“My lady,” her driver whispered as she stepped down. “In good conscience, I cannot leave you here.”
She shook her head. “Thomas, I’ll be fine. Just wait for me. Hopefully my business won’t take long.”
She prayed it wouldn’t. Perhaps her blackmailer had changed his mind. Or maybe it would really turn out to be some kind of sick jest instead.
She turned away and took a few steps toward the door. She ignored the blatant comments offered by a few drunks as she passed by. Holding her head high, she passed through the entryway and looked around.
The place was dark, but not dank or especially dirty. It was a middle-class establishment, but one not accustomed to the presence a lady, especially one dressed like she was. Every head in the bar pivoted toward her and a few of the men made lewd suggestions that made the men outside seem almost gentlemenly. She steeled herself to them and approached the man behind the bar.
“Excuse me, I’m to meet someone here.”
“Maybe me, sweetness?” he leered over the barrier between them. “Down on your luck, are you?”
Her face flamed and again she wished for a shawl. “No.”
The man laughed, a bawdy sound that filled the bar. “Well, what’s your friend’s name?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. She hadn’t even thought about that fact. How was she to find a man who she didn’t even know?
The other man’s smile fell. “How the hell do you expect me to help you if you don’t even know what you’re looking for?”
“I’ll help her find what she’s lookin’ for,” came a drunken voice down the bar that made Ginny shiver. Would Thomas be able to make it inside if she screamed for help? God, would he even hear her scream?
Suddenly, a hand gripped her elbow and she turned to find a cloaked man at her side. He dragged her across the bar to a table in the corner.
“Let me go,” she ordered loudly, but no one around them seemed too anxious to rush to her aid. In fact, several looked on as if interested in what would happen next.
“Shhh,” hissed a voice that was strangely familiar.
“Who are… ow!” she said as the stranger pushed her into a chair, then dragged another over beside her so they sat close together.
He pushed back his cloak and relief rushed through Ginny. Robert Dennison sat before her.
“Robert! Oh, I thought you were some man who wanted to molest me…”
She trailed off when his eyes rolled over her entire body in one, hot gaze. Her heart froze and her throat constricted with fear and horrified understanding. Robert wasn’t here to save her.
“You sent me this note, didn’t you?” she asked as she retrieved the blackmail missive from her gown pocket.
He smiled. “Clever girl.”
She blinked in continued confusion. “Why?”
He grabbed her arm and dug his fingers in hard. Not enough to bruise but a warning. She was instantly put to mind of her late husband and his brutal hands.
“You had best lower your voice, Virginia.”
Yanking her arm away, she rubbed it briefly before she whispered, “Why are you doing this?”
“I know what you did.” Robert smiled before he leaned back to pull a cigar from his pocket. Using the candle to light it, he blew a little ring of smoke in her direction. “You do look luscious, even in this dim light. But then, you always do, don’t you?”
Ginny let out a sound of exasperation in order to cover the terror that was slowly seeping its way through every part of her body and soul. She couldn’t let Robert see that fear. “What is going on, Robert? What are you doing?”
He leaned over to take her hand. Even when she pulled back against his grip, he held tight.
“I’ve always wanted you, Virginia. From the first moment Henry brought you to the shire, I watched you. Wanted you. And I hated him for having you. But you took care of that, didn’t you?”
There was a sudden glitter in his eyes that frightened Ginny even more than she’d been before.
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she stammered as she prayed she’d find a way out of this nightmare.
He grinned and it made his handsome face even more attractive. How could such ugliness hide below the surface? And why hadn’t she noticed it before?
“I’m talking about you and a certain fire poker. I’m talking about you murdering…” He leaned in closer for privacy and effect. “My brother.”
Shocked, she drew back as far as she could. “Your b-brother?”
He smiled again. “Yes. I was Henry’s half-brother. Illegitimate and he never let me forget it. Older, but never entitled to the title, the estate, or the beautiful, finished wife.”
“Oh God, Robert.” Ginny finally managed to jerk her hand away and found herself wiping it on her skirt. As if she could dab away the brand of his touch.
“He loved to rub it in, of course.” The other man’s face darkened. “All through growing up, and even into our adulthood after our father helped me get the job as magistrate. When Henry brought you home, he didn’t fail to notice how taken I was with you. And he enjoyed telling me every detail of your body.”
Disgust washed over Ginny. Henry had shared the intimate details of their life with his half-brother? With a man who’d shared meals with her and smiled at her as if he didn’t know?
“That’s sick,” she whispered.
“Even sicker is that he offered to let me watch you together. To rub it in, I suppose.” When she let out another gasp, Robert grinned. “Do you want to know if I did it?”
“No,” she ground out, barely able to hear her own voice over the rush of blood in her ears. “I don’t want to know.”
He laughed and snapped his fingers at a serving girl. She brought a tankard of ale and he looked at Ginny. “Want something?”
“Nothing.” She glared at him with hatred for him growing in every part of her. “Except to know why you called me to this terrible place. What do you want, Robert?”
His eyes narrowed. “That attitude is exactly why you got to feel the back of Henry’s hand so very often.”
