The Princess and the Pauper (23 page)

Her features dropped
at the derision in
his voice. Of course, she thought grimly. The audience would
view
any
expression of passionate emotion as “vulgar,” even
lewd.

“
I think it clear from his
shameful performance, you are more his whore than his
soon-to-be-wife, and you harbor no ‘tender feelings’ for me.” After
buttoning his dress coat, Dresmond bored into her with his
disdainful eyes. “I don’t know what game you are playing, Miss
Wright, but I am not amused.”

He rounded the desk, heading for the
door.

Heart in her throat, she
threatened, “Are you
willing to risk your engagement with Miss Harte?”

He
hardened.

“
I can adamantly deny a
rendezvous took place or I can say nothing a’tall. And silence
speaks plenty, my lord.”

Slowly he turned away from the door and
glared at her. “What do you want?”

“
A simple
answer.”

“
And what is the
question?”

Her voice
quivered
. “I
know Papa attempted to end our engagement. Why?”

The muscles in her legs
weakened, and she wondered if she had the strength to hear the
truth. Crumpled inside her reticule was the letter from her
father’s
solicitor, confirming Papa had made a very unusual request,
that months before his death, he’d wanted to break the marital
contract between her and the earl.

That letter condemned Dresmond.
His motivation for killing her father was clear—the earl would lose
a fortune. Combined with the suspicions of Dr. Snow, she had more
than enough evidence to present to Scotland Yard. But there was one
piece of evidence she would never learn from an
investigation.
Why
had her father tried to end the engagement in the first
place? He had desired above all else to secure her position in high
society. And as the Countess of Dresmond, she would have achieved
his lifelong ambition.

The earl’s pale features flushed with
crimson color. “Do you believe I would let you destroy my
engagement to Miss Harte over the ranting of your mad
father?”

He advanced toward her.

She backed away,
positioning
an armchair between her and the earl. “If you take another
step, I will scream and draw every guest to this room.”

He stilled. “You are as mad as your
father.”

It took all her will to keep
from screaming. He had poisoned her father, pushed him into
madness, and
still
scorned him.

“
Tell me,” she snapped. “I know
he tried to end our engagement, and I know you tried to convince
him otherwise.”

He opened his mouth.

“
I’ve no patience for lies,
Dresmond. I know you had tea every afternoon with Papa, inflating
yourself and your estates, trying to convince him our marriage was
mutually beneficial, but he expressed his doubts to you.
Why?
”

“
What do you want to hear?”
he
demanded.
“Your father was mad.
Mad!
I don’t know anything about his ravings. I have
kept his illness a secret out of respect to you both, but
I
will scream it
before the other guests if you persist in this
skullduggery.”

“
Tell me the truth and this
ends!”

“
Keep your voice down,” he
hissed.

“
Tell me . . . and I will leave
you to your fate.”

His hands fisted. “I do
not
know the reason
behind his so-called doubts, and though I tried to convince him he
was making a mistake, he persisted in breaking our engagement. He.
Was. Mad.”

Her eyes moistened and she choked on
her tears. “No.”

“
Yes,” he gritted. “I tried to
warn you, damn it, to save you from his ravings and reckless
spending, but you would not listen then and put him into an asylum,
just as you refuse to listen now.”

“
What
ravings?”

His hands went into the air in obvious
frustration. “How can I make any sense of it? After his mind
collapsed, he babbled all sorts of nonsense about remorse and guilt
and bloody chimney sweeps.”

Her heart almost stopped. “Chimney
sweeps?”

“
Aye, that he had wronged
you in some way, and he had to make it right, whatever ‘it’ was.
Nonsense, I tell you.”

No. Not nonsense. He might have
been suffering from delirium at the time of his “ravings,” but he
had made the decision to end the betrothal
before
he was poisoned, and . . . and that must
have been the reason. Papa knew, thought Emily. He knew about her
true feelings for Rees, her heartache at his loss, and he wanted to
make it right.

Tears spilled from her eyes, and
a great weight lifted off her soul
knowing Papa had loved her above all else,
even his ambition. And he would have made it right, she was sure .
. . if he hadn’t been murdered.

She swallowed her tears
before piercing the
earl with an unforgiving glare. He sensed the change in her, for
his brow dropped in consternation.

A shadowed figure approached the
door, but stilled, peering through the crack. She had never doubted
Rees would come
looking for her, and knowing he was there gave her strength
to speak the long-denied truth.

“
I feel I should warn you,” she
said in a biting voice, “about the inquest into my father’s
death.”

Dresmond’s
expression turned stone-cold. “I
don’t understand.”

“
I won’t mince words.
T
he police
believe my father was poisoned.”

His expression remained
unmoving, but she
already knew he was not immune to her words, and though the
investigation had yet to start, she would not lose the opportunity
to destroy his world—as he had destroyed hers.

“
It has recently come to light
Papa was poisoned with lead. His remains are to be exhumed, and a
coroner in the legal medicine department will confirm the suspicion
after an autopsy is performed. As lead gathers in the bones, the
irrefutable evidence will still be there, even after all these
years.”

“
And what has any of this
to do with me?”

“
You were with Papa at the
onset of his ‘illness,’ had tea with him every day until his
death.”

“
What are you
suggesting?”

“
I am not suggesting
anything,” she returned darkly. “I am accusing you of
murder.”

