The Regency Season Collection: Part One. Кэрол Мортимер

that, and one who did not as yet appear to fully appreciate the danger she had placed herself in by choosing to step back into his life.

      He gave a slow and deliberate smile. ‘I advise you not to defy me, Georgianna.’

      She eyed him rebelliously. ‘Why should I not?’

      He gave a nonchalant shrug as he murmured softly, ‘Because I shall win and you will lose.’

      Georgianna repressed another shiver of apprehension as she heard the arrogant certainty in his voice. As she acknowledged that, through her own stupidity this time, Hawksmere now had her completely at his mercy. She was his prisoner, to do with as he wished.

      Hawksmere smiled confidently as he seemed to guess at least some of her thoughts. ‘I shall be locking you in here in my absence, of course, and taking the key with me. And I advise that you not bother giving yourself a sore throat, or knuckles, by screaming or shouting, or banging on the door for my servants to release you whilst I am gone,’ he added derisively. ‘I shall make sure to inform them, before I depart, that it is all part of the erotic play between the two of us, and that the more you ask to be set free the more you desire to stay here and await my return.’

      ‘You truly are a monster.’ Georgianna’s cheeks burned with humiliated colour.

      He shrugged. ‘I have never made any pretence of being anything else.’

      The implication being, Georgianna knew, that she was the one who had practised deceit, when she’d lied to her family and her betrothed in order to run away with André.

      And that Hawksmere believed she was lying to him even now.

      Except she was not. And Hawksmere’s decision to keep her locked up here, and his threats, did not change the fact that time was more the enemy than this arrogant duke. ‘You will speak to someone this morning on my behalf?’

      Hawksmere’s mouth thinned into an uncompromising line. ‘I have no plans to do so until the two of us have spoken again, no.’

      ‘But you must,’ Georgianna gasped desperately. ‘Napoleon...’

      ‘Enough, Georgianna,’ Hawksmere rasped his impatience with her persistence as he grasped her arms, his silver eyes as cold as ice as he looked down the length of his arrogant nose at her. ‘I have not had the opportunity to sleep, either, this past night, and my patience is now at an end.’

      ‘But...’

      ‘I said enough, Georgianna,’ he thundered.

      Tears blurred her vision. ‘You have every right to be angry with me, to despise me for my having ended our betrothal in the way that I did.’ She gave a weary shake of her head. ‘Take your revenge upon me any way you please. I do not care what you do to me, as long as you take my warnings seriously.’

      ‘And if it is my wish to claim your body, for your having run from me, from our betrothal, ten months ago?’ he taunted softly.

      She shook her head. ‘As long as you also listen to me in regards to Napoleon.’

      ‘One more mention of that man’s name and more pressing responsibilities be damned, I shall be forced to begin that punishment now!’ the duke warned darkly. ‘Now that I think about it, it might be best if I were to request that you remove your gown,’ he mused hardly. ‘You will be less likely to attempt an escape if you are half-naked.’

      ‘I will not take off my gown.’ Georgianna pulled out of his grasp to move quickly away from him, her hands held up defensively in front of her rapidly rising and falling chest.

      Zachary studied her through narrowed lids as he noted the wild panic in those beautiful violet-coloured eyes. Much like a deer the moment it realised it was caught in the sights of the hunter’s gun.

      All because he had asked her to remove her gown?

      Surely a woman who had shared one man’s bed for the past ten months would not be quite so averse to the idea of another man seeing her naked?

      Unless...

      ‘Did he hurt you?’ Zachary scowled darkly.

      That violet gaze sharpened. ‘What?’

      His mouth thinned. ‘Did Rousseau hurt you?’

      ‘Of course he hurt me! How could he not, when he used me to make good his escape?’

      ‘That is not the type of hurt I am referring to, Georgianna.’ Zachary took several steps towards her, coming to a halt as Georgianna shadowed those steps by moving back, until she was now pressed up against one of the velvet curtains hanging at the window. ‘I have no intentions of harming you, Georgianna.’

      She gave a choked and bitter laugh. ‘You have just threatened to take away my gown.’

      ‘And that is all I have threatened.’

      She gave a shudder. ‘It is enough!’

      Zachary’s eyes narrowed. ‘Some men like to give pain to their bed partner during lovemaking, as a way of heightening their own arousal.’

      She gasped. ‘Do you?’ Pale and slender fingers now tightly clasped at the throat of that unbecoming black gown as she stared at him with dark and shadowed eyes.

      ‘No, I most certainly do not,’ Zachary assured grimly. ‘But I am beginning to suspect that Rousseau did. Do you perhaps share his perversion?’

      ‘No!’

      ‘I am glad to hear it.’ Zachary’s eyes narrowed. ‘But has he left lasting marks upon your body you would not wish another man to see?’ he added harshly, surprised at how violent it made him feel to think of there being so much as a single bruise administered to that alabaster skin, let alone any lasting reminder of the man Rousseau.

      Georgianna breathed shallowly, not sure she understood all that Zachary Black was saying to her. Not sure she wanted to understand.

      Surely lovemaking was exactly that? An expression of the love a couple felt for one another? Or if not love, then at least a tenderness, a caring, for the other’s welfare?

      What the duke was describing, the deliberate inflicting of pain, did not sound as if it could be any of those things.

      And yet Georgianna did indeed bear scars, and ones inflicted upon her by André Rousseau. Not the visible scars to which Hawksmere seemed to refer, of course, but they were damning none the less. A testament to the scorn, the total uninterest in which André had held the impressionable young girl who had forsaken all for her love of him.

      ‘I can see that he did.’ Hawksmere obviously took her silence to be her answer, his expression grimmer than ever. ‘And you still love such a man?’ he added disgustedly.

      ‘No.’ Georgianna choked in protest; how could she possibly love a man who had treated her as André had?

      To her everlasting shame, Georgianna was no longer sure she had ever really loved André, or whether she had not just been in love with love itself.

      A year ago she had been so young and idealistic, had believed in love and romance. And the handsome and penniless Frenchman employed by her father had seemed so much more romantic, so much easier to love than the intimidating and distant Duke of Hawksmere. To the extent that Georgianna had woven all of her dreams about the golden-haired and romantic Frenchman in order to run away from marrying the dangerous duke.

      Reality had proven to be so much less than those silly, romantic dreams.

      Not that she believed Hawksmere to be any less dangerous now than she had previously. The opposite, after the things he had said and done to her today.

      But she certainly had no romantic dreams left in regard to André Rousseau, either, or indeed any other man.

      Hawksmere’s top lip curled up in distaste, silver eyes a pale glitter between narrowed lids. ‘Again, this is something we will have to discuss further upon my return. No doubt we