Romancing the Rogue (86 page)

She came up short.

Catherine nodded and hurried to her desk. She reached for a blank sheet of paper on her immaculate desktop, dipped her pen in a crystal inkwell, and proceeded to write.

Georgina embraced the frantic scribbling of the pen as it tapped away, because focusing on that staccato rhythm prevented her mind from trailing down the path of the unknown.

The older woman finished and stuffed the parchment into an envelope. “It’s done,” she murmured. Catherin stood up and came back around to Georgina. She handed the letter over.

Georgina accepted the offering. It may as well have contained the Holy Grail for what it represented: freedom, security, and something more, something she’d been without for such a very long time
—
hope.

Nurse Catherine spoke, bringing Georgina to the moment. “Here.” She reached into the front of her apron and withdrew a small red velvet sack. She pressed the sack into her palm. “I want you to take this.”

Georgina pulled back the drawstring and peered inside. She made to return it. “I cannot take this.”

Nurse Catherine gave her a stern look. “I’ll be insulted if you don’t.”

Georgina wanted to protest but the reality of her situation, the uncertainty of her future, killed the polite rejection.

She bowed her head. “I can never repay you.”

Nurse Catherine took her hands between her own. She gave them a gentle squeeze. “There’s nothing to repay.”

Mr. Archer held his arm out. “Miss Wilcox, we have to leave.”

Georgina swallowed hard and, with a final thank you, left with Mr. Archer.

Forgive my silence these past months. Emmet has plans to travel to Fort George in Scotland and meet the United Irishmen interned there. He will then sail from Yarmouth to Hamburg.

Signed,

A Loyal British Subject

3 months later

Adam fumbled for his tumbler of French brandy, inadvertently tipping the bottle of whiskey on the drink cart.

He swiped a hand over his eyes. The Brethren had nurtured him back to health—and questioned him about Fox and Hunter. He’d given them everything he had on the bastard traitors. What had his work gotten him? For all his efforts, the Brethren had seemingly washed its hands of him.

He’d dedicated his life to the organization. All for the good of England.

His lip curled.

With his free hand, he located his glass of brandy. He tossed back the contents. After six tumblers of the stuff, his mouth had long gone numb. And his fingers. And toes.

It was his blasted heart that remained wholly unaffected by the alcohol dousing.

He’d returned to his family three months ago. It would appear he’d been one month too late.

He glanced down at the open sketchpad next to him. His lip curled. Grace Blakely’s angelic face leaped off the page. Adam ripped the image from the book and shredded it with a gleeful precision. He sprinkled the scraps on the floor.

Because he was a glutton for pain, he fumbled for the four-month-old copy of the London Times beneath the sketchpad. He picked it up and crushed it in his fist. The paper cracked and crinkled like kindling for a fire. His gaze wandered over to the roaring fire across the too-warm room. He surged to his feet and stormed over to the hearth.

Setting his glass atop it, he tortured himself with the words on the page.

Miss Grace B, daughter of the 5th Viscount Camden, was wed to Lord Edward Benedict Helling, brother to the Duke of Aubrey.

After everything he’d lost and all he’d suffered, this was the final lash across his back, the kick to his gut. Grace had wed another. It didn’t matter that at some point Georgina had needled herself inside his heart and thoughts. The loss of Grace served as a reminder of all he’d lost because of The Brethren.

He tossed the paper into the flames. Fire licked at the edges, singing it black, then consumed it.

Adam reached for his glass and brought it to his lips. He downed the fiery brew in one long swallow.

For three months, he’d battled like Achilles not to succumb to his sexual desire. Oh, there had been plenty times when he’d wanted nothing more than to lay Georgina down, spread her legs, and plunge his aching shaft between her pale thighs. But he hadn’t. There had been the one instance when he’d very nearly betrayed Grace, but he’d stopped himself. How many times had he lashed himself with the proverbial whip for lusting after her?

A bitter laugh escaped him. It turned out Grace Blakely hadn’t cared as much as he’d believed. The muscles in his belly tightened as he focused on Grace’s betrayal. In doing so, he didn’t have to think about Georgina Wilcox with her chocolate brown eyes and bow-shaped lips. He didn’t have to think about how she’d cared for him. He didn’t have to think about how he’d promised to help her. Or how miserably he’d failed.

His clenched his eyes tight to try to blot out all the ways in which he’d failed Georgina. For the remainder of his days he would punish himself with imaginings of the horrors she’d endured at Fox’s hands. He’d gone back there, to the place of his imprisonment, with Bennett and Blakely, but the house had been silent. Silent and Empty. And just like that she was gone…
without a trace.

