Georgianna had insulted him most grievously.
‘I think not, thank you,’ she now answered him coolly.
‘I really wish you had answered differently.’
Georgianna was not fooled for a moment into thinking that Hawksmere’s words of regret were because he was still under the misapprehension she was a lady of the night and he wished to bed her. His tone had been too unemotional, too calmly conversational, for that to be true.
She pressed back against the shadows of the carriage as the groom opened the door and the duke rose to his feet before stepping down on to the cobbled road, placing his hat upon his head before turning to hold out a hand to her.
‘Our conversation is far from over,’ he murmured pointedly as she made no attempt to take that hand.
‘If you will just agree to speak to—speak on my behalf, your Grace,’ she corrected as he frowned darkly, ‘then I will return in a day or so for your answer. For now I choose to wait here a few minutes longer, before quietly leaving. I believe it preferable if we were not seen leaving the Hawksmere ducal carriage together.’
He raised one dark and mocking brow as he turned from dismissing the listening groom. ‘Are you perhaps under the misapprehension that your preferences are of any interest to me?’
‘On the contrary, I am sure they are not.’ Georgianna continued to press back into the shadows. ‘I was thinking of your own reputation rather than my own.’
Hawksmere gave a humourless smile. ‘I am informed by my closest friends that my reputation is that of a gambler and an irredeemable rake.’
And Georgianna now believed that to be a reputation this man had deliberately fostered, as a way of diverting attention from the fact that he worked secretly as a spy for the Crown.
Oh, he was also undoubtedly both a gambler and a womaniser. He had more than enough funds to accommodate a liking for the former and both the arrogance and dangerous attraction to ensure he could satisfy the latter. He could surely have any woman who might come to the attention of those piercing silver eyes.
Well, almost any woman, Georgianna reminded herself, knowing that one woman, at least, had escaped the attentions of both that silver gaze and the man himself.
‘No doubt you are,’ she conceded softly. ‘I would nevertheless still prefer to remain in the carriage until you are safely inside the house.’
Zachary was not a man known for his patience. Or his forbearance. Or, indeed, any of those admirable qualities that made certain gentlemen of the ton so acceptable to both the young débutantes and their marriage-minded mamas. The opposite, in fact; he and his four closest friends had earned the sobriquet The Dangerous Dukes amongst the ton this past ten years or more, and one of the reasons for that had been because they were none of them amiable or obliging. Or in the least interested in marrying any of those irritatingly twittering young women who appeared year after boring year on the marriage mart.
Zachary’s brief flirtation with the idea of marriage had been out of necessity rather than inclination, his father’s will demanding that he be married and have an heir by the time he reached the age of thirty-five, or forfeit the bulk of the Hawksmere fortune. The scandalous end to that betrothal meant that Zachary had delayed repeating the experience as yet. Although, now aged two and thirty, he appreciated that his time was assuredly running out, and he would soon be forced to once again take his pick of the Season’s beauties.
Worthing was to marry later on today, of course, but as he was to marry the younger sister of another of The Dangerous Dukes, it did not signify; the beautiful Julianna Armitage was neither twittering nor irritating.
So far in their acquaintance, Zachary had not found the earnest young woman behind the black veil to be either of those things either, though.
‘You consider I am in some danger, then?’ he enquired mildly. ‘From yourself, perhaps?’
‘Certainly not,’ she gasped. ‘I assure you, I did not come here to cause you any more harm—’ She broke off abruptly even as she seemed to cringe even further back against the carriage seat.
‘More harm?’ Zachary’s eyes narrowed even as he leant forward until his shoulders filled the doorway of the carriage, his gaze searching on that veiled figure. ‘Who are you?’ he prompted harshly.
‘I am no one, your Grace.’
‘On the contrary, you are most certainly someone.’ He reached into the ever-lightening gloom of the carriage to grasp one of her arms before pulling her along the seat towards him. A soft and slender arm that answered at least one of his earlier questions; the young woman beneath the veil was slender, very much so.
‘Let me go.’ She struggled against his hold, her gloved hand moving up in an effort to try to prise his fingers from about her arm. ‘You must release me, your Grace.’ There was now a distressed sob in her voice as her attempts failed to secure her release.
‘I think not,’ Zachary said slowly.
It had never been his intention to just allow this young woman to leave. Not since she had mentioned having information on Bonaparte, not by name but by implication.
Besides which, his curiosity to know more about this woman had only deepened with her comment about inflicting more harm.
The implication surely being that she had caused him some personal harm in the past?
If that was the case, then Zachary intended to know exactly who she was and in what way she might have caused him harm.
To that end he leant inside the carriage and pulled her easily towards him, until she fell forward across his shoulder despite her struggles.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I should have thought that was obvious.’ Zachary backed out of the carriage before straightening to heft his feather-light burden more comfortably on to his shoulder, his arm tight about the backs of the young woman’s thighs. He shot the curiously observing Lamb a grimly satisfied grin as he stood beside the horses’ heads, holding the reins to keep them steady. ‘The lady has expressed a fancy to pretend she is being kidnapped by a lusty pirate and carried off to his lair.’
Georgianna gave an indignant squeak at the deliberate and mortifying fabrication, before turning appealingly to the stoic-faced groom. ‘Do not believe a word of it,’ she pleaded desperately, the blood having rushed to her head and now causing her to feel slightly dizzy. ‘I am certainly being kidnapped, but not by any lusty pirate.’
‘Quiet, wench.’ The Duke of Hawksmere gave her a hearty slap on her backside to accompany the piratical instruction. ‘Wish me luck with my plundering, Lamb,’ he added drily, ‘for I am certain I shall need it.’
‘Not you, your Grace.’ The groom grinned his enjoyment of the entertainment. ‘Women are much like feisty mares and I’ve never known of one of ’em as you couldn’t tame to the bridle.’
Georgianna’s cheeks were aflame with colour, her light-headedness giving the whole situation a dreamlike quality. One in which she felt like the spectator at a theatre farce.
What other explanation could there possibly be for the way she now dangled over one of the wide and muscled shoulders of Zachary Black, the dangerous Duke of Hawksmere?
To now be jostled and bounced as he carried her up the steps of his town house, through the open doorway, before taking the three-pronged and lit candelabrum from the surprised and haughty-faced butler into his other hand?
The duke continued on through the entrance hall before taking the steps two at a time as he carried Georgianna easily up the wide staircase to the bedchambers above.
‘Remove the veil.’ Zachary looked down