Page 9 of Winning the Wallflower's Heart
His stomach tumbled.
She thought so little of him, then. He was half the mind to let her, but he was no villain, and he couldn’t allow her to return to what little waited for her at home. He had blindly done that for far too long.
“I don’t want to tup you, Kitten.”
She reached out, bracing herself on the headboard of the bed.
“I asked you to marry me.”
“I heard.”
“You fainted.”
“I had a busy morning.” She turned to face him, and he was struck at how very little she resembled the schoolgirl he remembered. Georgie was a woman, a sick woman who needed him, and damn it, he would see her safe if it was the last thing he did with his dying breath.
“Too distracted to eat?”
Georgiana shrugged, turning to lean her body against the bed. It was such a casual position filled with disinterest. But thatdidn’t explain her pulse racing at the base of her throat, or the sallow look to her face, and her thin limbs.
He sighed, tamping down the anger simmering within him. Once, he and Sam had reveled in reckless nights, wreaking havoc across London as if the world was theirs to squander. They were both sons of privilege, after all—Ellis was to inherit an earldom. But everything changed the day Ellis wandered foxed into an East End shop and fell hard for a beautiful shop girl. His father had insisted he marry a debutante and keep her as a mistress, but he refused and proposed to Dinah instead. His father had cut him off for that. He’d defied his family for love, willingly turning his back on privilege and nearly losing himself in the process. His ruin had been a choice, while Georgiana’s was thrust upon her, her future gambled away by the very family meant to protect her.
And now, Georgiana had stood on the stage of his damn club auctioning off her virtue to the highest bidder because she felt she had no other option.
“You don’t deserve that, Kitten. Being up there on stage for someone to judge you, to use you. Then what? If you don’t accept my proposal, where will you go?”
“I don’t understand why you bid on me if you never intended?—”
“You deserve better, and I can provide that. Let me. Marry me and I will keep you safe and fed and happy.”
“At a gentlemen’s club?”
“Better than some rookery or brothel. Or have you introduced yourself to the madam?”
She collapsed to the bed then, perched on the edge with her back straight and her eyes burning a hole in the wall across the room.
“That was…” He sighed. “That was cruel. I apologize.”
She nodded, sniffing and quickly wiping her eyes.
He bent down and pointed toward the door. “Your father, your brother… they are never going to find what they are searching for. They have gambled away fortunes four times over. And you know well enough your brother’s taste for women and gin has ruined him. Go back if you must, but you deserve more. And if you don’t believe that yet, I’ll tell you again.” He reached out, tentatively brushing his fingers against the underside of her chin to bring her eyes up to meet his. He pushed down the faint familiarity of her touch, the way it rippled across his skin, and a rush of desire chased up his spine.
No, not now. Not her. It could never be her.
“What?” she asked, licking her lips and peering up at him.
“I’ll tell you every damn day if you let me, Georgie. You deserve a warm roof over your head, delicious food in that stomach of yours, space and time for yourself, the ability to move through this world and be seen for the wonder that you are. Not a burden, never a burden. One day, you might even believe me. Until then, I’m asking you, marry me. Marry me and I will protect you.”
Tiredness washed over her features, but she didn’t withdraw from his touch, didn’t shrink at his words. But he hadn’t expected that. She was stubborn as the day was long, and she was resilient. She was the small violet defiantly blooming in the shadow of an East End factory.
That was Lady Georgiana Harland.
A brilliant, stubborn flower.
And she could be his if she allowed it.
No, not his.
Safe.
