“Kate, I did not write a letter.”
“I received one.”
He took a cautious step toward her. “Why would I need to write a letter? We had agreed that I should meet you backstage after the performance. I was there. They told me you had left. You had hurried off, but we’d agreed to meet at the theater and I waited.” He’d been dogged. The back-door manager had told him she’d been eager to leave. He had even speculated that Kate had an assignation, one obviously not with Bran.
He’d hated the man’s sly, knowing looks as he’d cooled his heels. Kate was the “Aphrodite of the London stage.” What would she want with an insignificant nobody when she could have claimed a prince? “Tell me about the letter.”
“You asked me to meet you on St. Clement’s steps. That is where I hurried off to.”
“I did not write such a letter.”
“You signed it.”
“I couldn’t have. The letter was not from me. My word of honor.”
She seemed to search his face for truth, her stance rigid in the moonlight, and then, an ugly sound, one of sudden horror, escaped her. It was uncontrolled, bitter, heartbreaking. She began to collapse.
Bran moved forward to catch her. She shook her head, warning him away. Sinking to the ground, she hid her face in the crook of her arm and began weeping. Her hair fell forward as if to shield her shame.
He knelt, wanting to take her up in his arms and afraid he would upset her further if he did so. Her soft sobs tore at his heart. “Kate, what is it?”
With heaving breaths, she gathered herself. “Nothing. Everything. I don’t know.” She swiped angrily at her eyes.
She did not look at him.
“Kate?”
She drew her heavy hair over her shoulder. “It doesn’t matter now.” She gave a shaky half laugh. “I was so naïve.” Moving as if she was exhausted, she started to rise.
This time when Bran offered his hand, she took it. The moment she was on her feet, she attempted to pull away, but he would not let go.
“Kate, what happened? If my name was used in some fashion I should know.”
Finally, she looked at him. “I thought you wrote that letter. For years, I have believed it was from you.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“You went to meet me?” he prompted.
Her gaze dropped away. “I went to the church. A coach pulled up. Two men came out and told me you sent them.”
“Two men in a coach? I did not own a coach. And back then, I could barely afford my dinner let alone hiring a vehicle like that.”
“I’m not a fool. I was suspicious, but then they grabbed me right there on the street. It was like a scene from a play. No one cried out an alarm and those men would not let me leave. They told me you’d planned a surprise.”
“And what sort of surprise did I have for you?” Bran asked with a deadly calm he was far from feeling.
“They took me to the Marquis of Hemling’s country house. He told me the two of you had come to an agreement concerning me.”
“I knew of no such thing. Kate, I was frantic when I couldn’t find you.”
Again, there was that searching look... and he remembered the girl she had once been, the one who had trusted easily. “Kate, what happened?”
“I told him I wanted to be returned to London. I had a performance the next day and needed to be taken home immediately.”
She sounded imperial, and distant. The weight of what Bran believed he was about to hear settled deep in his gut. “And then?”
Kate leaned away from him, her gaze moving to some point in the darkness only she could see. “He raped me.”
Rage shot through him. Bran turned away from her, needing to wrap his arms around the trees and pull them up, needing to shout to the heavens—
