“No,” she gasped, her voice sounding so rough and foreign. “I didn’t know, not at first. I swear to you.”
He laughed, but it was an ugly sound. “You swear,Isabel?Mrs. Hayes. Is that supposed to have meaning to me?”
She dropped her head. She deserved his censure, she knew. It still stung far more than it should have considering the fact she barely knew him. Couldn’t have him. Despite the fact that everything between them was now over.
“I didn’t know when I first met you,” she repeated.
“But you did after,” he growled, and paced past her farther into the room. “When? Was it before my mask came off? Was it before you bedded me?”
The hardness of the accusation slashed at her, and she struggled to maintain composure as she watched him walk to the fire. He pivoted and faced her, all darkness and anger now. And yet still utterly irresistible.
“No,” she said. “Not before. It truly was when you were dressing after that…after that first time we were together and your mask came off that I knew. You remember my reaction, how I ran away. If I were already aware, why would I have done such a thing?”
For a fraction of a moment, the anger on his face faded. He nodded slowly. “I suppose that is a fair point.”
She stepped toward him, her cheeks heating when he flinched. “Yes,” she said. “I was horrified when I saw your face. Of all the men in the world that I could have just…just…”
“Fucked,” he filled in.
She recoiled from that harsh word, one a lady was not meant to hear. Perhaps that was why he used it, to tell her he did not consider her a lady anymore. And why should he?
“Y-yes,” she said, her voice shaking. “You were my cousin’s—”
She stopped, for she couldn’t say it. There was too much power to it.
He didn’t seem to have those same reservations. “Your cousin’s fiancé?” he asked, sneered. “Her killer.”
She sucked in a breath at those words. “What?”
He moved forward now and she clenched her fists so that she would remain in place. “That is what your uncle thinks, isn’t it? What he’s fed to you over the years? Don’t think I’m such a fool that I don’t guessthatis the reason you came back, sought me out, after you knew my name.”
She bent her head. “I-I cannot deny it. I did come back, seek you out again, in part to…to…”
“Say it, Isabel,” he growled. “Don’t stop now.”
“To investigate you,” she finished on a sob.
His face twisted in disgust at that word. “You whored yourself to me in order to find out if I killed Angelica. On your uncle’s orders?”
“No!” she said. “He doesn’t know. He could never,everknow what I did.”
His eyes narrowed, filled with disbelief. She’d earned that, of course. Earned all of his ill regard of her. His hate. But she didn’t want it. Being this close to him, that wasn’t what she wanted at all from the man who had awoken the desires she’d hidden. The man who had given her such pleasure.
“So you did it for your own interest,” he said slowly. “And did you come to a decision about my guilt or innocence?”
“We did not meet often.” Her voice shook and she couldn’t control it. “But I could not believe that a man who—who—”
“Pleasured you,” he said, his voice still hard even as his gaze flitted over her.
She nodded, her cheeks aflame once more at his bluntness. “Yes. But did it so…sweetly. With such attentiveness and care when he did not have to give either…I couldn’t believe a man whose first act was to protect me could have hurt Angelica.”
His jaw set, rippled. She wished she could touch that hard cheek, trace it with her fingers as she had once done and now would never do again.
“You said investigation was part of why you returned, sought me out at the masquerade,” he said at last. “What was the other?”
Her lips parted at the question. She hadn’t expected him to pursue it. She hadn’t even been fully cognizant of saying it. But now that she had and he was…
“Because I didn’t want to walk away from what we shared those two nights,” she whispered, her voice barely carrying in the quiet room. “I-I couldn’t, even though I knew what I was doing was wrong.”
