“You’re not going to shoot me,” Lady Reeves said, her voice calm.
“Oh no?”
“You’re not that kind of man,” Lady Reeves explained. “If there’s one thing that I know that you don’t know, Arthur, it’s that taking lives changes a person. There’s a power in it, of course, but there’s a darkness as well. You’re simply not ready for such a thing. You’re too weak. Too soft. It’s not the sort of person you were raised to be. Don’t force yourself into the role of murderer because you think it suits you. It doesn’t.”
“You don’t know anything about who I am,” Arthur said coldly. “You met me as a child, and you think that means we understand one another. Well, that isn’t who I am anymore. Sit down. I’ll shoot you if I have to.”
“You don’t have time to shoot me,” Lady Reeves said.
“What on Earth are you talking about? I have nothing but time.”
“Arthur. Do use a bit of common sense. Your parents would be disappointed in your powers of deduction.”
“I suggest you say what you mean quickly before I stop caring to hear it,” Arthur said.
“I knew that you were looking for me,” Lady Reeves explained. “It was my choice to allow you to find me here. I was the one who allowed information of my whereabouts to reach your friend’s ears. Do you think he could have done it so easily if I hadn’t told my associates that I was ready—that I wanted to be found? I knew you were coming. I knew you were likely to be armed and dangerous. Do you honestly believe that I didn’t take any precautions?”
“Is she telling the truth?” Arthur called over his shoulder to Taylor. He couldn’t afford to take his eyes off of Lady Reeves. She was a confessed killer, and for all he knew, she had a gun of her own stashed somewhere nearby. “Did she allow you to discover where she was?”
“It’s possible,” Taylor admitted. “I did find the information very easily. I’d be inclined to believe that, at the very least, she wasn’t trying to keep it from me.”
“So, one of two things is true,” Lady Reeves said. “Either I’m a fool who took no steps whatsoever to guard myself from your imminent arrival, or else I allowed you to be here and prepared myself accordingly. Which story do you think is the truth, Arthur? Think carefully before you decide because you stand to pay a very high price if you choose wrong.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Arthur growled. “You’ve already taken my whole family from me. What more can you possibly do?”
“Have I?” Lady Reeves smiled. “Let me ask you a question, then. Do you know where that pretty little wife of yours is right now?”
Arthur felt as if his blood was freezing.
For a moment, he couldn’t even form words. He couldn’t organize his thoughts. All he could think was,no.
This was the very thing had feared. The thing he had poured his heart and soul into trying to prevent. All he’d wanted was to make sure that Isabella wasn’t sucked into the darkness of his world. And now…
“Are you making a threat?” The question came from Taylor. Arthur was glad his friend had asked it because it was what he would have said himself if he could have found his voice.”
“I wouldn’t call it a threat,” Lady Reeves said. “But I do think you should know that I would never have allowed you to find me without taking precautions. I knew that there was a possibility that I would need to get you out of my house in a hurry. For that to happen, I needed there to be something to draw you away—something you care about more than your petty revenge.”
I don’t care about anything more than revenge,Arthur thought.
But it wasn’t true. It didn’t even feel true. It had been true all his life, but something had changed. Something had shifted powerfully. Right now, in this moment, knowing that Isabella might be in terrible trouble, revenge hardly mattered at all anymore. All that mattered was getting to her.
“Tell us what you’ve done to the Duchess,” Taylor demanded.
“I haven’t done anything,” Lady Reeves said. “I’ve been right here in front of the two of you this whole time—as you can see for yourselves. It’s foolish to think that I could have done anything. You give me far too much credit, I think. That being said…the Duchess may not be as safe in her bed as one might have hoped.If I were you, I wouldn’t waste your time here talking to me about matters that can never be resolved in the way you want them to. If I were you, Arthur, I would get back to your wife. But it’s your choice to make. Shoot me with that gun if you must, but if you do, you’ll have to fight your way through my staff to leave, and you’ll never reach her in time. If you go now, without violence—if you abandon this quest for revenge—you might reach her before it’s too late.”
Arthur’s head spun.
“There can be peace between the two of us,” Lady Reeves said. “It doesn’t have to be this way—you hunting me down single-mindedly the way you have all your life. Don’t think I haven’t been aware of it. I allowed you to find me because I wanted this bad business between the two of us to come to an end, Arthur. I’m tired of it, and I think you are too. You should be at home with your wife right now. That’s where you would be if you weren’t so single-minded about all this, and then she wouldn’t be in the danger she’s in right now.”
“What have you done with her?”
“Do you want to stay here and talk this over with me? Or do you want to get home to her before it’s too late?”
And there was no question in Arthur’s mind. There was no debate. Of course, he knew what he wanted to do—what he would have chosen no matter what the counteroffer was. There was no way he was going to stay here with Lady Reeves, seekingrevenge for the things she had done to him. Now that he knew the price, it was too high to pay.
He had fallen in love—the very thing he had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t do—and it had ruined everything.
The most surprising thing of all, though, was that he didn’t care. He no longer cared what Lady Reeves had done or how he could get her to pay for it. The only thing that mattered was Isabella. The knowledge that she was in trouble struck him more powerfully than anything else could. He forgot all about what had brought him here.
