By Love Unveiled (28 page)

The Earl of Falkham wasn’t drinking to the gypsy girl Mina or even the false widow Mrs. Pidgen. He was drinking to Miss Marianne Winchilsea.

Numbly she witnessed him give the eighth health. For the first time since he’d begun, he fixed his eyes on her face, and the cold fury there made her mouth go dry.

Then he drained the glass and sat down.

Marianne was aware of several things at once. Hampden whispered something soothing in her ear that made her realize he hadn’t guessed why Garett had drunk the eight healths. Lady Swansdowne sat back in her chair with a smug smile, apparently convinced that the eight were for the letters of her name—Clarisse.

And Marianne’s shred of hope that Garett hadn’t guessed the truth disintegrated in her hands.

Others were talking around her, but the clamor in the room did nothing to banish the silence in her heart. She’d taken her chance. And judging from Garett’s now grim expression, she’d lost.

Not caring who noted the sudden paleness of her face or the trembling of her hands, she stood shakily to her feet.

“Forgive me,” she choked out. “I’m afraid I feel suddenly unwell.”

Then she fled the room.

Women, like flames, have a destroying power,

Ne’er to be quenched till they themselves devour.

—William Congreve,
The Double-Dealer

G
arett rose. His hands gripped the table so tightly that his knuckles whitened. “I beg your pardon, but I must see to my ill hostess.”

As he strode from the room, he ignored the murmurs rising up behind him. He wanted only one thing—to corner his deceitful mistress and determine the full extent of her lies.

He was halfway up the stairs when Hampden called to him. He paused to fix the marquess with a stony glare.

Hampden marched up the steps, his expression filled with righteous anger. “Just leave her be, for God’s sake. What did you expect her to do? Sit meekly by as you pledged the health of another woman?”

“You mean, after all that talk you didn’t even guess at the truth? God, you must be nearly as besotted with her as I.”

Hampden stared at Garett as if he’d gone mad. “What are you babbling about?”

Garett wasn’t about to explain the situation to Hampden until he knew everything. “Don’t worry. Mina knew exactly to whom I drank my healths. Something else has her upset—something that is none of your concern.”

Turning his back on Hampden, Garett continued up the stairs. In moments he was at the door to the bedchamber Mina had occupied since the day he’d forced her to remain at Falkham House. Without knocking, he threw open the door.

Mina stood beside the bed, stuffing her meager clothes into a canvas sack. For a moment he paused to watch her, unable to reconcile the vision of loveliness before him with the criminal she was believed to be. Could that innocent face and those gentle, caring hands belong to a murderess?

No! every part of him cried out.

Still, she had lied to him. So he steeled himself against the soft feelings that threatened to overcome his resolve. Stepping into the room, he slammed the door.

She jumped, then continued her packing with grim purpose.

“Going somewhere, Miss Winchilsea?” he snarled.

She stiffened but refused to look at him. Wordlessly she turned for the bureau, where she drew forth her bag of herbs and liniments, which she put in the sack along with her clothes.

The way she ignored him maddened him. He stepped forward to grip her wrist. “Stop that packing this instant! You’re not going anywhere!”

She met his gaze with a look of utter desolation that
made his heart twist. “Am I not? Either you’ll give me over to the King’s Guard or you’ll cast me out. But I’m certainly going somewhere.”

He stood there thunderstruck. He’d been prepared for defiance, even resentment. He’d expected her to try to defend herself and convince him she wasn’t guilty.

He hadn’t been prepared for this sad acquiescence. It clawed at him, making him irrationally angry with himself for tormenting her.

“What makes you think I’ll do either?” he asked, unable to keep the tone of bitter reproach out of his voice.

Tears started in her eyes, which she brushed away with the back of one hand. “What other choices have you? You’ve pledged your loyalty to the king, and I’m His Majesty’s proclaimed enemy. If you allow me to slip away, you can claim I escaped and thus not lose any honor. If you give me to the soldiers, you’ve done your duty. But you can’t harbor me. That I understand only too fully.”

Her sadness struck him profoundly. One part of him ached to reassure her, to tell her he’d protect her with his very life. The other part reminded him that she’d lied to him from the very beginning. She’d played on his sympathies until he’d been a puppet dancing to her tune. Well, no more.

