Helena was stunned. How would Blackbriar speak with such cool detachment? He claimed to love his wife. He should be distraught. He had been angry before, but that rage now seemed forced. If anything he looked . . . satisfied.
With eerie calm, he said, “Perhaps she did not take her own life, Greybrooke. Perhaps you killed her—because you were tired of paying for her blackmail, because you feared what I would do to both of you when I learned you fathered the bastard she was trying to pass off as mine.”
Then Blackbriar smiled with such malicious pleasure, her stomach churned.
Greybrooke’s face hardened. “Are you accusing me of murder?”
“Perhaps I am. I was angry with Caroline, but I quickly realized I loved her so much that I would even forgive her this sin. I told her I would accept the child as mine.”
“Hell, Blackbriar, I doubt that.”
“It is the truth. There’s a note on her escritoire. It is from me. After our argument, I left her very much alive. I stormed off to my study where I reflected, where I realized I still loved her and would always love her. I feared she would not open her door to me, so I sent her a note.”
“Caro was too terrified to ever lock her door to you, you lying bastard.”
Blackbriar spoke in the soft, magnetic voice he used for reading his poetry. “My letter begs her forgiveness for hurting her in my anger. It gives my promise to raise her baby as my own, and my promise that I would never cast her out. My darling wife had no reason to take her own life. But perhaps she wanted too much from you, Greybrooke. Perhaps she was foolishly in love with you—and we all know how you trample women’s hearts. Perhaps you wanted rid of her—”
“Damn you,” Greybrooke erupted. “You’re the killer here. You drove her to this.”
“There is no proof of that. All my servants will reveal how devoted I was to dearest Caroline.”
“Yes, they would lie for you, Blackbriar. They know you’d destroy them if they did not.”
“What do you propose, Greybrooke? A duel here, in Caroline’s bedroom, with her body lying on the bed? I would be more than delighted to get my satisfaction here and now.”
“You can’t,” Helena said quickly. She had to stop this.
Blackbriar paused, leaned over, and opened a drawer by the bed. He rummaged in it, and what he took out made Helena gasp in horror. Blackbriar pointed a pistol at Greybrooke’s chest. A smirk of triumph lifted his full, handsome lips. “Get the hell out of my house. The next time I see you, I intend it to be when you are dangling from a noose for murder.”
Greybrooke’s fists clenched. She would feel the raw fury emanating from him. Dear heaven, he wouldn’t face down a pistol while unarmed. Or would he?
“Please, we should go,” she pleaded. “There’s nothing to be done.”
“Making him pay for what he did. That still has to be done.”
“You are the villain in this piece, Greybrooke,” Blackbriar stated. “You seduced my wife, you got her with child, you drove her almost mad with fear, you killed her. So easy to introduce the laudanum to her tea and force her to drink every drop. I had no reason to destroy my Caroline, to lose her forever. You did—you had the need to protect your arse.”
His finger toyed around the trigger. Greybrooke did not even flinch. Helena had guessed the duke had been beaten when he’d been young—it explained the scars. It explained why he would have done anything to protect his sisters, if they had been beaten too.
Had his past made him so hard, so tough, he could face down a pistol?
Her legs were weak. She thought she had courage; this was terrifying. She glanced to Caradon, who stood in the doorway. He waited there, but he looked tense, as if waiting for the tipping point where he would leap into action and intervene.
“Please, Greybrooke.” She went to his side, knowing she could not touch him. “You cannot bring Caroline back. Think of your family: your sister ready to give birth, and her children. Think of how devastated they would be if you were killed in a duel.”
Greybrooke dragged his gaze from his foe to her. “You do not play fair, do you?” he muttered. “I can’t walk away. I owe it to Caroline.”
“She would not want you to die. If she can see you now, she is horrified that what she did is leading to the very thing she tried to stop.”
“All right. I won’t engage in a duel while you are standing here to nag at me.”
“The note, Greybrooke.” Motioning with the pistol, the Earl of Blackbriar pointed to Greybrooke’s hand. “Read the note, then leave it on the bed. They are Caroline’s last words, all that remains of her, and I want to keep them.”
Greybrooke unfolded the note. His jaw twitched as he read, then he threw it down beside Caroline’s body. “Planning to shoot me in the back as I turn around?”
“No, all I want is for you to leave,” Blackbriar said. “I’ve lost Caroline, but at least I can take solace in the knowledge that you have too.”
“What did the note say?”
