Ruined by Moonlight (34 page)

“Murder.”

He leaned back, taking stock of what that single word implied, particularly in her case, and then he sighed. She was entirely too beautiful to refuse, and besides, he was curious. Intensely so, damn him. He had letters to answer and other dull duties as well and getting caught up in anything else would put him behind. “I cannot promise you anything, but go on. I will listen.”

To her credit, there were no theatrics. She simply nodded, the coil of heavy, glossy hair at her nape a contrast to her slender neck. “As perhaps you know, my first husband died almost six years ago of an unknown ailment. He was ten years older than I, and the marriage arranged by my father. I had barely turned eighteen, but William had a barony and he was wealthy. Of the offers for my hand, my father selected to accept his and I had little choice. I will be frank and say it was hardly a love match—he simply wanted a fashionable wife.” Her smile was brittle. “He’s thought to be my first victim.”

“That I have heard.” He kept his voice even and unemotional.

“Yes, I imagine you have.” Her tone wasn’t nearly as dispassionate. “Then I suppose you also know I remarried several years later.”

“To Thomas, Lord DeBrooke, who died of the same ailment.”

She made a small gesture of humorless affirmation with her glass. “I can see that the gossips have done their work well. Since you knew him, you’ll remember Thomas was a nice man, and of my choosing. He was healthy and vibrant, and though once again I only married him because my father insisted I was too young to be a recluse living at our country estate. I was saddened when he died so suddenly.”

Was she? He didn’t know her well enough to judge—he didn’t know her at all—so he didn’t comment.

“That was when the rumors truly started. It was insidious at first, and I was in mourning in the country, so I had no idea I was under suspicion until my sister told me. You can imagine how shocking it was to hear.”

Shocking because she was innocent, or because she was certain that no one would suspect someone of her grace and beauty capable of maliciously poisoning two husbands?

It was almost four o’clock. He was supposed to have tea with his wife and her elderly aunt, but he was much more interested in having a brandy in his study while listening to his unexpected visitor and her fascinating story. To that end he rose and went over to the table again and uncorked the decanter to pour a small snifter. Alicia would forgive him for skipping tea. When he told her about this visit, she would be fascinated as well. His wife was far more inquisitive than he was.

“My brother-in-law even had me brought up before a
magistrate, but there was no evidence to prove me guilty except his suspicions. The physician that attended Thomas at his death couldn’t say for certain it wasn’t an ailment of some kind, though the symptoms were very similar to whatever proved to be the end of my first husband.”

He recalled the scandal of the trial. She was correct. The society papers had clung to the story and still rehashed it long after her acquittal and Lady DeBrooke had retired once again to the countryside.

“I see.” Instead of sitting down he leaned against a bookcase and swirled his brandy while studying her expression. “I take it you are telling me you
do
think they were murdered, just not at your hand.”

“Very astute, my lord. This is where I point out I have the advantage of knowing I am innocent.” Her fine brows lifted. “A cliché, I know, but quite true. The more and more I have thought about it, the more I think it possible.” Her gaze was direct.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested in the challenge but he wanted to be frank. “The
ton
is notorious for its lack of forgiveness. Do you really think if I even could possibly solve two murders that happened years ago it will restore your position in society, Lady DeBrooke? Or is it justice you seek?”

“Neither,” she answered quietly. “I wish to remarry.”

The Earl of Heathton wasn’t quite what she expected. Angelina had met him in passing once or twice, so she recognized him, of course. He was handsome in an understated way with thick, dark blond hair and classic features, tall and wide-shouldered, and to that extent he was like many aristocratic gentlemen she knew, but the difference
was in the keen intelligence in his eyes and the way he moved with a subtle athletic grace. She couldn’t define it, but there was an air of the hunter about him, and it did not involve horses and hounds.

It had cost her in pride to pay this call. Throughout the horrible series of events after Thomas died she had learned a great deal about scorn and suspicion, including being given the cut direct by former friends, not to mention her husband’s vindictive family’s strident accusations. There had been no guarantee Lord Heathton would even receive her.

The apprehension proved she wasn’t quite thick-skinned enough just yet to weather the scorn of her peers.

“You wish to be able to remarry because the world no longer thinks you poison your husbands, or you wish to marry someone specific?” he asked in the neutral tone he’d used throughout their conversation.

“I am too afraid for him to accept his proposal.” After the oblique answer she took a bracing sip of sherry. “It seems possible that the malice is directed at me. I realize that sounds melodramatic and perhaps even self-important, but they were two very different men, with no connection I can find, other than both having the misfortune to be married to me.”

“An interesting theory to be sure. If you are correct, do have any idea who might have enough ill will toward you to take the drastic step of actually killing two people?”

“Who has enough ill will toward anyone to do that, my lord?” Her tone was brittle though she tried to control it.

“You might be surprised what drives certain individuals to extreme measures most of us would never consider.”

As if she hadn’t spent sleepless nights and restless afternoons in her exile contemplating that very question. With conviction, she said, “None.”

He didn’t seem deterred, but then again, his enigmatic expression seemed to be hard to read in general. “Perhaps a frustrated lover, Lady DeBrooke? You are very lovely.”

