His scowl grew. “The last duke was a financial idiot. It’s not that he was poor. But his finances are in such a muddle it will take years to figure them out.”
Georgie waved her glass at him. “Bring them here. I have an odd talent for that kind of thing.”
“I have a better idea. Come with me.”
She didn’t even bother to shake her head. The tears were building again. She had no other choice. She had to travel to the Abbey and confront her father. And when she did, it would provoke the final break not only between them, but between him and her brother, and she didn’t want that. She simply wanted to be left alone with her little girl here where she was finally settled.
And yet, if she didn’t act, her father would simply try again. He would send her baby to an institution for the insane.
Down went the brandy again. Up went Georgie. “He couldn’t. He simply couldn’t.”
She caught Adam just as he was grabbing for his cane. “Stop. If you try and rise every time I do, you’ll be crippled for life. I move about when I’m distracted. You bear no responsibility for keeping me company.”
He got to his feet anyway. “But I want to.”
She tilted her head. “Why?”
His smile was a rueful thing of beauty, and Georgie couldn’t look away.
“We are in this together, Georgie,” he said, reclaiming her hand. “I cannot in all good conscience abandon Lully until her inheritance is safely secured and her people cared for. I will not abandon you while your father persists in this medieval behavior of his.”
There it was again, she thought, the tears curdling back into pain. She had to tell him. Certainly, before her father did.
“Adam...”
“In fact, I have an idea how I cannot only help you, but you can help me,” he said, reaching out to stroke his fingers along her cheek. He so distracted her that she almost didn’t hear what came next. “Marry me.”
She knew she should say something. She knew he’d said something important. She couldn’t seem to get past the look of surprise in his water-blue eyes.
Suddenly his words sank in. Her heart stumbled about like a drunk lord.
“Did you really mean to say that?” she found herself asking.
His grin was bright. “Actually, yes.” Reaching down, he claimed her other hand as well. “Think of it. I could protect Lully even when I’m not close by. My title alone will guard her. And you. After all, who is going to question a duke about his daughter? Who better to represent her than a man of the same status, and her cousin at that? There aren’t a lot of us out there, you know. As we have already established, I outrank your father.”
The pain swamped her, the shame. The futility. He had no idea that he was holding her up when she felt his words would shatter her.
“What a lovely offer to make,” she said, her voice as thin as her courage. “But I couldn’t think of imposing on you that way. And I believe I need to sit again.”
He sat her down and handed her the brandy again before sitting himself.
“I’m so sorry,” she apologized, seeing the reflexive pain in his eyes as he bent his knees. “I promise to stay in one place.”
“Do not consider it,” he said, settling once again.
How could she feel worse? She did, staring into her glass as if the answer to her dilemma was swimming about before her. She fought back another bout of tears because she didn’t deserve them. She should have ended this a long time ago. She should have shown the same courage she had when she’d taken the children and hidden out in the wilds of Cornwall.
But hiding was so much easier than the truth.
“It would not be imposing,” Adam said. “I must marry sometime. Heirs and all. I like you quite a lot, and I consider Lully a gem. Can you say your life would be worse married to a duke? You could help me so much. After all, I cannot imagine the marchioness raising you without extensive training in how to be married to a peer. We could make the title what we wanted. And we could cushion Lully and help her grow into her own title. Who else can better raise her to fulfill her responsibilities? After all, I shall be growing into my title the same time she grows into hers. We can help each other.”
She couldn’t bear it a minute longer. She downed her second glass of brandy as if it had been a cordial and braced for the renewed fire. She should be stumbling in her altitudes about now. She didn’t feel a thing. Certainly not the courage people said resided in the stuff. Certainly not peace of any kind. She just felt worse, because she had come not just to respect this man—heavens, she had respected him all along, ever since Jamie had spoken of the cousin who had nurtured him and encouraged him to be the man he was. No, now that she had finally met him, she had to admit that she had built a far more thorough fondness for him out of no more than stories and smiles. And now?
Now.
“That is the problem in its entirety,” she blurted out, staring unblinking at the empty snifter in her hands, knowing that if she didn’t tell him now, her father would. And he would make it so much worse. “She isn’t.”
There was a pause. “Isn’t what?”
