woman of your acquaintance?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is she—? Did he hurt her very badly?’
Zachary’s jaw tensed. ‘He lied to her. Seduced her. For his own selfish reasons. And, when she was of no further use to him, he shot her. Twice. Once in the chest and then in the head.’
‘Assassin!’ Wolfingham hissed.
Zachary nodded. ‘Miraculously she did not die. But she now lives in daily fear of the monster discovering his failure. Of him seeking her out and completing the assassination.’
Wolfingham glanced across at the tavern. ‘And he is in there now?’
‘I saw him enter a short time ago, with half-a-dozen cohorts.’ Zachary nodded.
‘Knife or pistol?’
‘I believe I told you that he shot her.’
‘I enquired as to whether you intend to use knife or pistol?’
Zachary’s brow cleared slightly as he turned to look appreciatively at one of his closest friends. ‘I apologise for underestimating you, Wolfingham,’ he drawled ruefully. ‘And I shall use my pistol. I believe I should like him to know what it is like to stare down the barrel of a gun and know you are about to breathe your last,’ he added with grim satisfaction as he thought of how Georgianna must have suffered the night Rousseau attempted to kill her. And he wasn’t just thinking of her physical wounds, but the emotional ones he doubted would ever completely heal.
There was little enough he could do to make amends for the emotional wounds he had inflicted on her since, but dispatching Rousseau was certainly a start.
‘I should warn you, though, I have reason to believe the man may recognise me,’ Zachary warned, unconsciously touching the definitive scar upon his throat.
Wolfingham nodded. ‘What would you like me to do in order to divert his cohorts?’
Zachary gave a hard grin. ‘Succinct and to the point—I have always liked that about you.’
‘A man who would treat a woman in such a despicable way does not deserve to live.’
A sentiment exactly matched by Zachary’s feelings on the matter.
* * *
Georgianna paced restlessly up and down the yellow salon at Malvern House, totally unaware of the luxuriously appointed room she had so enjoyed choosing the décor and furnishings for just two short years ago.
Those two years might just as well have been twenty.
Because she was not that same person who had once so painstakingly pored over swatches of materials for curtains and furnishings for weeks on end, voicing a complaint when the material on one of the chairs proved to be the merest shade darker than its twin.
It all seemed so unimportant now, so petty. As had the ordering of the new gowns Jeffrey had insisted upon, in preparation for their return to society, when it was discovered that all of last year’s gowns were far too big for her now-slender figure.
A society with its rules and strictures upon behaviour and speech, which she had so long believed she wished to be part of again, but now found totally stifling.
As she did the fact that those calls and entertainments continued, as if Napoleon and his ever-increasing army were not even now marching doggedly and triumphantly towards Paris.
Indeed, the majority of the ton seemed far more interested in the fact that Lady Georgianna Lancaster was returned to town, inciting an avalanche of calls and invitations from those of the ton who had already returned in preparation for the full Season.
Polite calls and invitations, which had nevertheless possessed an underlying curiosity to know as to how she had spent the past year. Georgianna had answered all of those queries with the same reply Jeffrey had given at the time of her disappearance; she had spent her time quietly at Malvern Hall, initially following the breaking of her betrothal, and then in mourning for the death of their father.
As Hawksmere had said, some might suspect otherwise, but none dared question the word of either the Duke of Hawksmere or the new Earl of Malvern.
Hawksmere.
As might be expected, there had been neither sight nor sound of Zachary Black and Georgianna could only presume, having heard nothing to the contrary, that silence must mean he was still in France. Perhaps he was even now witnessing Napoleon’s triumphant march towards Paris.
If not, then he would no doubt have made a point of calling upon his two wards before now.
Georgianna had far from forgiven Hawksmere for that deception!
As no doubt Hawksmere, in his turn, did not believe he had any need to explain himself to anyone, least of all the two young people who were now under his guardianship.
Georgianna could only wonder what on earth had possessed her father to choose such a man as guardian to his young son and daughter, most especially when that daughter had eloped in order to escape marriage to that same gentleman.
Which was perhaps answer enough as to why Hawksmere had been chosen. As he already knew of the scandal behind the breaking of their betrothal, making him their guardian had meant there would be no need for Georgianna’s absence to be explained to a third party after her father’s death.
Which did not make the unpleasant fact of being under the guardianship of Hawksmere, of all men, for another three months, any more acceptable to Georgianna.
Something she intended informing him of at the earliest opportunity.
In the meantime, Georgianna was returned to her family, to her home. She already had a whole new wardrobe of gowns, deliberately designed to hide the unsightly scar upon her chest, in which she could receive guests, as well as drive out in the family carriage in the afternoons. She and Jeffrey had also spent some time in deciding which social invitations they could or should accept, when their year of mourning was not quite at an end.
And it all seemed so pointless to Georgianna. So uninspiring. So unexciting after her months of freedom from those strictures.
Oh, she could not deny that they had been terrifying, uncertain months, too. Days and nights when she had feared for her very life. Which was perhaps one of the reasons she was so restless and bored by the tedium of her life now?
And the other reason?
Again that was down to Hawksmere.
Angry as she was with him—furious, in fact—Georgianna could not deny that everything seemed so much duller, flatter, without Hawksmere’s arrogantly powerful presence.
Which was utterly ridiculous on her part, when she should be relishing that dullness after so many months spent in fear and torment.
A fear and torment that was not over and never could be whilst the danger of André Rousseau lurked so ominously in the shadows of her life.
‘Is it time for hot chocolate and crumpets beside the fire again?’
