Loving Lady Georgianna (Spirited #2)

Chapter 28

Georgie entered the tense silence of the drawing room and waited for the rope of the guillotine to decide her fate. It would tighten or loosen, but in either case, she had been broken open. And looking at Thorne across the room, his gaze trained out the window and his back ramrod straight, Georgie couldn't be sure of his thoughts. He could make his features remarkably blank when he wanted. But she didn't have room to talk. She had made hiding her emotions an art.

But she found she couldn't do that now. Here. Thorne had found out her secret, and Georgie knew the name and face of the culprit. If her own future wasn't so uncertain, she would bloody kill that Randall herself. 

In any case, it was time to accept the truth.

Taking a deep breath, Georgie shut the door behind her, enclosing them together. Thorne shifted marginally, and it took everything in her to stand straight and tall, to keep her own features a mask of impenetrability until she could be certain how far her walls had crumbled, if there was any hope of keeping them intact. So, Georgie decided the best course of action was to blurt it out.

"I was going to tell you."

Thorne didn't move, didn't breathe. There was no way for her to tell if Thorne had heard her at all. But then his mask cracked like a splintering tree, and his laughter barked out, so hard it made her throat tighten, the threat of tears building behind her eyes. That one glimpse of his mask breaking showed her how Thorne truly felt. The unadulterated pain strode in, gripped her heart and tore it from her chest. 

She deserved it.

She wrapped her arms around her middle as he turned to face her. This time, Thorne let her see his thoughts and she stepped backward at the look. His gaze fell upon her burned face and something crossed his features that looked remarkably like disgust. The look Georgie had seen on so many faces that she could ignore with barely a glance, was something that stripped her from the man she loved.

God, but she did love him, didn't she? It made all this awkward silence soul shattering.

Georgie fell back, bumping into the door behind her. One hand clutched at her skirts, the wood of the door cold along her knuckles, and the other wrapped protectively around her middle, clutching her stomach as if the emptiness inside of her could offer some meager form of comfort.

All that remained, however, was shame.

"When, Georgie?" She looked to Thorne, biting her lower lip and wishing she could have a moment to explain, to gather her thoughts. He didn't allow it. "When did you plan on telling me?"

She bit her lower lip to stop its quivering, and her eyes fell upon the carpeting beneath her slippers. "I tried to tell you last night --"

"Did you?" Thorne asked, a hand running through his hair. His eyes were dark and turbulent through the strands of his hair as he looked up at her. "Because all I remember is you falling into my arms-"

Georgie felt fire lick at her. She was tired of the secret shame, the pitying looks, and the uncertainty. Tired of hiding her own pain, her own thoughts. Enough, she thought. Hadn't she suffered enough?

Stepping away from the wall, Georgie clutched her hands into fists. "Of course I did! You wouldn't listen. Said the past didn't matter -"

"That was before I knew I had a child, for godssakes!"

The words ricocheted through the room, touching the ceiling, before spreading like unseen sparks down to her shoulders. The weight tore at her. Eyes filling with tears, Georgie pursed her lips, blinking the moisture back. "I know this is a shock to you. I know you don't want a child."