Page 61 of His Stolen Duchess
Georgina gasped a sigh of relief to see the Duke.
“No. How dare you!” he boomed, pushing Lady Eastbeck’s hand down as he released it. “You were about to strike my wife.”
Lady Eastbeck looked at the Duke, the fire in her eyes now dimmed, but some defiance remained in her soul. “She earned every word. She saw fit to slander me—and someone I hold dear—with the vilest sort of malice.”
“I don’t care. Either you apologize for what you were about to do, or you will have me to deal with.”
Lady Eastbeck stared at the Duke, but her eyes flitted to the people who had gathered behind him. She had a choice to make, and Georgina hoped she made the right one. She had never seen the Duke as angry as he was at that moment.
“I-I wouldn’t have done it, Your Grace,” Lady Eastbeck mumbled.
“I’m glad we will never know, but I still need to hear you apologize to my wife,” the Duke demanded.
Lady Eastbeck swallowed, then looked at the Duke’s hand on her wrist. She slowly turned to Georgina, some of the hate resurfacing in her glare.
“Your Grace, I am sorry,” Lady Eastbeck’s voice was steady, yet Georgina could see in the woman’s eyes that she meant no word.
Georgina didn’t like her apology, but she didn’t think she would get any better than that. “I believe we are done, and we shall speak of it no more.”
The Duke quickly took Georgina’s hand.
“Come,” he said. “Let us leave this rotten place.”
Chapter Nineteen
“You needn’t have been so severe with Lady Eastbeck,” Georgina said fretfully.
The night was still dark, clear, and studded with stars, but the air inside the coach felt taut. Georgina kept her gaze fixed on the passing blur of trees and lamplight, as though the glass pane could offer her a means of escape from her recent intense confrontation at the ball and the man seated near her.
Lysander sat opposite her, his profile sharpened by shadow. She could still see the scar that crept out from under his collar and traced a jagged path up his neck. Even during her swimming lessons, she hadn’t seen the full extent of it. She wasn’t sure anyone had.
“She had no right to speak to you as she did, and she certainly had no right to strike you. Or even attempt to. I don’t care what her intentions were; we both know she would have hit you ifI hadn’t intervened, and I won’t ever let anyone hurt you like that.”
“She acted foolishly, but only because she is in love with Lord Abbington. I don’t know how or why, or whether he returns that sentiment, though I am sure he doesn’t, but she wasn’t in control of herself, and I feel sorry for her.”
“You can feel sorry for her all you like, and she can be in love with whomever she desires, but that doesn’t give her an excuse to do whatever she wants.” Lysander reached out his arm, cupped her chin in his hand, and held her face to look into her eyes. “You’re mine now, and no one,no one, gets to insult you in any way. If Lady Eastbeck were not a lady, it would have gone much farther than it did. She was fortunate to have my mercy.”
“I appreciate you protecting me,” Georgina said softly. “They were all talking about us, and I don’t need them talking about us even more. I would rather not be around thetonever again.”
“Don’t pay them any mind,” the Duke told her. His thumb brushed her cheek. “They talk only because they are jealous.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” she murmured. “You’re not like them.”
Lysander leaned forward slightly. “And neither are you.”
She gave a bitter little laugh and looked away, but he reached again for her chin with a deliberate, unhurried grace. Heguided her face back to his, and his thumb brushed against her cheekbone.
“You needn’t shrink away,” he said. “You’re not a girl to be hidden in the shadows, nor some fragile thing to be cast aside. I saw the way Abbington treated you. You told me what he did. You were his betrothed, and yet he gave you neither care nor honor.”
She swallowed. “No,” she said. “He didn’t.”
“A real man,” Lysander said, his voice lower now, “does not make a woman feel invisible.”
Her pulse thrummed in her throat. He was still holding her chin, and his fingers were warm against her skin, anchoring her in the insulated darkness of the coach.
“He wasn’t a real man,” she said after a moment, her voice barely above a whisper.
“No,” Lysander replied. “But I am.”
