Page 91 of Ladies in Hating
“Georgie.” Cat’s voice was low and urgent. “Look at me.Lookat me.”
Georgiana looked. Her eyes were dry and burning, and her gaze snagged on the anguished white lines around Cat’s mouth.
“Don’t do this.” A muscle flexed in Cat’s cheek. “Don’t you dare do this to me. This is not your fault.”
Georgiana’s chest hurt. “It is. I should have stayed away. I should never have let myself get close to you. I—”
“Stop it,” Cat said and dashed furiously at her cheeks. “Stop it, damn you. I need your help. Do you hear me, Georgiana? I need you. Do not let me down.”
The room seemed unsteady, the afternoon light from the tiny window wavering at the edges of Georgiana’s vision.
I need you. Do not let me down.
Could that be right? Was it possible that she—
She squeezed her eyes closed against the pain of the light.
When had she gone wrong? Was it when she’d spoken to Jem—when she’d tried clumsily to intervene? Or was it now? Wasthisthe ruin that she feared, and she poised to fling herself into it?
She opened her eyes. Cat was still there, her gaze steady and her hand resting on Georgiana’s arm. She had not moved.
It was so hard for Georgiana to drag herself free from the sticky mire of her thoughts. From the maze her mind wanted to travel, the same course again and again.I am poison to those I love. I cannot let myself wish for more.
See what happens when you’re all alone.
But she was not alone. Cat was here. And Georgiana had promised.
She had to clamp her fingers over Cat’s before she could speak, and still it was a struggle to push the words from her mouth. “I will not let you down. If you want me at your side, I will stay with you. I swear it.”
Cat sucked in a breath. She turned over her hand and tangled their fingers, her eyes never leaving Georgiana’s face.
There was a commotion on the stairs, and Georgiana startled, spinning toward the doorway.
Pauline had vanished—Georgiana did not know precisely when—and now she was hurtling back up the stairs, a tall, rawboned, intensely familiar figure at her side.
Martin Yorke.
“Kitty,” Pauline said, “Mr. Yorke found my note. I think you’d better hear what he has to say.”
“Cat. Lady Georgiana.” He nodded at them hastily in turn. “I see you’ve reacquainted yourselves.”
The simmering suspicions Georgiana had harbored since Selina’s revelations flared intensely to life. Her voice, when she spoke, came out sharp enough to cut. “Yorke. What the devil is going on? What are you doing here?”
But Yorke only waved his hand. “Not now. I’ll explain later. We need to talk about James.” He flipped open his brief bag and riffled through its overstuffed compartment.
Only when Cat’s fingers tightened on Georgiana’s arm did Georgiana realize they had not drawn away from each other. “Do you know where he is?” Cat demanded breathlessly of Yorke. “Tell me he’s on some errand for you.”
“Not for me. But I suspect I know where he’s gone. Only I do not know why.”
Georgiana felt her temper harden, cold as frostbite in her chest. “Why should we believe anything you tell us?”
“Because I have proof.” Yorke shoved his way into the chamber and spread a heavily annotated sheet of foolscap across Jem’s small desk. “Finally I have proof. James Lacey is the natural son of the sixth Duke of Fawkes.”
Georgiana felt suddenly and abruptly lightheaded.
“He’s… what?” Cat blinked. Blinked again. “I beg your pardon?”
“This is what I’ve been working on the last few weeks. When the new Fawkes—the seventh—inherited, he hired me to put his affairs in order. One of those affairs was an unentailed property that his father had bestowed upon his natural child.”