The compliment was flattering, but she shook her head. “I was faithful entirely to both of them and, when I married William, very young. I’d barely had my coming out when our marriage was arranged. There are no scorned lovers in my past, tarnished as it is reputed to be.”

And though he’d treated her more as a possession than a person, William had done her one enormous favor and left her a generous inheritance. After his death she’d discreetly taken the money and invested it under another name with the assistance of a trusted friend, knowing her father was going to insist she remarry. It was prudent that she had, for otherwise Thomas’s family would have ended up with not just his money, but hers also. Under English law, a husband controlled anything a wife brought to the marriage. While her brother-in-law hadn’t been able to send her to the gibbet, he had seized Thomas’s fortune at once and not gifted her with even a stipend.

Had anyone discovered she’d created another identity and quietly accumulated a small fortune, she might have hanged. The thought always made her grow cold. It hadn’t been anything more than caution on her part and a bid for some measure of independence, but admittedly, it seemed calculating. As it was, she lived modestly, lest anyone inquire as to where the money came from.

“I will need a list of all servants that were with you in both households, and any friends and even family members that visited you.”

That sounded promising.

“Then you will help me?”

“I don’t know if I can actually help.” His tone was cool and thoughtful. “But I will at least try.”

Just the mere possibility of the weight being lifted from her shoulders brought her a poignant joy. She whispered, “That is all I can ask.”

“Tell me about your current lover.”

“What makes you think I…” She stopped, feeling a slight flush in her cheeks, and glanced away. “I suppose I am a mature woman, twice married, and it is logical to assume he shares my bed.” Actually, she’d just had her twenty-fourth birthday, but she felt far older.

“That isn’t my concern, but understandably, the more I know, the better I can discreetly gather information.”

Discreet. That was exactly what she wanted. The assurance Lord Heathton would provide his own brand of secrecy was part of the reason she was sitting in his study.

Angelina nodded once with as much decisiveness as she could summon. “He isn’t part of this except to the extent that I now am no longer willing to accept what has happened and do nothing. The awfulness of the trial and the scandal made me wish to hide away from the world. But that, I have found, does not work, and besides, it isn’t fair to me or him. Or even to William and Thomas for that matter, to not seek to uncover the truth.”

“I understand your motivations and agree, but if you wish me to look into this matter, then let me judge what might be valuable and what isn’t.”

That was fair enough. Actually, more than fair, for she’d offered him nothing in return. The Earl of Heathton did not need her money. That she knew already. She had little to give him but the challenge.

And she’d been assured that this sticky problem might pique his interest.

“He doesn’t care about the cloud over me and thinks he is capable of protecting himself,” she said with a careful lack of inflection. “I disagree. How can one protect oneself from some unknown poison? It isn’t possible if the murderer is determined, short of having someone else taste your food, and that barbaric custom is long gone, thank goodness.”

“At least in England,” Heathton agreed. “The rulers in North Africa still employ it from what I understand. It would be a difficult way to live, suspicious of every bite or drink. Do I know him?”

A polite way of asking if her lover was of the beau monde. “Probably,” she admitted.

“I thought so.”

“Why?” she asked curiously. They had been so circumspect that even her maid did not suspect she was meeting clandestinely with someone. Alternating mornings, evenings, and nights, they used different places, and never acknowledged each other in public. She’d insisted and reluctantly he’d agreed, though he swore it did not matter to him if they were seen together.

However, she was in love for the first time in her life. Deeply, passionately in love, and if something happened to him…

No.

She couldn’t bear it. She’d survived the rest of it. The accusations, the public degradation, the seclusion with even
the servants whispering behind her back, but
harm
to him because of her was inconceivable. She would shatter into a thousand pieces, the damage irreversible.

“We met a half a year ago. I still have a few friends left, and I was invited to a small house party.” Remembering that weekend brought a small smile of reminiscence, an indulgence she allowed herself. “I know this might sound like romantic female drivel, but it was one of those moments. He walked into the drawing room and we looked at each other and I
knew
.”

God bless Eve for inviting him. As she knew as well.

Angelina added, “Trust me when I say that I was the last person to believe in love at first sight, my lord. I am more grateful than you know to him for adjusting my jaded and weary view of the world. I find love has the ability to heal even the deepest wounds.”

Once the words were out, in the resulting silence, she had the impression, just a fleeting one, that she’d just made the erstwhile unflappable Earl of Heathton slightly uncomfortable. Was it the mention of the word
love
?

The earl’s expression was too bland to tell. He said, “I take it you are staying in London. Give me the address and I will correspond with you as needed.”

She nodded and took the pen and vellum offered and wrote down the address of her rented town house. At least he hadn’t demanded to know the name of the man who had given her a glimpse of possible happiness, for she was truly reluctant to give it. He was the catalyst for her to take action, but she wanted to shield him as much as possible.

As she rose to leave, she hesitated and turned back to look at the tall man still standing with one shoulder propped against a bookcase filled with dusty volumes of
ancient books with faded gilded letters in Latin on the spines. Lord Heathton looked back with an eyebrow raised in inquiry.

“I do not wish to make you reconsider, for I am more grateful than you know, but why did you agree to aid me?”

“Why?” Hazel eyes looked her with enigmatic detachment. “Because if you are telling me the truth, it appears someone ruined you deliberately, and, I admit, it reminds me of an old friend I’d like to meet again.”