Lines crossed Grey’s forehead. His mouth was a tight slash of pain, his eyes empty and hollow. “She wrote that she couldn’t go on. That she couldn’t hurt other people. She said she had hurt me by letting me deal with the blackmailer—that I might be killed, and she couldn’t live with the guilt. She wrote that the villain threatened to have his partner print the story in a newssheet—”
“A newssheet?” Helena froze. They were walking back to the carriage—Caradon walked behind them, allowing them to speak together privately.
The emptiness left his eyes. Hatred flooded in. “They would have lapped up the scandal, destroying her to sell their penny papers. That was the threat, unless she paid another five thousand pounds. She knew he would keep asking for more. And if the truth was published, it wouldn’t just destroy her, it would ruin the child’s life. She feared no matter what happened the baby would suffer for her sins. She couldn’t bear it.”
So she had taken two lives. Hers and the baby who had never had a chance to live.
“I’m so sorry,” Helena began.
“You were to seduce me for your spying mission,” Greybrooke said coolly. “Don’t pretend sympathy for me you don’t feel.” He bowed to her. So much hate glittered in his eyes, they gleamed like lanterns. “Caradon will take you home. I finally have the clue I need. I can’t save Caro anymore, but I can at least get vengeance.”
Vengeance? “What do you mean? How?”
“The blackmailer threatened to expose Caro’s secrets in Lady X’s famed column. I am going to the damned newspaper that prints that column.”
“No!” She shouted it without thinking.
He stared at her, his face hard.
“It is the middle of the night. Surely no one is there.”
But Greybrooke knew enough to know that was false. “They work in the night to produce early editions. Someone will be there—someone who can tell me where to find the man that owns the damned thing. He must know the blackmailer.”
“He might not! The blackmailer could have meant he intended to sell the story to the newspaper. Don’t go when you are angry. I’m afraid—afraid you might do something rash.”
“Listen to Miss Winsome, Grey.” Caradon spoke from behind them—he had caught up. “You can’t go around blindly taking revenge. You need to calm down. Take tonight and go home and get some sleep. Don’t take action when you are fired with rage.”
“Being in my damned home will only fire me with more rage,” Grey snarled. “All right, I’ll take my delightful mistress home and sleep there.”
She gaped at him.
Caradon moved away discreetly, leaving them and reaching the carriage.
“You are both correct,” Greybrooke said softly to her. “I am too close to losing control. I’ll go in the morning. And right now, I need to make love to you.”
That stunned her. Then she remembered what he’d said before, to shock her.
I never trust the women I fuck.
“I want it simple,” Greybrooke said softly, leaning against one of her soaring bed columns. “But I want it to be what I desire. I want to tie you to the bed, with your arms and legs spread wide. If you say no, I will respect that. I will leave at once. The choice is yours.”
Her heart twisted at the raw agony on his face. She didn’t know what choice to make.
He came to her, bent and brushed a kiss to her throat, his large hands resting on her shoulders. Oh, when he did this, she could barely think. Not of anything but him, large, powerful, male, so close to her. His scent surrounded her.
Her hands moved awkwardly, wanting to reach up to touch him. But she let them dangle at her sides, while he kissed her throat, the swell of her breast and made her tremble and melt.
With his face against the crook of her neck, he murmured, “I need to make love to you. I think it’s the only way I can face this pain tonight. You have a special way of taking all my attention, so I can think of nothing but you and giving you pleasure.”
“But what about—”
“Don’t speak of it. I need you. Now.”
His warmth flowed to her. His lips on her neck make her ache for him. “My choice is yes.”
“Then lie on the bed, my lovely Miss Winsome.”
It was as if he wanted to push the memory of what she’d done away for tonight because he needed to make love so badly. She let him undress her, down to her stockings. She was used to being naked for him, but it felt strange again with her lies hanging between them. Still, she lay on her bed. With efficient moves, he had her tied to the posts quickly, her arms and legs spread wide—but not uncomfortably so.
“Now to torture you,” he said.
“Goodness, what?”
The duke kissed and licked her nipples, and sucked hard, making her tug against the ropes. He moved lower, teasing her clit mercilessly with his tongue. Heavens, he meant erotic torture.
She’d wanted him, but doubts and fears began to swallow her. What happened after this? Was he still going to throw her out? Then he was inside her, thrusting in his usual teasing, caressing, wonderful way. But she was too nervous to feel anything.
Helena moaned fiercely, moving her hips as though she was in pleasure. She screamed as if having a climax. His eyes glowed at her wails. For once, he climaxed swiftly, surprising her. Moaning, he bucked on top of her. He made an intense, harsh sound of pleasure. He kissed her cheek, a startling kiss filled with tenderness—how could she deserve that? How did you make up for telling lies? How did that ever go away?
She watched as he grasped his French letter and withdrew.
