The difference between Benedict and Josiah was that Benedict wouldn’t sacrifice his own sense of honor to achieve his ends. He was a decent man beneath his cynical, playboy veneer. He’d earned her respect. Georgie blinked as everything came into sudden focus. Benedict didn’t just have her respect.

He had her heart. Her love.

Her chest pounded, and she almost laughed, despite the dire situation. How simple it was. She was in love with Benedict Wylde. Her own husband.

Josiah was still talking. “I’ll bet a rake like him’s taught you all sorts of whore’s tricks, hasn’t he? I used to think you were so cold.” He laughed, a thoroughly unpleasant sound. “It’s true what they say, though. Blood will out. You’re no highborn bitch with ice water in her veins, are you, Georgie? You’re your father’s daughter, a merchant’s brat. No better than a tavern wench.”

She was saved from answering when the carriage took a sharp turn between a pair of low stone markers. They hadn’t passed another dwelling for some time—only ploughed fields flanked the narrow track—and her sense of panic increased.

“Nearly there,” Josiah said cheerfully. “This is about the only place I haven’t had to sell. Used to be Great-Uncle Rupert’s hunting lodge. No one will disturb us here.”

That’s what she was afraid of.

The vehicle rocked to a stop, and Josiah climbed down and spoke briefly to the driver. Then the door on her side opened, and he reached in and grabbed her waist. Not wanting to risk being dropped, Georgie suffered his touch until he’d placed her on the patch of overgrown gravel, then she used the few inches of slack rope between her tied ankles to hobble away from him. She looked up at the tumbledown building in front of her with a sinking feeling.

“Hunting lodge” was too grandiose a description. The place was barely more than a cottage, with a roof that looked like it was about to collapse and several broken panes of glass in the front windows.

She tottered wildly around to face the driver. “Sir, please. Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll triple it.”

The man, a skinny, rat-faced fellow with sunken cheeks and dead eyes glanced at Josiah, then pretended he hadn’t heard her. He flicked the reins over the horses’ backs, and Georgie bit back a howl of fury as the carriage lumbered away.

“A hundred pounds!” she called after him desperately.

He didn’t even pause.

So much for helping a damsel in distress, the swine.

Josiah chuckled and unlocked the front door. It had dropped on its hinges, and he had to push hard to get it to open, but with a shriek of protest the wood scraped across the flagstones and he stepped inside.

“This way, my dear.”