There was a knock at the door.

“Go away!” he roared.

The door opened. His brother stood framed in the entrance. His lips tipped in a perfect rending of aristocratic disapproval. “May I come in?”

“I said go away.”

“Lovely to see you as well, little brother,” Nick said dryly. He waved off Adam’s butler. The door closed behind them. When he turned back to face Adam, he didn’t waste any time. “Mother is concerned about you, as well.”

Adam fumbled for a new glass and the decanter of brandy. Finding it nearly empty, he grabbed the whiskey. “And Tony, don’t forget Tony.”

Nick’s lips tightened in a flat line. “No, Tony isn’t concerned. He told me to tell you he’s annoyed with your childlike behavior.”

Adam filled his tumbler to the rim. Amber droplets spilled onto the floor.

Nick placed himself directly in front of him. “I believe you’ve had enough to drink.”

In a show of defiance, he tossed back the contents.

Nick placed a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve been like since you returned from your travels. Where were you?”

Adam fed him the same rote answer his superior Fitzmorris had drilled into him. “I was traveling. I spent time on the canals of Italy…”

“Fine,” Nick interjected. “Then what happened to you while you were there? You are a different man. I hardly recognize you.”

That made two of them, because Adam hardly recognized the half-savage he’d become.

His brother spoke haltingly. “Is this about a woman?”

Georgina
—
her cheeks rosy with mirth as he waltzed her around his prison cell—flooded his mind. God, the memory of her hurt worse than the physical abuse he’d suffered at Fox and Hunter’s hands. He needed to speak of her. “There was a woman.”

Nick’s eyes widened. “Ahh, I see.”

Adam didn’t want to sit here and listen to his older brother march out an array of inaccurate theories. “She married another man.” It wasn’t altogether untrue. Grace had married another.

“I’m so sorry, Adam.”

Adam took a step. His brother mimicked him. He stepped the other way. Nick did the same.

“I need a drink,” Adam said hoarsely. And he did. For the past months, his strength had been found at the bottom of a bottle. His need for the drink was a physical craving.

Nick placed a hand on his shoulder. “Enough. It is time you move on. We’ll get through this. I promise you.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he snapped. It would never be all right.

Not as long as Georgina is out there, alone and unprotected. Or worse…

His gut clenched at an image of her lifeless body.

Nick seemed unaware of the wicked fears ravaging Adam. He stroked his jaw with his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t expect you to tell me the truth, but I do think there is more to your surly behavior. You’ve never indulged in spirits like this. You are a different man. I suspect if I press you, all you’ll do is feed me more lies about canals and museums.”

Adam froze.

Nick sighed. “You need a diversion. Why don’t you take a mistress?”

Georgina’s face flashed behind his eyes. He sucked in a breath. The thought of betraying her memory by taking some nameless woman into his bed sickened him. “I don’t need a mistress.”

A small smile tilted one corner of Nick’s lips. “I wasn’t referring to you taking a mistress. I was referring to you finding something else to do with your time.” He glanced at the empty whiskey bottle on the table. “That is, something other than drinking and gaming.” Disapproval underlined his words.

He swiped a hand over his eyes. “I don’t need to be saved, Nick,” he growled, hating the lie that pounded at his breast. He did need saving, but it was not the kind his brother could help with. Adam had failed Georgina, and nothing could make it right.

“I can help you, Adam.”

A denial sprung to his lips but he couldn’t force the words out. Adam blamed his blurred vision on the alcohol he’d consumed. “I missed you, Nick.”

And just like that long ago day of their childhood when Adam had been freed from the armoire, Nick folded him in his arms. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You’re safe.”

Adam trembled. It was like the faint rumblings of a distant thunderstorm that grew, and grew, until it opened up into a fantastic display that cracked the sky and shook the ground. He sobbed. Tears poured from him like a deluge.

“G-god, I-I missed you,” he choked out between the great, gasping gulps.

Nick just held him and allowed him to cry.

Adam cried for the loss of the simple, uncomplicated love he’d known with Grace. He cried for the time he would never be able to recapture. He cried for the abuse he’d suffered at Fox and Hunter’s hands.

And he cried for Georgina. He cried until his body ached. Until there was nothing left but a shell of the boy who’d been locked away in an armoire.

Nick ushered him over to the leather sofa and helped him down. Then as if he were a valet, and not the powerful earl of Whitehaven, he proceeded to tug Adam’s boots free.