“
You
are
mad,” he rasped.

She opened her reticule and
pulled out the crumpled paper. “I have a letter here from
Papa’s
solicitor, confirming Papa wanted to end our
engagement
before
any symptoms of madness surfaced. He had asked about the
legal ramifications of breaking the betrothal, and how much he
would have to pay you to end the engagement. But the funds were not
enough, were they? Not nearly the sum you needed to pay off your
creditors and restore your estates.”

“
Madness,
” he repeated.

“
And so you decided to poison
him,” she resumed with vehemence. “You reasoned, if he died, I
would never learn the truth of his intent to end the engagement,
that I would honor the betrothal contract.
I
, a rich heiress, would marry you as planned, and
all your debts and troubles would be at an end.

“
But you miscalculated, didn’t
you? First—” she lifted one finger “—Papa went ‘mad’ from the
effects of the poison and spent every penny in confusion and
distress.”

“
Outrageous.”

“
And second
—” she lifted another finger
“—
I
refused to listen
and send him to an asylum.
I
refused to take control of his estate and stop the reckless
spending.
I
refused to publically humiliate him, to have him declared
insane. And so the money was lost, anyway.”

All lost. Because Papa had tried to
make her happy.

She approached Dresmond with intent. “What
would you have done if I hadn’t released you from our engagement?
If, pauper that I was, I demanded you honor your word and marry me?
Would you have poisoned me, too?”

He said nothing.

“
Yes, of course you would have
killed me. I wasn’t an heiress anymore, and you needed an heiress .
. . you still need an heiress.”

More q
uiet.

“
Your silence speaks plenty, my
lord. And now, as promised, I will leave you to your
fate.”

As she headed toward the
door,
Dresmond lunged for her with a wild cry.

She sidestepped him, sending out a
startled shout of her own just as the door burst open and Rees
entered the room, revolver in hand. He aimed the weapon at a
dumbfounded Dresmond, then shifted his tempestuous gaze to
her.

In a voice
void of feeling, Rees queried,
“Are you satisfied?”

With a drawn and shaky breath, she nodded.
“I am.”

Pocketing the revolver,
Rees
crossed
the room and took her by the hand. Without pause, he dragged her
from the study and into the corridor, where a spooked, pale-faced
Isobel stood.

Emily wanted to say something to
the stunned girl, but
Rees grabbed Isobel by the arm, too, and steered
both women away from the study. He finally stopped near the
ballroom, far away from Dresmond, and released them.

A grief-stricken Isobel stared
straight at Emily.

“
Miss Harte, I’m sorry.” A knot
formed in Emily’s belly. “I did not mean to hurt you, but you
deserved to hear the truth about your fiancé’s character. And now
you can protect your own father from greater harm.”

“
Papa is dying from Heine-Medin
disease,” she said in a distant voice. “He is a paralytic. And soon
he won’t be able to breathe. H—he contracted the illness before we
ever met the earl.”

Isobel’s
eyes flitted, as if she might swoon.
Rees braced her, preventing her fall. Soon servants appeared and
circled the weak girl, fanning her while her mother was summoned
from the ballroom. In minutes, mother and daughter were secured in
a carriage, speeding away.

Emily turned toward Rees, his
expression inscrutable, but she felt his accusation
nonetheless.

“
I want to go home,” she
whispered.

And fled from the house.

~ * ~

As soon as the carriage reached
the brownstone
mansion, Emily bounded up the stairs.

Grey followed her—straight to
his bedroom.
For a moment, she looked around, flustered. He turned the
key in the lock before she realized her mistake and escaped to her
own room.

“
Why?” he
demanded
,
pocketing the key. “Why didn’t you tell me about the letter? The
motive for murder?”

Restless, she paced, her train swishing
across the floor. “I didn’t trust you with it.”

“
I see.” He removed his dress
coat and tossed it over the back of a chair. “I shouldn’t be
surprised, I suppose. A week ago, you believed
I
had murdered your father. Why the charade
at the ball, then? Why risk your neck if you had enough evidence to
present to the police?”

“
I didn’t risk my neck. I
knew you would come for me.”

“
You threw me to the blasted
wolves,” he snarled. “How could you know I’d untangle myself from
the crush in time to save you?”

Even now
, his heart pounded with fear—fear he
wouldn’t reach her in time, fear he’d lost her forever.

“
Because I
trust you, Rees!”

She rattled him with her
contradictions.
Mistrust, then trust. Mistrust, then trust. “I don’t
believe you.”

“
I do trust you, Rees. I trust
you to keep your word, to keep me safe.
” She pulled off her gloves, tossed
them to the floor and twisted her fingers. “Trouble is, I needed to
be alone with the earl.”

“
Why? And why bring Miss
Harte
to the
study? She was at my heels, said you asked her to join you in the
study after the concert.”

“
To hear the truth, of
course.”

“
But the earl didn’t poison
her father.”

“
No, he poisoned mine! She still
deserved to hear it. He’s a fiend! The world deserves to hear
it!”

She gasped, grappling for the laces at
her backside.

“
What is it,
Emily?”

“
I can’t
breathe.”

Grey moved across the room in a
shot. He pushed her fumbling fingers away and swiftly unfastened
the laces, renting the corset.
She clutched the front of the dress, holding it in
place, and breathed swift and shallow.