That the days with him had been her happiest.
That she would trade her life for his.
She pulled her wrapper tighter across her chest, closed her eyes, and willed him to find her. He had come to her aid whenshe’d needed him most. She had every faith he would do so again.
Except how would he know where to look?
She could be a hundred miles away.
She could be a stone’s throw in Islington.
The echo of booted steps beyond the iron door stilled her breath. Since her arrival, she’d seen no one but Miss Bourne and the hulking brute who had struck her with a cudgel.
The clatter of metal on stone said her gaoler had dropped the key. His biting curse told her to expect a man.
She clutched the edge of the coarse blanket.
Her captors had tried the soft approach. Miss Bourne had swept into the room, her hair a halo of gold, grasped Olivia’s hands, and pleaded, “Tell me where to find the valise, and I swear no harm shall come to Gabriel. Tell us, and you have my word you’ll walk free.”
It was the greatest lie she’d told.
Her tone had lacked conviction. She was not so confident now, like a predator who’d become the prey.
What options were left to them?
Threats? Torture?
God help her if they chose the latter.
The man who entered the cell stole her breath. She’d expected the flat-nosed brute, not someone with kind eyes and a sculpted jaw. Not someone who looked remarkably like the corpse in the watch-house.
Recognition slammed into her, hard and bitter.
Rage followed close behind.
“Mr Lovelace. You look considerably better than the last time I saw you. Though clearly that wasn’t you dead in the box.”
His hair was more golden than straw blonde, his earssmaller, his brow less heavy. The likeness was uncanny, but now she understood why Gabriel had reservations.
She came to her feet as he shut the door, waited for him to step that bit closer, then slapped his face with all the strength she could summon.
His head whipped to the side. The crack rang through the stone chamber, her palm throbbing with the force of it.
“That’s for my husband. For ten years of lies and cowardice. For letting a better man suffer while you hid like a worm underground.”
Mr Lovelace rubbed his cheek, red from the sting, but when he faced her, tears welled in his eyes. “He deserves satisfaction. Has every right to call me out. My death was staged to save him questions, not cause more.”
“Then you don’t know him as I do.” Emotion gathered, swelling in her chest. “He believed you betrayed him, yet still fell asleep at night hoping he might save you.”
Ever desperate to put the world right.
Mr Lovelace glanced away. He couldn’t meet her gaze. “I did betray him.” His voice broke, his throat working. “I stole Kate’s heart. Though I swear I never meant to.”
The confession came as no shock. The two people closest to Gabriel had left within months of each other. One dead. One vanished with his father’s bribe. No wonder he was so guarded.
“He would have understood. He would have stepped aside. He wouldn’t have married a woman who didn’t want him.”
Yet he had married her.