He hadn’t undressed, as usual. He untied her, brought her a robe. Then he did up his trousers, went to the mirror, and straightened his clothes. His distance hurt.
“I have to go now, Miss Winsome. In the letter, Caro said the blackmailer claimed his partner owned the newspaper, the
London Correspondent
. That was his security—that his partner was ready to publish at any time. The same damned newspaper that printed the story about my father’s death.”
Helena gaped in ice-cold shock. It couldn’t be true, could it? Will couldn’t be involved.
No wonder Greybrooke wanted to destroy their newspaper. How was she going to stop him?
She was so frightened that she went stiff as a board when he came to her and touched her cheek. Then she saw his eyes—the sorrow in them, the pain—and she put her hand to his. To her surprise he didn’t move, he let her touch him. For a while, when they’d made love, sex had made his pain go away.
But it had come right back.
Then he drew his hand back, breaking the contact.
“I’ve always protected myself by staying in control, by not trusting anyone,” he said. “I know I shouldn’t trust you, but you are the one woman I want to trust. I can’t walk away from you. When I’m with you, making love with you, I forget everything but you. From the beginning, I knew I had to have you. Now I think I might need you.”
He bent and kissed her neck.
She almost squirmed with despair. He was admitting to needing her, and she was not going to admit she was Will’s sister. She was lying to him again.
A
s Helena put on her cloak and bonnet to go to the print shop, the Duke of Caradon arrived.
The blond gentleman bowed over her hand. “I apologize for calling upon you so early. I must explain to you that Greybrooke cannot possibly be a traitor, but you are on your way out—”
“No, please, you must tell me.” She drew him into her drawing room. She opened her mouth to ask if he wished tea, but he cut her short.
“He wouldn’t have betrayed his country,” Caradon said. “Grey was so broken by years of abuse, so racked with guilt for not protecting his sisters that he couldn’t think of anything else. I know it was all he could do to survive.”
“Who did this to them? Was it their father?”
“I believe so.”
“Why? How could anyone be so vicious? I—I saw the scars on his back.”
“Grey won’t talk about it much. I was held as a prisoner of war in Ceylon, Miss Winsome, and I believe Grey knew a greater torture as a boy than I suffered at the hands of enemies in a foreign prison.”
Horror turned her blood cold.
Caradon’s eyes filled with pain. “He was badly wounded. Not just physically, but in his soul. I understand, because I know what it feels like. He doesn’t trust anyone because he was betrayed by someone he loved. He won’t let himself be vulnerable again. He claims he cannot fall in love because he fears that he will lash out at anyone close to him. He is filled with rage and bitterness that he can barely control. I do not believe Grey would be a traitor. He would never deliberately hurt anyone. He would never do anything unjust, because he grew up suffering injustice.”
It made sense. It fitted with what she knew about Greybrooke. His refusal to allow a woman to touch him must be because he associated the touch of someone he loved with danger. He never kissed because his bitterness made him reject anything loving or sweet. It explained the rage that burned inside him.
He was a man struggling. That struggle consumed him. He would never have been a traitor—he was too busy fighting his own private war.
“Thank you,” she said to the Duke of Caradon. “Thank you for trusting me with this.”
He rose to his feet. “I saw your face as you looked at Grey. It was obvious you care about him. Can you tell me anything more about this man who said he was from the Crown?”
“Only what I told you. He gave his name as Mr. Whitehall.” She gave the man’s description.
Helena thanked Caradon again, then he left. And she had her carriage brought around so she could speed to see Will.
Untying the ribbons of her bonnet, Helena hurried into the print shop. Will was there, carefully setting letters in one of the plates. His sleeves were rolled up, ink stained his fingers.
“Helena!” Will set down his work. “Have you news?” he asked quietly. “I haven’t seen or heard from you for days. Have you found some proof we can give to Whitehall—?”
Helena pulled Will by the wrist to the small sitting room off the print shop and she dropped into one of the well-worn chairs. She loved the place, but could see the signs of impoverishment. Furniture was torn, dented, and scuffed. Walls needed painting and plastering.
She waited until her brother sat down across from her. “Will, has anyone ever approached you to print a scandalous story about the Countess of Blackbriar?”
Will met her gaze with a surprised one. “No, Helena. You’re the one who unearths the scandals that keep the
ton
flocking to our newspaper. Why would I need to buy information elsewhere? The only story I had to take was the one Whitehall insisted I print.”
That was what she’d thought. But why had the blackmailer threatened Lady Blackbriar with publishing her secret in their newspaper? Why her column specifically?
Will’s worried voice broke in on her thoughts.
