacked the charm, was too forthright and forceful to ever be called charming, but as any woman of the ton would be only too happy to confirm, he was most certainly handsome. And it was a handsomeness that would cause most women to willingly overlook his lack of charm.
Even Georgianna admitted to having been taken with his dark and dangerous good looks during her first two Seasons. Indeed, he was a man it was impossible for any woman, young or old, to ignore. His arrogant bearing was always shown to advantage in his perfectly tailored clothes and she had never been able to decide whether his face was that of a fallen angel or a devil. André had possessed the face and golden hair of an angel, of course, but as Georgianna knew to her cost, he was most
