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She is only going to London.

Olivia reminded herself.

I will see her in a few weeks.

Yet the ache in her chest refused to listen to reason.

When Olivia finally turned around, James was standing nearby. She looked at him, and the questions she had pushed aside all morning immediately returned. She still had no idea what he had meant about his brother.

Had he killed him deliberately? Had it been an accident? Had he been protecting someone? Had the threatening notes accused him of murder?

Every possibility frightened her more than the last. She opened her mouth, ready to ask him at last, but James abruptly looked toward the stables.

"I have business to attend to," he said, already moving away.

Olivia stared after him. "James," she called, following him for several steps, but he did not stop.

He reached the waiting horse, mounted with practiced ease, and gathered the reins.

Olivia stood frozen as he glanced back at her. For one moment, she thought he might say something, perhaps finally explain the terrible words he had spoken beside the waterfall. Instead, he merely inclined his head before turning the horse toward the estate road.

Olivia watched him ride away, her arms folding instinctively across her middle as the distance between them widened. She had thought marriage meant sharing everything, but hers seemed to be built upon secrets, arrangements and questions neither of them was prepared to answer.

James had asked her to trust him, and she wanted desperately to do so, yet how could she understand the man she had married when he refused to tell her what had happened to his own brother?

She watched until horse and rider disappeared beyond the trees, then whispered to herself, "What did you do, James?"

The silence that followed gave her no answer.

Later that evening, Olivia sat alone at the long dining table at Glenmore Manor, staring at the untouched cup of tea before her as though it might somehow provide an explanation for the conversation she had endured at the waterfall.

She had arranged herself at dinner as a proper duchess ought, but none of it had settled the storm inside her. James had said it so calmly, so horribly, as though he were telling her that he had once broken a riding crop. I killed my brother. The words returned again and again, striking against the inside of her mind until she could scarcely think of anything else.

"You cannot simply drop a statement like that upon your wife and then ride away without explaining yourself." Her voice sounded almost offended, which was preferable to sounding terrified, though she was very much both.

Olivia glanced toward the empty chair at the other end of the table and felt her stomach twist.

Olivia rubbed her forehead, her mind racing through everything she knew about him. He was stern, certainly. Moody, infuriating, secretive, and occasionally so cold that she wanted to throw a vase at his head, but he had also carried a crying baby in his arms, ordered provisions for a struggling family, worried over his tenants, replaced a wet nurse because her words had upset Olivia, and held her when she nearly fell into a waterfall.

Could a murderer do such things?

Of course one could, her mind answered ruthlessly. Murderers were not monsters every moment of every day.

She swallowed hard. "Good Lord," she whispered, "what have I done?"

She leaned back in her chair and stared toward the candles. She had married a man she barely knew. Worse, she had married him because she believed him safer than Boulton, kinder than most men she had encountered, and trustworthy enough to protect her and Louiza.

Now she wondered whether she had simply exchanged one danger for another.

What if James had killed his brother deliberately? What if there had been some dreadful struggle over the title? What if his brother had been the rightful heir and James had taken everything from him? What if the threatening letters were connected to it?

Her pulse quickened. She had been so concerned about Felix, about Louiza, about her wedding, about becoming Duchess of Glenmore that she had forgotten the most obvious truth of all, she did not know the history of the man sleeping beneath the same roof as her.

"I am an absolute fool," she murmured, then shook her head sharply. "No. I am not. I simply trusted him." That distinction comforted her for approximately three seconds.

Olivia looked toward the clock and frowned. James should have returned by now. She had assumed he would come to dinner, perhaps offer some perfectly practical excuse for disappearing after making the most alarming confession imaginable. Instead, the minutes passed, the candles burned lower, and his chair remained empty.

She finally lifted her hand and caught the attention of a nearby footman.