“She’s not related to Greybrooke’s treason, is she?” he asked. “That’s what we need to be doing—satisfying Whitehall so I can get those debts called off.”
“I don’t think we will satisfy Mr. Whitehall. I don’t believe the Duke of Greybrooke ever betrayed his country. I think Whitehall is wrong.”
“You keep saying that, Helena. But Whitehall works for the Crown. They are clever men and they’ve got their own spies. How would they be wrong?”
“Will, that man may not be who he says he is. He may not work for the Crown. This may all have been a pack of lies.”
Will drew out a small silver flask from his waistcoat pocket. Once she would have reprimanded him. Now she said nothing—she understood why he would want a drink.
He took a quick swallow, then slowly returned the cap to the flask. What he said then almost knocked her off her worn chair.
“You’re not falling in love with the Duke of Greybrooke, are you? That will lead to nothing but trouble. Helena, you’ve got to keep a clear head—”
“Good heavens,” she broke in. “I have the clearest one of the two of us, Will. I am not in love with Greybrooke, and it is not sentiment that makes me doubt Whitehall. It’s logic. The Duke of Greybrooke is not what I thought he was—I thought he was a scoundrel who thought of only one thing. I was wrong. He’s intelligent. Loyal. Brave.”
“So are successful spies, I expect,” said Will, stubbornly. “And you sound like a woman in love.”
“I’m not. I have far more sense than to do something as silly as fall in love with a man I can never have. I saw what happened to Margaret. I would
never
lose my heart like that. And definitely no one has come to you with a scandal about Lady Blackbriar?”
He shook his head.
“You definitely were not in a partnership with a blackmailer—to extort money?”
“Of course not!” He looked startled, then appalled.
She could tell when Will was lying. This had to be the truth.
“Why are you so interested in her?” he asked. “Has she done something scandalous?”
“No,” Helena said quickly. She could not reveal the truth, just in case her brother did write about it. She looked at Will and saw that his desperate straits had made it so she couldn’t trust him anymore. “She’s dead, Will. I fear—I fear she took her own life.”
“You know something about her.”
“There isn’t anything to know about her.”
“We need blunt, dear sister. If you’ve got a grand scandal—”
“
No,
Will.”
“Not even if it keeps your family from starving?”
It would make a pile of money, she was sure. But she could not do it. It would hurt Greybrooke, and she couldn’t do that. And she could not make money on the back of this tragedy. It would be
wrong
. She shook her head.
Will sighed.
“I need your next column, Helena. It’s supposed to run tomorrow. I take it you’ve forgotten.”
She clapped her hand to her mouth. She had indeed forgotten.
But could she write an article? She thought of Lady Blackbriar, so terrified that her secrets would be exposed, she’d taken her own life.
Lady X wrote about scandals and love affairs. Helena had thought she was doing good because she exposed scoundrels. Now she wondered: Had she hurt anyone? Had she left disaster in her wake?
She did not want to do that anymore.
Suddenly a feminine voice cried happily, “Is Helena here?” Feet scampered, and her youngest two sisters, Jane and Louisa, burst into the small sitting room.
Helena was stunned. “What are you doing here? Why are you not in school?” Then her eyes widened so much it hurt. Fourteen-year-old Jane had ink-stained fingers.
Two sets of guilty eyes shifted to Will.
He picked up a rag and began wiping his hands. “We can’t afford the fees, Helena.”
“We can . . . surely.”
“The fees for the school have been raised. We can’t pay them anymore.”
“But Jane and Louisa must go to school!” Just as Elise, the oldest of her younger sisters should marry. She could make it possible—she had the gifts Greybrooke had given her. They would pay for schooling for another year. Cover the rents for the shop and their home.
“I have things I can sell.” Her face flamed—she didn’t want her sisters to know how she had raised this money.
“Wait, Helena,” Will said. “If we don’t give Whitehall what he wants, my debts won’t be cleared. We’ll need the money for those.”
“No! This money is needed for rent, for Elise’s dowry, for the girls to go to school.”
“I’m duty bound to pay those debts.”
“Yet you can easily ignore your obligations to your sisters.” Then she felt guilty for snapping at Will. “I know you are afraid of what the men who run those gaming hells will do. But we can’t have our sisters toiling in the print shop, giving up their futures.”
“We have no choice.”
Anger was pointless, and it was useless to point out that these debts shouldn’t exist. She had to do something. In her heart, Helena knew Whitehall would prove to be a fraud. She didn’t believe she could raise enough yet, even on the jewels Greybrooke had given her, to pay the debts, provide a dowry, and send her sisters back to school.
She had to continue to be Greybrooke’s mistress.