Ginny’s face twisted in horror. The truth of what Robert had done was just beginning to sink in. She’d been watched through her private and humiliating moments by a man she’d once called a friend.
His cruel smile broadened at her pained expression. “Yes, I got to see that, too. In fact, I was privy to several encounters between you. Henry would tell me which room would two would occupy. So many times I observed from the window. Just as I’d been watching from the outside all my life.”
Ginny swallowed back her fear. As Robert talked, he seemed to grow angrier and angrier with his lot in life. His face had gone from the man she’d known for years, to a person she was afraid of and disgusted by in equal measure.
“All this still doesn’t explain why you brought me here,” she said softly, folding her arms and staring at him with what she hoped was a brave expression.
“I was there that night, Virginia.”
The blood drained from her face. “What?”
“The night you killed my brother. I saw everything. I saw how the two of you argued. And then your brat started to cry. That made Henry even angrier and he turned to your son with his hand raised.” He smiled as if the memory pleased him. “My God, you were magnificent Ginny. Your face looked like a warrior queen as you grabbed that poker and swung. I must say I enjoyed every moment of it.”
She blinked back tears as she, too, remembered that night. She hadn’t thought about what she was doing. She’d only wanted to protect Jack from his father’s rage. It hadn’t been a premeditated act, just a protective response. She hadn’t even known she’d killed him until she’d returned to the room with Ingram and Harriet.
Henry must have rolled over after she left the room, because they’d found him on his back, staring up, a look of shock still on his face. It made her sick just thinking of it. Even sicker when she thought of how the three of them had
made it look like Henry had a riding accident.
“If you knew what happened,” she asked with a glare for the man across from her. “Then why didn’t you arrest me right then and there? You’re the magistrate of Westdale, wasn’t it your duty?”
He laughed again and the sound made her very spine tingle with the fear she tried to hide.
“You think I cared that my brother was dead? I was thrilled. Finally he’d gotten what he deserved and soon-” He reached out to trail his fingertips across her bare arm. “I would have everything I deserved. Everything that was his. I planned to let you ‘mourn’ for a while, and then I’d come to court you.”
She shook her head. “Robert, I never would have considered you anything but my friend.”
His smile fell. “Well, then I had your secret didn’t I? And I still do. I knew if you refused my love, I could force you to accept it by doing exactly what I’m doing now.”
She shut her eyes. “Blackmail.”
“Exactly.” His voice grew lower. “But then everything was ruined. Simon Webber appeared and it was obvious he had some influence on you. Even more obvious when I saw you in Henry’s office together.”
She flushed so dark she was surprised that she had enough blood in her brain to speak. “You… saw us?”
The bile crept into her throat. That beautiful moment in the office with Simon had been the first step toward a happy future for her. If Robert ruined it by saying he had watched her private awakening, she didn’t know if she could bear it.
“Unfortunately,” he said with a leering grin. “I missed the actual deed itself.”
Her eyes pricked with tears of relief. That moment still belonged to Simon and her. It hadn’t been destroyed along with everything else this man was trying to obliterate.
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened between you when you were putting the items back on Henry’s desk and Webber was pulling his shirt on.”
“You’re disgusting,” she snapped as she began to rise to leave. He caught her wrist and gave it a painful yank that sent her careening back into her chair.
“We aren’t finished,” he said with a darkness in his eyes that terrified her. This man was more dangerous than even Henry had been. And his focus was entirely on her.
“We are finished,” she corrected. “Because it doesn’t matter if you tell your story. I planned to tell Simon, myself, tonight. And if I need to, I’ll tell my family. Noah and Audrey will use their connections to protect me.”
She hoped he wouldn’t call her bluff. Though she might be able to convince people she’d defended herself, the stain of a murder charge would haunt her and her child forever. Beyond that, she still had no idea how Simon would react to her confession.
Robert looked so smug that Ginny began to feel nervous.
“Perhaps you could make a case for yourself. Unless it comes to light that the murder was premeditated.”
“What are you talking about?” she whispered as she recoiled in horror.
One by one, he was killing her dreams, her hopes for the future. And she could do nothing but watch until everything was revealed. Only then could she formulate some kind of plan.
“Your family connections may be able to shield you from the consequences even of murder, but would they and could they protect Mr. Webber if he, too, were implicated in such a crime?”
“Simon had nothing to do with Henry’s death,” she protested. “I didn’t even meet him until months later.”
Again, the smug smile crossed Robert’s face. “Oh, but you see I’ve found evidence to the contrary. I found several letters from Mr. Webber in your personal items when I made a search of your home during my investigation. Letters that prove you two had an affair for months before Henry’s death. Letters that show that together you and he planned the murder and the cover-up.” He produced a packet of papers from his pocket. “Would you like to see them?”
She snatched the packet away and tore the string that bound them. When she opened the first letter, she was stunned at how much it did look like Simon’s handwriting. And the words, the awful, vulgar words. They weren’t anything he’d ever say to her, but they incriminated him in a scheme neither one had ever planned.
