How she despised him now.
Hated him.
Wished him consigned to the devil.
‘Where are you going?’
Georgianna came to an abrupt halt, unable to keep the surprised expression from her face as she now turned to see the man who so occupied her thoughts.
Primarily because Hawksmere was not supposed to be at the Countess of Evesham’s ball at all this evening. He had sent a note to Malvern House late this afternoon to inform Georgianna and Jeffrey that he would not be attending. He had offered no explanation, but had ended the brief note by wishing them both a pleasant evening.
That he was now standing before her, after all, caused Georgianna’s heart to flutter erratically in her chest as she gazed up at him from beneath the fan of her lowered lashes.
He looked magnificent, of course, in his black evening clothes and snowy white linen, a diamond pin glittering amongst the intricate folds of his cravat, his fashionably tousled hair appearing as dark as a raven’s wing in the bright candlelit ballroom.
And yet beneath that magnificence Georgianna noted the lines of strain around Zachary’s eyes and etched beside the firm line of his mouth, the skin stretched tautly across the pallor of his chiselled cheeks. His mouth was set grimly, eyes glittering that intense silver as he continued to look down at her intently.
She moistened her lips before answering. ‘I was going outside on to the terrace to take the air.’
He nodded abruptly. ‘Then I will join you.’ He took a firm hold of her elbow before cutting a determined swathe through the other guests towards the doors leading outside.
A determination none present dare question and leaving Georgianna no choice but to accompany him.
She was not sure she wished to be alone on the terrace with Zachary, or anywhere else.
Her conversation with Jeffrey the evening before, the confirmation of Hawksmere’s perfidy, had cut into her almost with a pain of the same terrible intensity as when André had shot her. Starkly revealing, to Georgianna at least, that she had been using the anger she felt towards Zachary as a defence to hide what she really felt for him.
Love.
How it had happened, why it had happened, she had absolutely no idea, but during the events of the past year she had promised herself, if she survived, that she would never deceive or lie to herself again. And somehow, in these past three weeks, she had managed to fall in love.
She was in love, deeply and irrevocably, with Zachary Black, the emotionally aloof and coldly arrogant Duke of Hawksmere.
The same man who, it now transpired, had only offered for her the previous year because of his father’s will. A man who had made it more than obvious, now as then, that he did not believe in love, let alone have any intention of so much as pretending to ever have felt that emotion in regard to Georgianna.
She glanced across at him now as he stood beside her in the moonlight, her expression guarded. ‘Your note said that you would not be attending the ball this evening.’
Zachary gave a humourless smile. ‘Obviously it is not only a lady’s prerogative to change her mind.’ In truth, he had regretted sending the note to Malvern and his sister almost the moment it had left his house earlier today, meaning, as it surely did, that he would now have no opportunity in which to see Georgianna today.
At the time of writing the note, Zachary had been feeling decidedly under the weather, his head fit to burst from the copious amount of brandy he had consumed the night before. Even the thought of attending the tedium of a ball increased the pounding inside his head.
Until Hinds, with his usual foresight, had provided Zachary wi
th one of his cure-alls and, in doing so, managed to alleviate that pounding headache to a more manageable level. At which time Zachary had deeply regretted having ever informed Jeffrey and Georgianna that he would not be attending the ball with them this evening, after all.
‘I do not think it altogether proper for the two of us to be out here alone together.’
Zachary scowled. ‘I am your guardian.’
‘And that distinction surely covers a multitude of sins!’ she came back sharply.
One of those sins surely being Zachary having made love to her. ‘Georgianna…’
‘Could we please not argue again tonight, Zachary?’ she requested wearily. ‘I fear I am not feeling strong enough to deal with our usual thrust and parry this evening.’
Zachary looked at her searchingly, easily noting the pallor of her cheeks. ‘Are you feeling unwell?’ He swallowed. ‘Perhaps because you are mourning Rousseau’s death?’
‘No!’ Georgianna assured vehemently.