She tried to dig in her heels to no avail. Extricating her hand proved impossible. She stumbled along behind him, getting crosser, more resistant, and less balanced with each step.
He led her into the morning room, released her, and closed the door.
She set herself to rights. “Your letter yesterday implied that you would not be visiting while I am here. I am sorry to see I misunderstood.”
“It is a damned good thing I visited.” He stood straight and tall. He waved the letter in the air dramatically. “This was sent to lure you out of the house this evening. Men waited to abduct you.”
His pronouncement inspired laughter that she couldnot contain. “No one would abduct me. There is no one to pay a ransom.”
He did not so much as smile. Under that dark gaze she swallowed the last giggles. “Surely you are mistaken,” she said.
“Hardly, since I just sent those men packing. Nor did they seek a ransom in the normal way, although your father may have found himself bargaining for your freedom. They wanted information from you. Information that your father refuses to give them.”
“Since I cannot give it, either, it would have been much drama to little purpose.”
He paced in front of her, setting his boots down firmly, never taking his eyes off her. “Theydo not know that.Theydo not believe that.”
“Who arethey?”
He looked to the ceiling, as if praying for patience. “Did you, or did you not, return to Newgate this afternoon?”
She decided it was a good time to remove her bonnet. While she did she deliberated whether a small untruth would be wise. Or successful.
He waited for her answer, his hands clasped behind him, his gaze daring her to lie.
“I did.”
“Did I not tell you not to do that? Did I not warn you that suspicions abounded about you?”
“Yes.”
“But you ignored me, and visited his cell anyway,bringing once more books—which are almost never brought to prisoners and in themselves suspicious.”
“Why would books be suspicious?”
“It is easy to hide messages in them. If not a note, something written on the pages themselves.”
She faced him squarely. “I intended to have a warden deliver them. Then Mr. Brown told me my father refused to meet with Mr. Notley. So I went myself, to convince him to make use of the lawyer I had found. I realize that you think I should just let him rot there, but as his daughter I cannot do that.”
“Did it do any good? Did you convince him?”
She hated giving him the satisfaction of hearing what he expected. “No. I did not.”
He just looked at her. He considered something important, from the intensity of his examination.
“Did he tell you anything useful?”
“He only scolded me for coming, as he always does.”
“Nothing more? No directions, or instructions? No confidences regarding the location of his ill-gotten gains?”
“What are you implying?”
“I want to know everything you know about him, damn it. I demand you tell me anything he may have said that in any way touches on his role in that counterfeiting.”
Hardness had settled on him. The famed barrister had her in the dock, and through force of will intended to make her confess.
To what?
