Loving Lady Georgianna (Spirited #2)

Chapter 24

"What happened that night?"

Vincent's face lost its color, and Georgie wanted to take the words back. The question was unwelcome between them, but low in her belly Georgie knew the seriousness of the question. The intimacy of the moments before had given Georgie a taste of how it could be, and she thought back to her connection with the duke and knew it fell short by thousands of yards. It could never compare to the intimacy she had shared, naked before Vincent, with him buried to the hilt inside her and leaving her so full and cherished that tears stung her eyes.

What a fool she had been.

After they shared what had happened that evening; what had kept them apart for so long, then she would let the chips fall where they may. If she was to be abandoned a second time, at least she had had this one evening. This sincerity between them.

It didn't make the question any less harsh or the answer any less important. The fire, which had cocooned them in coziness, had turned sinister. The light of the flames licked against Vincent's heavy brow and circled beneath his eyes. His stubble glowed thick and dark on his jaw.

Georgie's hands shook and she knew with stunning clarity that at any moment she would burst into tears. She was nothing more than a fragile sheet of foolscap and one stiff wind would blow her away. Perhaps she never would get back again.

Laying her palm over Vincent's chest, Georgie gloried in the steady, beating thump of his heart. Maybe if she listened hard enough, if she were to focus long enough, reality would cease to rip him from her grasp.

Vincent's arm wrapped tight around her, and his thumb settled against her side, swiping against the flesh of her breast.

"I was on my way to see you, Georgianna." Her head twisted up at the raw words, but Vincent wasn't looking at her. as if he found it easier to tell his tale without the intense scrutiny of her stare. "I would have found you. I would have. But..."

She watched his Adam's apple bob, and if she wasn't mistaken, his voice had broken off as if he were close to tears himself. A pang of sympathy settled deep within her chest. She would do battle for this man, would do anything he asked of her.

The twins' words from the carriage the other day rattled loose in Georgie's brain. "Did something happen with your father?"

A smirk twisted his lips. "Leave it to you to delve straight to the point." Vincent sighed, his thumb never halting its soothing stroke. "Randall was never kind to my mother." He choked on a bitter laugh. "But that night, I knew I wasn't the only one under Randall's fist. That night, he didn't hide his contempt."

Georgie didn't know how to help him, so she pressed her lips into his chest, soaking in his soft shudder and the ever-tightening of his arm about her shoulders. He picked up a strand of her hair and worried it between his fingers.

"I'm my mother's bastard with an unknown father, and it hardly mattered to Randall that it happened before they were married. I was a stain on the family name and my mother was no more than a whore for what she had done."

Georgie flinched. Closing her eyes, she breathed him in. If she could she would go back in time and give Randall the thrashing he deserved. While her own father had been sparse on his physical affection, Georgie had no doubt that he cared greatly for their mother and for them as well. To think a father would act so to those under his care...

It was unfathomable.

"I made it my mission to be invisible," Vincent continued. "To be the best lad I could and for the most part, his disgust lie with me. Or at least as much of it as I was aware. Though now that I think back on it, we didn't see mother for days at a time and when we did see her..." Vincent blew out a harsh breath and his fingers tugged on her hair absently. "She always had excuses. She had been too clumsy that morning or had taken a spill. How carless of her."