“You must warn Mr. Chase,” Imogen said. “When my husb —” She stopped. Rethought. “When the earl arrives, he will do anything to demolish this place and anyone involved with the building of it. He will do whatever it takes to keep you quiet.”
“You think you are our first member with a bastard of a husband? It will take more than that to destroy us,” Georgiana said with more bluster than she felt. She dipped Imogen’s hands in the warm water, hating the way the woman hissed her pain at the sensation. “He is not the first to threaten us, and he will not be the last.”
“What did you do with the information?” the countess asked. “What will become of it? When will it be used against him?”
“Soon, I hope,” Georgiana said. “If it does not appear in the News of London within the week, I shall release it myself.”
Imogen froze at the words. “The News of London. West’s newspaper.”
Georgiana nodded. “We passed the information to Duncan West for release.” The countess stood, wavering on her feet. Georgiana stood with her. “My lady, please, you should sit until the doctor arrives.”
“Not West.”
The words, filled with shock and something dangerously, disturbingly close to fear, struck deep. Georgiana shook her head. “My lady?”
“West has been in his pocket for years.”
Georgiana froze. Hating the way the words struck. Hating the fact that she knew, without question, without hesitation, that the countess told the truth.
Bourne’s report earlier in the day.
West at the Worthington Ball, at the Beaufetheringstone Ball, on the sidelines because he could not dance – speaking to the earl.
She should have known it. Should have seen it… that Tremley and West were partners in some strange, perverse play.
It could not be true.
Why not? It would not be the first time she’d thought she knew a man. It would not be the first time she thought she loved a man.
Except she did not think it this time.
She knew it.
And so the betrayal hurt infinitely more.
Memory flashed, the night he came to the club and revealed her as Anna. The threat she’d goaded him into issuing.
I shall tell the world your secrets.
She didn’t want to believe he would do it, but suddenly, she did not know him.
Who was he?
She crossed her arms tight over her chest, resisting the urge to grab the lady by the shoulders. Resisting the pain that flared high and tight. “Do you have proof?”
Imogen laughed, the sound high-pitched and wild. “I don’t need it. The earl has boasted about it for years. Since before our marriage. He tells anyone who will listen that West is his lapdog.”
Georgiana pulled back from the word. Lapdog.
It did not sound like Duncan. She could not imagine him lying down for anyone, let alone such a monster as Tremley. Collusion with the earl would mean that Duncan knew everything – Tremley’s treasonous activities, his penchant for hitting his wife, his black soul.
It did not seem right.
But here the countess sat, bloody and bruised, more than one part of her broken, Georgiana had no doubt, and she told the tale of Tremley and Duncan as cohorts.
She was transported to the night she’d met him as Georgiana, on the balcony, when he’d removed a feather from her hair and painted it down her arm, across the skin of her elbow, making her wish she was bare to the tickling touch. To him.
Wouldn’t you rather know precisely with whom you are dealing?
The question had been so forthright, and she’d given herself over to it. To him. Telling herself that she knew fact and fiction, truth and lies.
She knew good men, and bad.
And then he’d come to her club. Followed her there.
On purpose? Dread came with the thought. Was it possible he’d followed her? Was it possible he’d known from the beginning that she was two instead of one? That she was both Anna and Georgiana?
Was it possible he’d always intended to use her to get whatever Chase might be able to find on Tremley? Was it possible that he would use this woman? Collateral damage in whatever battles the earl fought?
Christ.
He’d kissed her. He’d touched her. He’d come a heartbeat from promising her a future.
But he hadn’t promised her any kind of future.
In fact, even as he’d lain her bare and made love to her, he’d told her they had no future together. As I am… we are impossible.
She went cold at the memory.
Christ. Who was he? How had he teased and tempted and lied his way into her heart? She, who wielded such control over the wide world… how had he come to control her so well?
What is your relationship with Tremley?
What is your relationship with Chase?
Their secrets matched.
Something broke in her… something she had not realized had ever been repaired from when she was a child. Something that was utterly, completely different from when she was a child.
She had not loved Jonathan. She knew that now.
Because she knew, beyond question, that she loved Duncan West. And that such love – powerful beyond reason – would destroy her.
She met the countess’s gaze. “I did this,” she confessed. “I brought you here and put you at risk.” She shook her head. “He —”
A knock sounded at the door and she was saved from finishing the thought aloud. But as she crossed the room, she finished it a dozen times in her head.
He lied to me.
But why?
She turned back to the countess, standing, fists clenched, as though she might have to do battle. “It is the surgeon – nothing else.”