‘Have you always disliked being in complete dark?’
Georgianna had not been expecting the question. Although perhaps she should have done; Hawksmere was a man who liked to disarm his adversaries rather than put them at their ease. As he had just done by unexpectedly mentioning her fear of darkness.
As he had disarmed her a short time ago, when he had unlocked and entered her bedchamber through the door which adjoined that room to his own. Looking every inch the handsome and highly eligible Duke of Hawksmere, dressed in impeccably tailored black evening clothes and snowy-white linen, his fashionably overlong hair a damp and ebony sheen about that saturnine face. A face dominated by those piercing silver eyes.
As sitting beside him now at the dinner table, the warmth of his thigh almost touching her own, was also disarming her.
Only because he had unexpectedly kissed her earlier, she reassured herself impatiently. A totally unwelcome kiss.
A kiss she had nevertheless been unable to forget in the hours that followed.
Instead of the suppressed violence she might have expected, Hawksmere’s kiss had been gentle, searching, as if seeking a response from her rather than demanding one.
And all these hours since Georgianna had questioned if in fact she had responded.
It had been such a fleeting kiss, a mere brushing of Hawksmere’s lips against her own, and Georgianna had been so surprised by it that she had no memory of whether or not she had returned the pressure of those firm lips. She certainly hoped not, but still she could not be sure.
She turned to him with cool eyes. ‘I have been wondering about that wound to your throat, and the possibility it was inflicted by another female who was equally as unwilling to b
ecome your duchess?’
And there he had it again, Zachary acknowledged, as he began to smile and then to chuckle openly; not only did Georgianna challenge him, but she also had the ability to make him laugh, at himself as much as others. ‘There have been no others females, unwilling or otherwise, whom I have asked to become my duchess.’ He finally sobered enough to answer her.
‘You surprise me.’
He gave a mocking inclination of his head. ‘My only unsatisfactory venture into contemplating the married state has made me wary of repeating the experience.’
‘Then your wound really was, as it is rumoured, inflicted by a French sabre?’ She was barely able to suppress a shiver.
Zachary’s humour faded, his expression darkening as he ran his fingertips along the six-inch length of the scar. It had been with him for so long now that he rarely thought about it any more. Or the effect it might have upon others. Upon Georgianna. ‘You find it repulsive?’
‘I find the idea of the violence behind it repulsive, yes,’ she answered him carefully.
‘Indeed?’ he rasped.
‘I did not mean you any insult,’ Georgianna assured hastily. ‘I—I am sure we all have our scars to bear, some more openly than others.’ Her gaze moved to the fireplace as she picked up her glass and took a sip of her wine.
‘Do you?’ Zachary continued to study her profile through narrowed lids.
She straightened her spine but continued to look towards the fireplace rather than at him. ‘Of course. How can I not after the events of this past year?’
‘Tell me where you have been these past nine months, Georgianna?’ he prompted softly.
She gave a start—a guilty one?—as she now looked down at the food in front of her, as if seeing it for the first time. ‘Should we not eat our soup before it becomes cold?’
‘By all means.’ Zachary nodded. ‘But there is no reason why we cannot continue talking as we eat,’ he added once Georgianna had raised the spoon to her lips. A spoon that shook precariously as her hand began to tremble, until she placed it carefully back beside the soup bowl. ‘What are you hiding, Georgianna?’ Zachary demanded sharply as he saw that nervousness.
‘Nothing.’
‘Do not lie to me, Georgianna.’
She drew in a ragged breath as she now looked down at the tablecloth. ‘I am not hiding anything. Or rather, I am hiding, but it is not from a what but a who,’ she continued so softly it was difficult for Zachary to hear her.
‘Who?’
Her eyes closed. ‘Rousseau, of course.’
‘Why?’