She had to ensure she won him back.
Whatever it took.
A door crashed open, and a man roared in anger. Will paled and hurried to the sitting room door. He opened it a few inches, then swung around. “It’s not an irate creditor. It’s the Duke of Greybrooke.”
“He cannot find me here. He doesn’t know I’m your sister.” If the only way to save her family was to convince Greybrooke to keep her as his mistress, he
couldn’t
find out.
Bellowing resounded through the printing room. The clattering stopped.
“In the sitting room, Yer Grace,” cried one of the printers, and Helena wondered what threat Greybrooke had used to make him shout it so desperately.
She was too late—she would never get away now. But she had to keep her wits. She’d spent years in this room, now everything in it conspired against her. She couldn’t fit under the worn settee or hope to disappear from sight behind a wing chair. There was only one place . . . sun-faded drapes framed the windows, and they were long enough for her to hide behind.
“Send the girls out,” she commanded to Will.
“What in Hades does he want?” Will breathed, staring open-mouthed at the closed sitting room door.
Quickly, she told Will about Lady Blackbriar’s final note to Greybrooke: that the countess had taken her own life because she feared a scandal being revealed in Lady X’s column of their newspaper.
“Damnation,” muttered Will. “Helena, you could tell him—no, you can’t. We can’t give you away now. Whitehall will never save us then. You’ve got to hide.”
She had to make Will accept her doubts about Whitehall, but now was not the time. “I’ll hide, but send the girls away.” Heart hammering beneath her stays, Helena rushed behind the drapes and arranged them over her. Boots pounded over the floor. She would come out if Will was in real danger.
All she could think of was what the Duke of Caradon had said. That Greybrooke was full of rage and constantly struggled for control.
From her hiding place, Helena saw Will put his hands on Jane’s slender shoulders and had her stand behind him. He pushed Louisa to follow her. “We’ll stay together,” he said gruffly.
Helena wanted to lunge out and shake sense in him. His sisters shouldn’t face Grey’s wrath. But of course Will hadn’t listened to her. No, he was using the girls to hopefully dissipate the duke’s anger.
The door to the sitting room flew open, slamming into the wall with the same explosive force applied to the previous door. Dust flew up. Jane let out a scream before Will put his fingers to her lips.
Goodness, was this Greybrooke?
Scruffy dark stubble covered his jaw and shadowed his cheeks. His face looked haggard—his cheekbones jutted out sharply, his eyes had purple rings beneath. His clothes were rumpled, unkempt. He must have been awake all night.
It showed how devastated Greybrooke was by Caro’s death. He’d been hurt so badly in his past, it broke her heart to see him suffer even more.
Peeking out from behind the drapes, she saw Greybrooke’s gaze rivet on first Louisa, who was thirteen, then Jane, who was fourteen. He changed. The anger flaring in his eyes disappeared, replaced by a cool, emotionless expression. She could almost see each muscle tense, and he gained control. He bowed. “I beg your pardon, ladies.”
Her sisters gawked, stunned to have a duke apologize. Then, in the same measured voice—which meant danger, she knew—he said to Will, “Send the young ladies out of the room. This matter is between us. It concerns the Countess of Blackbriar.”
Greybrooke towered over her brother. He glared down his noble nose at Will as if Will were an insect. Her brother took the girls to the door, sent them out, then returned to face the duke.
Greybrooke accused Will of working with the blackmailer, of being the man’s partner.
The words froze Helena’s heart. She knew they couldn’t be true! She believed her brother. But why had the blackmailer claimed to be partners with Will? Why name their newspaper? It made no sense.
Greybrooke was here, ready to tear Will apart. But Will was innocent. Just as she was certain Greybrooke was innocent of treason. Whitehall was the connection between the newspaper and the duke, and now the blackmailer was connecting them too. Could Whitehall be involved with the blackmailer? Could they use unwitting spies to gather their secrets?
“Your Grace, I assure you I do not blackmail people,” Will was insisting. “Nor do I associate with that kind of criminal.”
The duke grabbed Will by the throat of his shirt and hauled him to his tiptoes. “You’re accusing Lady Blackbriar of lying?”
“She must have been mistaken.”
“Why would she accuse your newspaper of being in partnership with a blackmailer if it weren’t true? She got your name from the damned criminal.”
“He lied, Your Grace.”
“I’ve read Lady X’s column. Your paper feeds on scandals and thrives on destroying lives.”
Helena winced. It was true. She felt so terribly guilty.
“If I discover news, I print it,” Will said coolly. “I don’t keep it hidden and use it to be paid blackmail. When I learn about truthful stories, I publish them.”