His expression soured. “I cannot say I would. Your delusions are entertaining at best and insulting at worst, Mrs. Turnbow. You have given me the evidence I required, and we shall settle the remainder of your father’s debt in due time.”
“You transposed the words,” she continued, ignoring him.
He raked a haughty brow. “I beg your pardon?”
“Full fathom five thy father lies,” she repeated, for she knew the Shakespeare by memory. “Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange.”
“Brava, Mrs. Turnbow,” he said coolly. “Perhaps you have a wish to tread the boards. I shall not object, but only after I am finished with you, naturally.”
Anger roared through her, but she persisted. “That is the correct order of words which I recited to you just now. However, the very first cipher you gave me as a test transposed ‘rich and strange to ‘strange and rich.’ It stayed with me, for it not only ruined the rhyme but was incorrect. How odd, then, that all seven of the ciphers I translated were marked by the same confusion of word order.”
He stared at her, his gaze dark and fathomless. “Your conjecture proves nothing.”
Her lip curled with disgust she could not subdue. “On the contrary, my lord. My conjecture proves everything.”
“It will be your word against mine, my dear,” he said, a note of smugness entering his voice. “You have already so foolishly provided me with the proof of Whitley’s guilt.”
“Have I?” she asked innocently.
His face darkening, he tore open the first folded paper from the small stack she had given him. An inhuman growl of pure rage emanated from his throat. He moved to the second, and then the third.
“I am afraid you shall find them all the same, my lord,” she said sweetly. “Blank. For that is the evidence of the Duke of Whitley’s guilt, represented on the page. There is none.”
“You simple-minded whore!” Slamming his fists on his desk, he stood, skirting it until he was so near, she could smell the stale scent of his sweat.
She stood her ground, refusing to cower. “Why do you seek to destroy him?” she dared to demand.
The earl grabbed her hair, jerking her head back with such force, that tears blurred her eyes. He snarled into her face, crowding her with his body. “Why do you seek to save him? Have you been warming his bed? Is that what this show of defiance is about?”
“He is the sort of man you could never be,” she taunted, needing to drag the truth from him. Needing his confession. She would endure anything, accept any pain or debasement, if it meant getting the answers she needed so she could help Crispin. “Perhaps you are jealous of him? It must be difficult to watch a man of his looks and talent, to hear him praised as a war hero. To know every woman wants him and every man wants to be him.”
He jerked her hair again, his face twisting. “He is the devil’s spawn, the same as his brother before him, and he deserves his fate.”
Blinking away the tears clouding her vision once more, she continued, certain she was on the right course. “What has his brother to do with this?”
“Everything,” Kilross bit out, his other hand clamping on her neck. “His bastard-of-a-brother destroyed my sister. He ruined her and tossed her away as if she were worthless. She died birthing his bastard, and he did not even have the grace to stop carousing and drinking on the day she was laid into the earth.”
His fingers tightened on Jacinda’s throat, as if he were choking the life from the former duke instead of her. “You wanted revenge upon Whitley’s brother?” she choked out, desperate to keep him talking.
“The whoreson died before I could mete out the punishment he so richly deserved.”
It all made sudden, horrible sense. Crispin’s wastrel brother had ruined the earl’s sister without compunction. In the absence of someone to blame, Kilross’s horrible need for vengeance had settled upon Crispin instead.
“Let her go, Kilross.”
The deep, familiar voice made her hair stand on end. Relief and love swirled through her.
Crispin was there.
But she did not have a moment to rejoice or even wonder how or why he had found his way to her with so much haste. Because the earl spun her about and hauled her against him, his arm hooking around her neck so tightly, she could scarcely breathe.
There he stood on the threshold of Kilross’ study, a lone, menacing figure. His expression was grim, but he did not even allow his gaze to settle on Jacinda. He was intent upon the earl.
“Your quarrel is with me,” Crispin continued, slowly making his way into the chamber step by step, hands raised in a placating gesture.
“Stop right there,” Kilross ordered in a growl she felt rumble against her back. His arm tightened. Something cold, circular, and metal pressed to her temple.
A gun.
