“Don’t call me that, don’t—” She finally succeeded in wrenching her hand from his grip, and she cradled it against her chest, watching him all the while. Her rejection didn’t seem to have discomposed him; he leant back against the seat, the tiniest of smiles playing around his mouth.
“You can hardly say you were never drawn to me,” he said. “The moment I arrived in London, you made your preference known.”
“A mistake,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself.Thenshe hadn’t realised the man she could fall in love with was lurking—unromantically—in her house the whole time. “And a flirtation, Sir Montague. Nothing more.”
“No?”He moved to her side and sat beside her, his knee brushing against hers. She wondered if she could open the door and throw him out. “When you accompanied me to the masquerade despite your husband’s disapproval?”
“A mistake,” she repeated.
“The mistake was mine for letting you out of my sight.”
“If you think I would have done anything with you, you are very much mistaken,” she snapped. “And you are mistaken now.”
“I haven’t asked you for anything, little mouse.”
“Then sit back where you were before and let us talk of something else.”
With a laugh, he did as she requested, although she noticed his movements were stiff. Perhaps the pain in his leg meant he was feeling less amorous.
“You said in your letter that you had some information for me,” she said. “Were you behind my poisoning?”
“I?” There was a tightness around his eyes that hinted at pain, but their expression gentled as he looked at her. “No, Theo. That was not me. But rest assured I handled the situation—the person who harmed you cannot any longer.”
“And the shooting? Nathanial? Was that also—”
“No. That, I can lay claim to.”
“You admit it so easily.”
“I have no desire to deny it. I rather suspect you will not attribute a conscience to me now, and we are past the point of lying. I was the one who arranged for Nathanial to be shot that day, and I was very nearly successful.”
“Then how can you expect me to believe you won’t hurt me?”
“Are you really so blind, Theo? Can you not guess?”
Perhaps, on second thoughts, it would be better not to know. “If you had succeeded in your aim of killing Nathanial,” she said simply, “you would have killed me, too.”
Chapter Thirty-One
It was a little after one when Nathanial arrived at Montague’s lodgings, and it was to find the house shut up. The butler made a half-hearted attempt to prevent him from entering, but soon stepped aside. Nathanial stalked through the house, noting the threadbare carpet, the smudged wallpaper, and the worn furniture. Montague wasn’t plump in the pocket, and no doubt he intended to bolster his income with Nathanial’s wealth. Or perhaps his title direct.
What would he do to Theo to achieve his goal? He’d suspected his cousin of harbouring feelings for her, but this behaviour didn’t suggest fondness. Unless his fondness had taken an entirely different direction.
White-hot anger flared, and he clenched his fists, forcing it back.IfMontague had forced Theo into—anything—he would see to it Montague paid dearly.
There were few rooms in this house, and he even flung open the door to Montague’s bedchamber, uncertain of what he was likely to find there; to his relief, he found nothing. Noabandoned earrings, no shoe lying carelessly across the floor, no signs of a struggle having taken place.
Wherever Theo was, she had not been taken here.
A brief search of the desk in Montague’s dressing room yielded results: a half-written letter. The ink was smudged, but Nathanial made out enough to see that Montague anticipated being in Leicestershire over the course of the next week.
Leicestershire. There could be nothing for him there.
Unless . . .
When they were children, or as close to children as they could be while still maintaining an independence, Nathanial and Montague had thrown countless parties at his hunting lodge under the guise of hunting. Back then, Nathanial had been trying to establish his reputation without clearly knowing what his reputation should be. He was the only son of a duke and he knew that made his consequence large.
Montague, as with all things, was content to encourage all forms of licentiousness.
