The Regency Season Collection: Part One. Кэрол Мортимер
He raised those dark brows. ‘Then I may assume you did not intrude upon my carriage with the intention of sharing my bed for what is left of the night?’
‘Certainly not!’ Georgianna pressed back in shock against the comfortably upholstered seat.
He continued to look at her with those narrowed and merciless silver eyes for several long seconds. ‘Pity,’ he finally drawled. ‘A satisfying tumble would have been a fitting end to what has already been a most enjoyable evening. Pray tell, then, what is this important news you so urgently need me to impart to an acquaintance of mine? So important, it would seem, that you wilfully used subterfuge and lies with which to enter my carriage, rather than call upon my home during the daylight hours?’ he prompted mockingly.
Now that she was face-to-face with Zachary Black, albeit with her own face obscured beneath the black veil, Georgianna was asking herself the same question.
At two and thirty, the arrogantly disdainful Duke of Hawksmere was a man she believed few would ever approach readily.
Admittedly, his prowess on the battlefield, with both sword and pistol, was legendary. His prowess in the bedchamber equally so. But he was also a gentleman rumoured to deal with both in the same cold and ruthless manner.
A coldness and ruthlessness, as Georgianna knew better than most, said to be frighteningly decisive.
So much so that she had no doubt that were he to identify her he would not hesitate to halt the carriage and toss her unceremoniously out into the street.
That he might still do so, of course.
She drew in a deep breath. ‘It is rumoured, or more precisely I have reason to believe you have certain...connections? In government?’
Zachary remained lazily slouched on the plushly upholstered seat of his ducal carriage, his expression of mockery and boredom unchanging. But inwardly he was instantly on the alert, not caring for the way in which this woman had hesitated before questioning his connections.
It implied that she had some knowledge of his having worked as an agent for the Crown this past four years. Information which was certainly not public knowledge. Indeed, his endeavours in that area would be of little use if it were.
He gave a dismissive shrug. ‘I have many acquaintances in the House, if that is what you are referring to.’
‘We both know it is not.’
‘Indeed?’ Damn it, who was this woman?
A younger woman, from the light and breathless sound of her voice, and possibly unmarried if her shocked reaction to the suggestion she was here to share his bed was any indication. She also appeared educated from her accent and manner of speaking, although that veil still prevented him from knowing as to whether she was fair or dark, fat or thin.
Or what she knew of his connections in government.
‘Yes,’ she asserted firmly.
‘I am afraid that you have me at something of a disadvantage, madam. While you claim to know a lot about me, I do not even know your identity,’ Zachary dismissed coldly.
Georgianna doubted that the arrogantly assured Zachary Black had ever been at a disadvantage in his privileged life. Nor was he under one now, for this was his carriage, and their conversation one over which he ultimately held power. As he always held power over all who were allowed, or dared to, enter his privileged world.
A power, a proximity, that she frankly found overwhelming.
She had forgotten—chosen to forget?—that the duke was so immediate, and his personality so overwhelming, that he seemed to possess the very air about him. Air perfumed with the smell of good cigars and brandy, no doubt from the evening he had just spent at his club with his friends. There was an underlying hint of the sharp tang of lemons and an earthy, insidious aroma she could only assume to be that of the man himself.
Allowing her personal nervousness and dislike of the man to bedevil her now, after all she had gone through, was not going to help Georgianna’s cause in the slightest.
‘It is not necessary for you to know who I am for you to arrange for me to meet with one of those gentlemen,’ she continued determinedly.
‘That is for me to decide, surely?’ The duke leisurely picked a speck of lint from the sleeve of his black evening jacket before he looked up and pinned her once again with those coldly glittering eyes. ‘And why come to me on the matter? Why not simply make an appointment and impart this knowledge to one of those gentleman yourself?’
Georgianna’s gaze lowered. ‘Because I very much doubt any of them would agree to meet with a mere woman. Not without the recommendation of someone such as yourself.’
‘You underestimate the influence of your own sex, madam,’ Hawksmere drawled derisively.
‘Do I?’ Somehow Georgianna doubted that.
She had been barely nineteen ten months ago when her own father had accepted on her behalf the offer of marriage she had received from an influential and titled gentleman, all without giving any consideration as to whether or not Georgianna would be happy in such a marriage.
Her now-deceased father, she reminded herself dully, having learnt upon her return to England just yesterday that her father had died nine months ago, and in doing so making a nonsense of the anger she had felt towards him in regard to that betrothal.
‘I believe so, yes,’ Hawksmere dismissed harshly. ‘Either way, I am not in the habit of listening to news imparted to me by unknown women—most especially one who feels it necessary to lie her way into my presence—let alone recommending that anyone else should do so.’
Georgianna had expected this distrust and cynicism from a man whom she knew allowed very few people into his inner circle of intimates—the four friends from his schooldays, also dukes, being the exception. Those same four friends with whom she knew he had just spent the evening and most of the night.
‘Who I am does not have any bearing on the veracity of the information I wish to impart,’ she maintained stubbornly.
‘In your opinion.’
‘In the opinion of any patriot.’
Zachary Black raised a mocking brow at her vehemence. ‘A patriot of what, madam?’
‘Of England, of course.’ Georgianna glared beneath the veil.
‘Ah, yes, England,’ he drawled drily. ‘I trust you will forgive my ignorance, but I had thought England to currently be at peace? That we had held celebrations in honour of that peace just this past summer?’
‘That is the very reason—’ Georgianna broke off her outburst in order to draw in a deep and controlling breath. Being anything less than in control in this particular gentleman’s company was not wise when he was more like than not to take advantage of it. ‘I can trust in your discretion, I hope?’
He raised those mocking brows. ‘Should that not have been something you ascertained before you decided to invade the privacy of my carriage?’
Yes, it should, and Georgianna had believed that she had done so; she would not have approached the Duke of Hawksmere if she had not known he was exactly the gentleman she needed to speak with initially.
And yet, alone with him now in his carriage, and presented with the perfect, and wholly private, opportunity in which to convince him into speaking on her behalf, she found herself hesitating.
To the country at large the Duke of Hawksmere was nothing less than a war hero. He’d fought bravely and long in Wellington’s army and had been severely wounded for his trouble. That he had also worked secretly for the Crown was not so widely known, but just as heroic. It was Georgianna’s personal dislike of the man which now caused her hesitation.
Alone with Hawksmere in his carriage, so totally overwhelmed by the sheer presence of the man, Georgianna could