“The reprobate died an easy death,” James said. “The punishment for treason is to be drawn and quartered.”
James thought of Sinclair’s abominable treatment of Bella, and his blood simmered in his veins. He vividly recalled her excitement upon opening the letter from the
Times.
She had said her husband had not approved of her writing. And then there was her instinctive response to his touch, his kiss. Each time he held her she had molded her body to his, pressed against him with innocent ardor. James had known that her marriage had lacked passion. He had mistakenly thought her spouse had been a blundering fool. But now that James knew Roger Sinclair had abused and isolated her—had used Harriet as a weapon—he marveled that Bella’s spirit had not been entirely crushed.
Sinclair deserved to be drawn and quartered alive for his treatment of his wife alone.
James took a deep breath to calm his violent emotions.
“As for whom Mrs. Sinclair spotted watching her,” Papazian said, “I assure you again it was not me.”
“She claims she saw a man when she was shopping,” James pointed out.
“I followed both women the day they ventured into St. Albans, but neither noticed me.”
So why would anyone else follow Bella? The thought of her in danger made James’s gut clench tight. “We need to determine if it was you she saw.”
“How can we do that? You don’t plan on asking her, do you? During the length of my career, I’ve yet to find a woman happy to learn a man had her followed,” Papazian said dryly.
“Don’t be a fool. I’m going to introduce you as an old friend. Let’s say, Tom Jones. If you’re the man she spotted, I’ll be able to tell from her reaction.”
It was a simple matter to arrange. Coates mentioned to the parlor maid—just as Harriet was passing by in the hall—that a neighbor and his wife were paying a visit to greet the new owner of Wyndmoor Manor.
As expected, Harriet rushed to tell her mistress, and Bella entered the library within ten minutes’ time.
Both James and Investigator Papazian rose to their feet.
The first thing James noticed was she had been crying. There was a rawness about her beautiful green eyes, the delicate skin of her lids swollen. His stomach knotted.
He wanted to go to her, to gather her in his arms and comfort her. He knew she had expected him to propose marriage rather than that she become his mistress. But marriage was too high a price. There had been women who had sought to marry him after he had achieved his success at Lincoln’s Inn. He had never considered proposing to any of them. He coveted his freedom, his bachelorhood. Marriage was to advance one’s social status and produce children. Growing up believing he’d been the illegitimate son of a duke, he had always despised the
ton
and never once wanted to join its ranks. And as for children, he liked them—especially young Phillip—but he could not fathom becoming a father himself as his own parent had been mostly absent and disinterested his entire life.
Bella’s eyes darted from James to the investigator.
James inclined his head, watching her features. “This is Mr. Jones, an old school friend.”
Her brow furrowed. “A school friend? I was told neighbors were visiting.”
“Who told you that?” James asked innocently.
Bella’s face reddened as she no doubt recalled the source of her knowledge was none other than Harriet’s eavesdropping.
James knew her well enough to understand her method of thinking. She was mulling over whether Harriet—at her advanced age—had heard correctly.
But there was no glint of recognition in her eyes as she looked at Investigator Papazian. Clearly, she had never seen the man before.
“Ah, I understand,” James said. “You must not believe all the servants’ gossip.”
Bella’s eyes flashed with annoyance before turning to Papazian. “What school did you both attend, Mr. Smith?”
“Eton. We were reminiscing of our youthful days,” Papazian lied smoothly.
She smiled politely at the investigator. “I apologize for disturbing you.” She curtsied, and the swell of her breasts rose temptingly against the rounded neckline of her gown. The rich browns and reds of her hair contrasted with the ivory skin at her throat.
James tamped down on the stirrings of desire and waited until the door closed behind Bella before returning his attention to the investigator. “She didn’t recognize you.”
Papazian shrugged. “I told you.”
Sinclair was dead. Then who was following her and why? Had Bella imagined it?
