Loving Lady Georgianna (Spirited #2)

Chapter 18

**A/N: PG-13 material ahead!!!**

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Georgie was seconds away from chastising him. That was no way to speak about oneself. But then she caught the last words of his sentence. Her mouth gaped, shutting and opening at random, like a gate with a broken lock. "Your mother...?"

Thorne nodded. "She was pregnant with me when her own father announced the match with Randall. She never said who my father is, but she kept me a secret, hoping to pass me off as Lord Randall's." He huffed a laugh. "The timing was off though, and I imagine Randall noted some other things leading him to know my mother was no innocent."

"Why didn't she come forward with the truth?"

He swallowed, seeming to search for the words. Georgie's head ducked, trying to capture his gaze, but he trained them fiercely upon the loose clasp of their palms on Georgie's lap.

"What do you think would have happened?"

Georgie was filled with despair. What if Thorne had known about her child...? What would Burkeley think when he found her just as ruined...inside and out? It choked her, but she blocked out the pain. She would deal with one thing at a time.

Thorne continued speaking, and Georgie focused back on his words. "Randall had always hated anything to do with me. Any reminder that he was a cuckold with someone else's son as his heir..."

A thought struck her and she whispered, "I have never seen your mother -"

"Nor will you," Thorne clipped. His eyes clashed with hers, and Georgie knew that line of conversation was over. What had happened in the confines of his household? In the moments of his childhood that she had not been privy to? Greyson hadn't mentioned anything, but what did that mean, in essence?

Her brother was a protector to his core, and he wouldn't wish to upset her.

It was too late for that.

"If Randall wished to ruin me, all it will take is one word to the right person and all of London would know me for what I am. An imposter. And what will they say about my mother? To most of London she will be the whore -"

"Don't say that -"

"- that lay with another man not her husband. And why the bloody hell not?" Thorne demanded, shifting on the seat and pulling their clasp taut. "That's the truth of it. The truth of London's folly. And how long do you believe it will be before the gossips sling the twins' parentage through the mud as well?"

Georgie's heart stopped.

He pointed to her stricken expression with his free hand. "Exactly. You know they will question everything, and when my sisters come out next season - despite being from that man's bloody spunk -"

Georgie cringed from the word, and it only made Thorne laugh darker, with flints of amber fire in his eyes and a flush to his neck.

"Regardless that they are legitimate to the core - our dear, Papa made sure of that -

Horror widened her eyes. Surely he did not mean that Randall had...

"- they will already be ruined in the eyes of London. All and sunder. What life will be left for them?"

He ripped his hand from her touch and fell to the side of the carriage, his big body shaking the conveyance with his anger. His despair. Thorne ran a hand through his hair before his shoulders slumped and he clasped his forehead, elbows on his knees, leaning over as if he would be ill.

Georgie's heart broke for him. "You are trying to protect them?"

"I wanted to protect you," the words tore free from his lips and Georgie was helpless to resist them. They sent a flutter to her breast and a happy trilling to her soul, before the happy bird was caught by a cat and Georgie knew it wouldn't save anything.