Jane stared at Arthur, uncertain that she understood what he had just said. Praying she didn’t understand, for the alternative was just too awful.
“What do you mean you broke my marriage?” she asked, her voice shaking.
He rolled his eyes and turned to the sideboard a second time. He bent down and opened the cabinet below. “Do I need to use smaller words? I thought you were supposed to be clever. I interfered in your marriage, Jane.I’mthe reason Colin banished you.”
He turned back to her as he finished that sentence and Jane skittered farther away, because he now held a pistol in his hand. He leveled it on her.
“What are you doing?” she cried out as her backside hit the wall and she had nowhere else to go.
He smiled, a thin and empty expression. “Sit down, Jane.”
She stared at the gun again and drew in a long breath. She’d have to run past this man to get to the door and escape. If he truly wanted to hurt her, he would shoot before she made it three steps to freedom.
So her best option was to do exactly what he said and try to understandwhyhe was doing this. Perhaps once she did, she could reason with him and escape.
She moved forward in slow, wary steps, and retook her place in her chair. He did the same, never moving the pistol from its place pointing straight at her heart.
“What is this, Arthur?” she whispered, her voice shaking. “What are you doing?”
“Thisis called finally getting what I deserve.”
His voice was cold and calm and terrifying, but she forced herself to stay in place, keep her hands folded tightly in her lap.
“Please,” she whispered. “I don’t understand what you want.”
He nodded. “I realize that. I realize that no one understands what I want. Which only makes me an accomplished liar and actor, I suppose. After all, you believe that I care for Colin. That alone should earn me an award.”
“Don’tyou care for him?” she asked in utter confusion.
“With his heart that bleeds for justice?” Arthur snorted, his tone thick with contempt. “With his superior attitude? I don’t give adamnabout him. I never have.Ishould be viscount. I should have the money and the title and the lifestyle he wastes on his so-called good works.”
The hatred practically dripped from his voice, and Jane shook her head. “Arthur, you cannot mean that.”
“But I do.” Arthur shook his head. “Do you know how hard I worked to twist him? To break him? First with Cassandra.”
Her lips parted. “Cassandra?”
Arthur grinned. “Oh, that’s right, ladies areprotectedfrom such things. I knew what she was from the beginning and I encouraged Colin to court her. Then I helped her along in entering into an affair with every man who gave her a pretty bauble.”
Jane caught her breath. She’d known that Colin had courted a woman before her and there had been whispers it had ended badly. But she’d never imagined what she was hearing now. That Arthur would purposefully cause the kind of pain he was describing.
“Why would you do such a thing?”
“To have what I wanted, of course.” Arthur shrugged, as if his actions were harmless, meaningless, understandable. “I thought I had him then. I thought certain he’dnevermarry. I encouraged that path. Hell, there were times I even thought he might end it all.”
Jane jerked her hand to her lips at that idea and the pain it caused her. “You cannot mean that.”
He nodded. “He was very upset. And if he had put a bullet in his own brain, it certainly would have been less messy than all this.”
“You are a monster,” Jane whispered.
He smiled. “And you are a fool. But a frustrating one. You see, your family came along, his mother became involved and this arranged thing between you was set. So I had to break that, too.”
She blinked. “I still don’t understand. What do you mean,breakit?”
“Do you remember the terrace, the night of your wedding?”
She thought back and her eyes went wide. There had been one thing that happened at her wedding ball that she’d never told a soul.