Slowly she looked up at Robert with a look of shock. “How did you do this?”
Grinning, he leaned forward to blow hot breath on her neck. She flinched away.
“When one is in my line of work, one comes across some interesting characters. Some of them are wonderful at forgery and will do a free job in trade for not bringing them to justice. This one was particularly good, I thought.”
“You’re a monster,” she said as she tore the letters in pieces.
“Go ahead and destroy those.” He smiled. “I have identical copies in a safe place.” The taunting light left his eyes and was replaced by business-like coldness. “No one ever has to see those letters implicating your lover if you do as I ask.”
She shut her eyes as she tried to think of an alternative. None came.
“What do you want?”
Dennison’s smile was instant. “You will go to Webber’s tonight just as you planned. But instead of making some kind of silly confession of the killing, you’ll tell him you won’t marry him. Come up with something that will sting so badly that he won’t question your motives or pursue you.”
She ached as she listened to him silently.
“Then you will return to Westdale with me. Within the month, you’ll announce that you’ve fallen in love and we are to marry.”
“Oh God,” Ginny gasped. She tasted vomit in her throat.
He ignored her. “If you do this, I’ll never reveal what I know about you and what I can prove about Webber. Your secret will be safe with me.” He drew her hand to him and placed a wet kiss on her knuckles. Her stomach lurched again. “Your husband.”
“What about my son?” she asked, thinking of Jack and the life he would lead under this man.
“Little Jack?” he asked. “I see no reason to bring him harm unless I feel threatened in some way. I’ll certainly never turn any violence on him like his father tried to do. Unless you force me to do so.”
His cold green eyes met hers with a clear message and sent a pang of terror straight to her heart.
“And what if I refuse?” she whispered with a hateful tremble to her voice.
He smiled. “Then you and your lover will be implicated in the premeditated murder of Henry Blanchard. I assume you may get some clemency because of your family connections. But Webber will likely be hanged, or at best transported. And I’ll make a very strong case that your son should be raised by the Blanchards.” He shook his head. “But don’t force me to do that to you, Ginny. I really do love you and I don’t want to hurt you.”
She blanched at his use of the word love. Just a few hours before Simon had professed the same emotion and no different could two men be. While Simon had always protected her best interest and cared for her, this man used love as a bargaining chip. Something that could be stolen if it wasn’t given freely.
And yet she could think of no alternative to his proposal. There was no one to consult. Harriet was gone and no one else knew the truth. She was utterly alone. Utterly at this man’s mercy.
“What will you do, Virginia? Ginny,” he added with a cruel smile.
She winced as Simon’s nickname for her came from his vile lips. “Don’t call me that. Never call me that and I-I will do as you ask.” She choked on tears as she said the words.
With a vicious smile, Robert cupped the back of her head and pulled her close for a hard, insistent kiss. He plunged his tongue between her teeth and made her gag on the taste of ale.
“Very good, my love,” he panted as he pulled away. It was obvious that touching her aroused him. He adjusted his pants to make it less apparent. “You run along to Webber. But I warn you, if you do anything to make him aware of my plans, I’ll follow through on my threats. And you’ll suffer all the more for it.
”
She nodded mutely as she extracted herself from his grip. “What should I do after I tell him?”
“Return to your townhouse. I’ll be waiting for you.”
She shut her eyes with a short nod. “Very well.”
“Good evening, Virginia.” He grinned. “And do try to have a bit of fun. You’d be surprised how amusing breaking a man’s heart can be.”
Without answering, she turned away and moved blindly through the tavern, oblivious to the catcalls and lewd suggestions levied by the patrons. Once outside, she climbed into her carriage. Thomas looked at her with worry.
“Is anything amiss, my lady? You look very pale.”
“I’m fine, Thomas. Just take me to Simon Webber’s townhouse.” When he had moved away from the window and the carriage began to roll forward, Ginny covered her head with her hands. But no tears would come. She was too heartbroken for tears.
How was she to look at the one man she’d loved and rip his heart out? But she had to do it or she would condemn him to a far worse fate than a life lived apart.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Simon couldn’t help but smile at Ginny’s obvious shock when he opened his own door. He’d given his servants the night off. He needed no interruptions if Ginny was going to tell him what he thought she would. And if they decided to celebrate their love together in his bed, that was a private matter.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, dropping her eyes from his gaze. “I didn’t expect you to be there.”
“Yes.” He opened the door wider so she could come in. “Everyone’s gone tonight.”
She swallowed hard and nodded, though she didn’t seem as pleased by that news as he would have liked. In fact, she looked pale and cold without a shawl. But beautiful. Her eyes stood out like sapphires thanks to the deep blue of her gown. Her red hair was slightly mussed by the night breeze and little tendrils curled around her neck.
“Come in,” he finally said when he was able to snap himself out of his haze. “You can warm up by the fire.”
He held out his arm as he motioned to the parlor, but she passed him by as if she didn’t see his offer. Wrinkling his brow, he followed her into the room and watched her cross to the roaring blaze to warm her bare arms.
The Desires of a Countess Page 22
