He laughed but not in amusement. She had to admit it sounded like nothing but a stalling tactic, even to her.
“How convenient. I’m afraid it is all a little too late for you. The damage has been done. You must think me very gullible. I’m not Bellamy, you know. You can’t just flash your pretty eyes at me and make me believe whatever drivel you think I want to hear.” He took another step, then another.
She scooted more to the left but the tent was not large. “It’s true. You will have your money back. I’ve not spent a sovereign of it.”
He scowled at her. “I watched some of my closest friends decline into madness. Some took their lives because they couldn’t fathom how they could recover from what Blackhursthad done, from what you had done.” He shook his head. “You give me these lies, this false hope, in order to save yourself, but it is too late.”
Lisbeth was horrified by his words. She wasn’t to blame. “I was fighting for my freedom, fighting to prove I didn’t murder Blackhurst. I did not intentionally ignore what had happened to some of the investors in those months after Nathaniel’s death.
“I took my solicitors’ advice, Dalmere, nothing more. They insisted I mustn’t give the investors any money without proof of contract.”Was that so wrong?
“We trusted him,” Dalmere spat. “He promised to make us all rich. He lied to us and then you got it all. Do you honestly think we would have come begging at your doorstep had we not been duped?”
Perhaps that was how Nathaniel had planned to get away with his scheme—he had traded on their trust. And they had fallen for it.
“I understand your anger at being duped, I do. Nathaniel betrayed me too.”In so many ways.
“Am I to sympathize with you over the fact that you suddenly became one of the richest women in England? How terrible that must have been for you.”
“It was,” she countered, her tone now as angry and sarcastic as his. “It was no picnic being labeled a murderer, shunned by those I loved, required to endure a trial and forced into seclusion. The money never meant anything to me.”
“Your speech is very pretty, my lady, but I am afraid I don’t believe you. Everyone knows you were just as much a part of fooling us as Blackhurst was.”
“You are wrong!” She wished she could turn back time and insist, papers or not, for her solicitors to settle some money on the investors.
She felt an old and familiar shame come over her. She knew she couldn’t change the past and by the look in Dalmere’s eyes, nothing she could do or say would change his mind about her either.
“I’m sorry,” she said, bowing her head. There was nothing else to be said.
“Sorry! That is all you can say? Sorry!” He took two steps closer to her, his fists clenched.
At the violence of his tone, she looked up and then all about her. Saw his fists, but no escape. There were too many things crowded into this small tent. She managed to navigate around the various chairs that had been set up but found herself cornered.
“This isn’t some misdemeanor like stealing a tart from the kitchen as a child. This was our lives.”
“I only did what I was told was the right thing to do under the circumstances. It’s not my fault there was no paperwork or that someone killed Blackhurst. If that hadn’t happened, he might have been found out and would have paid for his crimes against you all. Blame Blackhurst’s killer for this mess, not me.”
If Lisbeth thought this would appease him or at least direct his anger away from her, she was sorely mistaken. His eyes nearly bulged with the vehemence he was controlling.
“I made sure that Blackhurst got what he deserved, and now I will make sure you do too,” Dalmere snarled.
“Youkilled him?”
It was like the pieces of a puzzle coming together. Dalmere had killed Nathaniel and now he planned to kill her.
She found herself stifling a scream in her throat as he reached out for her.
*
Oliver ignored thesmells invading his nostrils as he maneuvered himself around carriages and carts, trying find a hackney. It was a good two miles from the gardens to his aunt’s house in Grosvenor Square. He needed to get her, and quickly. He should never have suggested she go to the luncheon. The exertion must have been too much for her. This was all his fault. His guilt made him feel like casting up his accounts.
“Bellamy!”
Oliver looked around but the road was too congested with carriages, horses, and pedestrians to identify who had called out.
“Bellamy! Over here,” the voice called again. He recognized it as Tony. What was he doing here?
Oliver looked behind him and saw his friend, waving out of a hackney window.