“Did you commit the crime you’re accused of?” he asked, more forcibly than he’d intended. The question had eaten at him all evening. “Did you indeed prepare the poison found in your father’s medicines?”

She went rigid. Eyes ablaze, she whirled on him.
“You need to ask? Oh, but of course you do. I’ve forgotten what a treacherous woman I am in your eyes.”

“Mina—”

“Don’t call me that, my lord,” she hissed. “ ’Twas a nickname given to me in love by my mother. It stands for my middle name, Lumina.” She gave a bitter laugh. “You’d love the irony of it. In the language of my mother’s people, it means ‘light.’ Once you spoke it with what I thought was affection. Now I see I was misled. March me off to the hangman, then, if that’s what you wish. But remember it’s Miss Winchilsea you’re sending to die. Mina died the day she foolishly gave her future into your keeping.”

“Damn you!” he cried, clasping her by the shoulders. “I’ve risked my life for you. The least you can do is give me the truth!”

At those words, all the fight seemed to drain from her. She went limp in his hands. With a soft cry, she pulled away, going to stand by the window.

For several long moments, she remained silent. When at last she began to speak, it was in a toneless, flat voice that Garett scarcely recognized as hers. “I suppose you do deserve the truth. Well, then, I didn’t put poison in my father’s medicines. I’m certain he didn’t, either, for my father was never a traitor.”

“So how did it get there?”

“Someone clearly planted it, realizing he’d be blamed, but I don’t know who hated my father that much. He had no enemies. Yet someone wanted to ruin him forever.” A sob caught in her throat. “And then kill him.”

For a fleeting moment, Garett considered telling her that her father was alive. Then he thought better of it. For one thing, Garett couldn’t be certain her father still lived. For another, the king suspected that her father was part of some conspiracy. If that was the case, then she might be part of the same plot and shouldn’t be trusted with the crucial knowledge that her father was alive.

“You say someone else planted the poison,” he told her. “But by all accounts, you gave the medicines directly into your father’s keeping, and they never left his sight.”

She shuddered. “I’ve heard what they say. It’s true that I gave them to him as soon as I’d prepared them. But what happened after that, I don’t know. I wasn’t with him after he left the house. Perhaps he laid the pouches down somewhere or someone switched them.” She leveled a defiant gaze on him. “But when they left my hands, they were pure. I swear it.”

Faced with her determined air, Garett was hard-pressed to believe she lied. God, how he hoped she told the truth. If so, he would leave no stone unturned until he proved her and her father innocent.

Then he reminded himself of all the times she’d lied in the past. Could he trust her? And there were so many nagging questions she still hadn’t answered. “Why did you return here, of all places? Why not flee England altogether?”

She gave a shaky sigh. “I had thought—actually had hoped—that if I stayed in England, I could find the man
who’d painted my father a villain. That hope proved fruitless.”

She fell silent. Garett thought back to the first two times he’d encountered her. So many things he’d wondered about made perfect sense now . . . her disguise . . . her fear of being brought to the constable . . . her ladylike demeanor. Only one thing still perplexed him.

“You feared me when you first met me. I suppose it was because you knew I was the king’s man. So why didn’t you flee when you had the chance? Why continue to put yourself in danger?”

She hesitated before speaking. At last she stammered, “I’d rather not . . . answer that . . . my lord.”

He strode up to grip her shoulders. Her eyes were dry now, but they held a trace of fear—fear of him—that rekindled all his anger.

Shamelessly he used her fear against her. “You have no choice but to answer,” he said with cold formality. “I’m the only thing standing between you and a dank, dark prison. So I suggest you tell me what I wish to know.”

For a moment, revolt flared in her eyes. Then she mastered her emotions. “As I said before, I wanted to find the man responsible for my father’s arrest. I couldn’t leave until I did.”

Her evasive manner made him persistent. “If you had no idea who the man was, why stay here? Why not look for him in London?”

Her gaze remained steady and calm even though he could feel her tremble. “Think, my lord. Who stood to
benefit from my father’s demise? Who would be unable to realize all his dreams as long as my father remained at Falkham House? Who?”

