he added pleasantly.
‘How long do you intend to keep me here?’ Georgianna stared at him disbelievingly.
‘As long as it takes to get to the truth,’ Zachary assured uninterestedly.
She gave a desperate shake of her head. ‘Have you not listened to a word I have said? Do you not understand the urgency of the things I have told you?’
He eyed her mockingly. ‘I have listened to the little you decided to share with me, yes.’
‘What will it take to convince you of my sincerity?’
‘More than you have already told me, obviously,’ Zachary drawled drily, brows raised questioningly. A frown creased Georgianna’s forehead as she obviously fought an inner battle as to how much more she intended revealing to him.
Finally she gave a defeated sigh. ‘Napoleon is to leave Elba before the end of this month.’
‘And you come to me with this story now?’ He raised sceptical brows. ‘With the end of the month just days away?’
‘I did not—’ Georgianna gave an impatient shake of her head as she accepted that to Hawksmere this was still just a ‘story’. ‘I only learnt of the plan nine days ago and I could not immediately get passage from France. I...’ Her gaze lowered. ‘André has men placed at all of the ports, watching and waiting for anyone who might wish to betray Napoleon.’
‘And yet here you are,’ Hawksmere drawled disbelievingly.
She nodded. ‘But I had to bide my time and make good my escape when the chance came for me to join a large family travelling together. I was all the time fearful that someone might recognise me. Am I boring you, your Grace?’ she prompted sharply as the duke gave a yawn.
‘As it happens, yes, you are.’ He nodded unapologetically.
‘But...’
‘I really am uninterested in listening to any more buts or arguments just now, Georgianna,’ he rasped harshly.
Georgianna looked up searchingly into his hard and implacable face. Noting the cold glitter of his silver eyes. The tautness of the skin across sculptured cheekbones. The sneering curl of his top lip.
The determined set of his arrogant and unyielding jaw.
She knew in that moment that all of her efforts of appeal for Zachary Black’s help had been a waste of her time.
That this man despised her so utterly he would never believe a single word she said to him.
Zachary was irritable and tired by the time he returned home several hours later, his morning having proved to be a frustrating one.
Not least because the man he had wished to speak with, the man to whom he had reported this past four years, was unavailable, and likely to be so for the next few days, as his deputy had informed Zachary. It happened, of course, but it was frustrating, nevertheless.
He had duly passed along the relevant information to the deputy, of course, but even so he still felt a sense of dissatisfaction.
It was true that there had been dozens of rumours of plots and plans to liberate the Corsican from Elba these past months and each and every one of them had necessarily to be investigated.
What if Georgianna were telling the truth and Napoleon really did mean to leave Elba before the month’s end and return to the shores of France? Possibly as emperor? That would not suit Louis or England.
Zachary had also requested to look at the file they had accumulated on André Rousseau these past months, hoping it might shed some light upon Georgianna Lancaster’s own movement. There had been no sightings of her in Rousseau’s company for some months. No sightings of her at all, it seemed, since a week or so after she and Rousseau had arrived in Paris together.
A curiosity in itself.
Where had Georgianna been all this time? And what had she been doing? For that matter, if she had not been with Rousseau, then where had she come by the information regarding Napoleon?
For the moment Zachary’s instructions were clear; he was to continue to keep Georgianna Lancaster imprisoned in his home and continue questioning her until such time as he was notified otherwise.
For all that Zachary had earlier today taunted Georgianna with the possibility of her continued incarceration, he was not best pleased at receiving orders to do exactly that.
And one of the main reasons for that was Georgianna herself.
The previous year she had been an inexperienced and idealistic young girl, that plump and desirable pigeon that Zachary had decided to marry, bed and subsequently mould into being his undemanding duchess.
Just a few minutes in her company earlier this morning and Zachary knew that Georgianna’s ten months in France had wrought more changes in her than just the physical ones.
That bright-eyed young girl, eager for life, was no more. And in her place was a coolly dignified, capable and stubborn woman. One who had lived in Paris, by all accounts, completely alone for some months, before arranging her own passage back to England. Who had then managed to follow him without his knowledge, until such time as she was able to speak with him privately. Moreover, Georgianna had shown him that very morning she was not a woman who intended to ever be cowed, by him, or anyone else.
If anything, that air of dignity, her independence and intelligence, appealed to and aroused Zachary even more than that naïve young woman he had intended to make his wife.
And whatever else Georgianna might claim to be now, she had eloped with André Rousseau ten months ago. She had been the Frenchman’s lover for a number of weeks, if not months, before and following that elopement.
For Zachary to feel desire and admiration for such a woman, a woman he had every reason to distrust, was not only rash on his part, but it could also be dangerous.
Zachary drew in a deep breath as he came to a halt outside the door to his bedchamber, noting there was no sound coming from within. He had questioned his butler on his arrival, and been informed that all had been silent above stairs all morning. Georgianna had obviously taken Zachary’s advice to heart and refrained from screaming, or banging on the door, demanding to be set free.
And perhaps that had just been a ploy and she was even now poised behind the silence of that door, candelabrum in hand, ready to knock Zachary senseless before making good her escape?
His smile was grim as he quietly unlocked the door to his bedchamber. He entered softly and saw the room was in semi-darkness, the curtains pulled halfway across the two picture windows, nevertheless allowing him to see that the breakfast tray still sat on the table near the door where he had placed it earlier.
The untouched breakfast tray.
A single glance was enough to show him that none of the food on the plates had been eaten. Only the dregs left in the bottom of the delicate china cup to show that Georgianna had drunk her tea at least.
The half-drawn curtains allowed the weak February sunshine to shaft across the room to where Georgianna lay asleep on top of his bed. She was still dressed in that unbecoming black gown. The curling ebony hair had been loosened, however, and now flowed thick and silky over the pillows behind her and across her breasts down to her tiny waist.
Zachary put down the bag he carried to cross softly to the bedside and look down at her. Her face appeared as a beautiful pale oval in the weak light. Long lashes fanned silkily against ivory cheeks as she continued to sleep, her rosy and sensual lips slightly parted as she breathed softly and evenly.
A deceptive picture of innocence, if not beauty.
So she might once have looked in their marriage bed, Zachary acknowledged with annoyance as his traitorous body stirred,