“We’ll sort this out, little brother. I promise.” Nick turned to leave.

He couldn’t be alone. “Please.” He held a hand out. “Don’t.

His brother returned to his side. “I’ll stay with you.”

Adam closed his eyes. “There was a woman.” He yawned.

The leather wingback chair opposite Adam groaned in protest, indicating that Nick had taken a seat. “Oh?”

“Her name was Georgina.”

Emmet is concerned by the apparent leak of information. The persons suspected of the leak are known as The Brethren of the Lords—a group of English nobles who are acting as spies for the Crown. A plan is in place to determine the identity of other members of The Brethren.

Signed,

A Loyal British Subject

A dull pounding filled Adam’s ears. He squinted into the bright sunlight and glared up at the towering façade of the imposing white structure. When he’d awakened several hours ago, he’d convinced himself he’d imagined the emotional exchange with his brother, the haunting memories of Georgina, and the promise to join Nick at Middlesex Hospital where the earl served on the Board of Directors.

Adam couldn’t think of a place he wanted to be less.

Fox and Hunter’s cruel laughter echoed off the walls of Adam’s brain, and he flinched.

That wasn’t altogether true. There were places far worse than this dreary institution.

“This is your idea of a diversion?” Adam mumbled.

He groaned at his brother’s booming laugh. Nick thumped him on the back. “It is an improvement from the company you find in a bottle of spirits.” There was a hint of reproach in those words.

Adam peered at Nick from the corner of his eye, heat making his cravat incredibly tight. He resisted the urge to tug at it, unwilling to let Nick know how his admonition had shamed him.

The truth that Adam kept from him
—
the tale of his captivity and the countless rounds of torture he’d endured—were not grounds for Adam’s dependence on spirits. His stomach tightened. He hated that he had lost so much of his self-control. After months of indulging, he had to accept that the intoxicating pull of brandy that was not strong enough to dull the pain that haunted him. It was the type of agony that couldn’t be healed with a soothing balm or tonic.

He curled his hands into tight fists at his side. And all this because of the two bastards who’d taken him prisoner. If he found them, he would take great delight in—

“Adam?” Nick interrupted.

He started. “Fine,” he answered the unspoken question. He gave his head a shake. “Let’s get on with it,” he snapped, and started up the steps.

Nearly twenty minutes later, Nick had gone off to his meeting, and Adam remained rooted to the entrance hall of Middlesex Hospital. He shifted his weight from side to side, unable to stave off the surging sense of awkwardness. What had possessed him to allow Nick to drag him here? The last thing the men in this hospital needed was a visit from a former spy and current reprobate brother to the earl of Whitehaven. Feeling foolish that he’d allowed Nick to drag him along, Adam spun on his heel and hurried to take his leave. He had nearly reached the front door when an older, graying nurse appeared before him, cutting off his path to freedom.

“Mr. Markham, might I show you around?”

Bloody wonderful
.

“Yes,” he growled.

If the nurse detected the spark of impatience in his laconic response, she gave no outward indication. He followed her down the long corridor, the echo of their footsteps sounding off the wall.

He noted how she continued to steal surreptitious glances from the corner of her eye at him. He may as well have been a two-headed demon for the way the woman eyed him.

Adam’s jaw set stonily. At one time, he could have charmed the heart of the coldest dowager. Fox and Hunter had destroyed his ease around other people. Now whenever he moved around strangers, it felt more like visiting a menagerie of exotic animals.

“The men will be so very grateful for your visit.”

He rather doubted it. He didn’t offer much in the way of company. In fact, they’d probably prefer empty silence to anything he had to say.

They entered a large room with several rows of neat white hospital beds. Adam started. He’d expected a quiet, sterile space, not this bright cheery room with pictures adorning the walls. At the tables beside each man’s bed was a small vase of flowers. The winter sun glinted through the windows, wreathing the room in an ethereal glow.

His gaze followed one of the sun’s rays, and he froze, suspended in a world where dream met reality.

Her back was to him, but he’d recognize that untamable main of brown curls in a crowded ballroom.

His heart pounded hard and fast within his chest.

Georgina.

She poured a glass of water and handed it to a graying man.

“Mr. Markham?” the nurse at his side prodded.

He shook his head. “Georgina!” he called.

Her body stiffened.

The nurse gasped. “I’m sorry, sir. This is most improper. Why don’t we return to the front hall?”

Like hell.

Adam started toward Georgina. He’d found her at last—the proverbial needle in a haystack—and he did not intend to lose her now.