A chill gripped him with such force that he felt turned to ice. “You thought that
I
had planted the poison?”

“I thought you had caused his arrest and somehow arranged to have him implicated in a crime. I wasn’t certain who’d killed him. But you must admit you were the only one with reason to want him out of the way.”

He thrust her away with a curse. “You thought me such a monster?” As her suspicions sliced through him, he gritted his teeth against the pain. “When did you stop believing me capable of it? Did you believe it when I made love to you? Did you actually lie in my arms believing I murdered your father?”

“No!” Tears welled in her eyes. “By then I knew you couldn’t have been responsible.”

That was something. It would have destroyed him to think that their nights together had been a sham—that she’d pretended to enjoy them when all the while she’d hated him.

“I wanted to tell you all,” she went on, “especially once I realized . . . I had planned to tell you soon. But I was afraid of what you’d do with the truth.”

“When did I ever cause you to fear me?” he bit out. “How many times did I promise I’d protect you no matter what?”

“You didn’t know what you promised. I couldn’t rely on such promises.”

Her answer wounded him, for he’d meant every word and had thought that he’d convinced her to trust him at least a little.

In his pain, he remembered another subject about which she’d been evasive. “What of your relationship to my uncle? How does he know you so well?”

“He tried to buy Falkham House back from Father. He tried all manner of villainies to force Father to sell to him, including spreading rumors about me and Mother. But Father refused to sell. I couldn’t tell you before because I couldn’t let you know my father had owned Falkham House. That should be obvious.”

Her answer made sense, but he couldn’t accept it entirely. Other conversations now filtered into his memory, conversations with the king about the attempted assassination. “Why did my uncle stop trying to force your father to sell?”

She shook her head, clearly bewildered by all his questions. “I don’t know. Perhaps he realized Father was going to stand firm.”

“Or perhaps there was another reason entirely. Did you know the king suspects my uncle of having been involved with the poisoning attempt?”

She stared at him oddly. “I wondered once if he could have done it. But knowing you were returning to claim your estates, why would he have wanted to help you regain Falkham House?”

“He didn’t know,” Garett responded. “He didn’t know for certain that I lived until the day I actually arrived in London.”

Her face darkened. “Then he could really have been the one who—”

“Yes,” Garett interrupted. “He hates the king. He truly would want to see him dead.”

She grasped his arm. “So Father was innocent! Sir Pitney did it all, then had Father murdered in his cell!”

Knowing that her father hadn’t been murdered, Garett couldn’t entirely accept her version. And there was the problem that Sir Henry had never let the medicines out of his sight, according to all witnesses. Besides, why would his uncle take such elaborate measures to rid himself of Sir Henry? Why not simply kill him?

“There’s another explanation,” he remarked coldly. “My uncle and your father could have worked out an arrangement that both found satisfying. Perhaps your father agreed to do Tearle’s dirty work in exchange for my uncle’s agreeing to give up any hope of repurchasing Falkham House.”

Garett didn’t entirely believe the theory he proposed, but once he’d spoken it aloud, he realized how plausible it was. Tearle had always been a likely suspect. And Falkham House was the clearest link between the two men.

“You cannot think such a thing!” she cried. “Father would never commit such a villainous crime! Never!”

“Perhaps he feared what Tearle might do if he continued to resist selling Falkham House. He might even have feared for you and wished to save you from Tearle’s dark clutches. He might have done it for you, Mina. ’Tis possible.”

She threw herself at him, beating her fists against his chest. “Don’t say such things! They’re lies, they’re all lies!”

The vehemence of her reaction made him feel like the worst runagate alive. He caught her wrists, dragging her body up against his. “Listen to me,” he said as he tried to restrain her. “If your father loved you as much as you clearly love him, he might have done all manner of things to save you.”

She shook her head. “Not my father. He wouldn’t have committed treason. He would have found another way.” Frustration and anger knit her brow. “If you believe him guilty, you must believe me guilty as well, for I ground every powder and mixed every liniment he ever used. My mother and I, not my father, had the knowledge of medicines . . . and of poisons.”