“Thereit is,” Arthur chuckled. “You know what I’m talking about. Todd Martin.”
Jane gasped. Her old childhood friend, Todd Martin, who had not been invited to the soiree, had approached her in the ballroom, demanding to speak to her.
“I went out with him,” she murmured. “Wondering why in the world he was there. He was acting like there was something urgent that could not wait. But when I got outside, he changed his mind.”
“And then you were waylaid by another guest,” Arthur encouraged. “A lady who drew you into an adjoining parlor to talk to you.”
She nodded. It had been an odd series of events, but one that had hardly stuck in her mind when she was so anxious to get back to Colin’s arms.
“Your husband saw you exit the ballroom with Martin,” Arthur said. “And then he saw you two kiss.”
“Ineverkissed him.”
“Of course you didn’t. You were being kept busy elsewhere. But another lady, one with honey-blonde hair and a gown exactly like yours, kissed him.”
Her mouth dropped open as she understood the full horror of what he was saying. She was now beginning to understand not just Arthur’s motives, but everything that had transpired between her and Colin since their wedding. “You invited a man to whom I had once been linked, and then you created a situation where Colin would believe I betrayed him.”
“I did invite Martin. Well, smuggled him in is a better description.” Arthur chuckled, like the whole thing was a wonderful joke. “He and the lady of the night who was so easily mistaken for you were paid well to do exactly what they did at the exact moment they did it.”
Tears welled up in her eyes and she blinked to clear them. She would not give this monster her tears. “You wanted Colin to believe I was no better than this Cassandra woman who broke his heart.”
His smile grew. “You are not as stupid as I thought. Brava, Jane. Exactly. Now Ithoughtthis would make him annul the marriage, but it had not occurred to me that he would have already bedded you.”
Jane flinched, turning her face as heat flamed into her cheeks.
“That threw me off. Disrupted my plans. But I adjusted, as any true man of intelligence must do from time to time. I switched tactics, and it was easy as child’s play to convince him to send you away. To convince him to hate you.”
Jane’s stomach rolled and she covered her mouth in horror. “You…you…”
“Arthur.”
He jumped to his feet and swung around, turning his gun toward the door. Jane looked in the direction of the voice, that voice she knew so well, and gasped as she looked at Colin, standing in the entrance to the parlor, his face pale and his hands shaking.
“Arthur,” he repeated, his voice hollow. “How could you?”
Colin stared in disbelief at his cousin. He’d come to the house, thinking he might encounter a scene, but this was not the one he’d pictured. No one had been at the door when he entered, no servant even seemed to be in the house. So he’d come down the hall, looking for Arthur and Jane. He’d overheard Arthur’s confession in the hallway, about Cassandra, about Jane and the bitter lie he’d believed since their wedding day.
But when he entered and saw the gun trained on his wife, his world had come crashing down around him.
Arthur sneered. “Don’t get so self-righteous, Colin. You never gave a damn about her or else it wouldn’t have been so easy to convince you to throw her away.”
Colin winced at the statement, at the way Jane trembled as she looked at him in fear and horror. He had done so much wrong to her. He had lost faith in her, hurt her, and now when she needed him most, he hadn’t kept her safe.
“Keep the gun on me,” he said softly as he edged into the room. It took everything in him not to rush Arthur, to pour out the rage that now bubbled within him.
But that would result in getting shot. Or worse, Jane being shot. And he couldn’t risk it no matter how much he wanted to pummel Arthur to the floor.
“Did you truly make me believe Jane was unfaithful?” he asked, though he recognized already that it was true. The fact that he’d let himself be so easily manipulated by such lies was another thing entirely.
“Yes,” Arthur hissed. “But you ruin everything, Colin, just as you’vealwaysruined everything. But this time I was careful. I planted the seeds, I took my time. And it worked for a while. You sent Jane away and it bought me time. But then she showed back up in London and you were tripping over yourself to reconcile with her even though you thought she was little better than a whore.”
Jane sucked in her breath through her teeth. Colin met her eyes, praying she would be comforted by his expression. That she would believe he would fix this.
Hehadto fix this.
“Arthur, put the gun down,” he said softly. “What is done is done. It’s in the past. You don’t have to do something you will regret.”
“I won’t regret it,” Arthur insisted, placing his finger on the trigger. His hand didn’t even shake as he did so. “Because this has been the plan all along. I’m going to have to kill you, Colin.”