For years she had been under the control of an obsessive and psychotic husband. James himself had tried a case where a wife who had been physically abused for over a decade had finally cracked and stabbed her husband in his sleep.
But Bella didn’t fit that type of profile. James’s instincts were solid, and he had more than just instinct to rely on where Bella was concerned. Miraculously, her mind and spirit had not been broken by her spouse.
She was intelligent and witty. She had pride and was compassionate and protective of those in her care. He understood pride, as it was all that had held him together during his lonely childhood spurned by his blood kin, and he admired her care of Harriet.
Of all things, Bella Sinclair was certainly not
mad.
If she believed she was being followed, then James had no doubt that it was true.
His heart hammered, and he felt as if his breath was cut off. The physical response was foreign, and with a sense of dread, James recognized it as fear. Fear for Bella.
“Find out who’s trailing her and why,” he ordered.
Chapter 15
The morning after the fair, Bella rolled over in bed at the soft knock on her door. Harriet entered carrying a breakfast tray and opened the drapes to let in the bright morning sunlight. Bella groaned and covered her face with her pillow.
“You never oversleep, luv,” Harriet said, pulling the pillow away.
Bella sat up. Her eyes were swollen and her throat raw. It had been years since she had cried herself to sleep. She had decided long ago that crying over the state of her marriage was not worth the effort; she had refused to shed a tear over Roger.
But last night had been about James.
“I was so certain he would ask me to become his wife, but instead he offered to make me his mistress. I acted like such a fool.”
Bella knew she wasn’t experienced when it came to men. She had married young and had never had a London Season, whereas James was experienced and worldly. She must have appeared like an immature, lovesick girl. She had allowed herself to dream and resurrect her childish fantasy of the chivalrous knight. As if seven years of misery hadn’t beaten the fantasy out of her.
Yet James had made it so easy to fall back into her old ways. He’d been carefree and fun during the fair, and afterwards, when he had shown her the velocipede. He’d called her courageous and daring for writing and selling her work. With a few chosen words of flattery from his lips, she had come close to eagerly handing her deed over to him.
Foolish girl.
“You may have played your cards just right. The duke is not accustomed to women refusing whatever he offers,” Harriet said.
“Humph.”
“Trust me. You haven’t seen the looks of him yet this morning. He’s in a foul mood and barking at his dedicated manservant.”
“Good. All the servants think him charming; let them see him for who he truly is,” Bella snapped.
Harriet removed her riding habit from the wardrobe. “You need fresh air. A pleasant ride in the country will do you good.”
Harriet helped her dress, and Bella nibbled toast and sipped her tea before heading straight for the stables.
Bobby wasn’t present. Rather than summon the lad, she decided to saddle her own horse. She reached for a bridle hanging from a hook on the stable wall, when an eerily familiar voice froze her hand in midair.
“Hello, Bella.”
She whirled around and her heart plummeted in her chest.
Sweet Lord! It’s Roger returned from the grave.
She would have fainted had a vise-like grip not grasped her wrist.
“I see you’ve forgotten my existence.”
Through the roaring din in her ears, his voice was like an echo from an empty tomb. Her head fell back, and she gazed into frightening brown eyes. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
He squeezed her wrist painfully, and she snapped to attention. She then noticed the differences. The hair was a darker shade of blond. The shape of the face not oval, but coffin-shaped. The nose, slightly bent as if it had been broken before.
He grinned, and his hard eyes gleamed with distrust, rather than demented obsession.
“Rupert,” she whispered.
Roger’s twin brother.
“Good, Bella. You haven’t forgotten.”
“But you died!”
His laughter had a sharp edge. “Is that what Roger told you? We had a disagreement. I can only assume he concocted a story about my demise.”
She’d only met Rupert Sinclair once before, and it had been on her wedding day all those years ago. He’d only stayed an hour to wish his brother and new bride well before departing the festivities. Rupert had lived in Somersetshire and apart from his twin since their eighteenth summer until—she was told—he had died of consumption last spring.
Her stomach sank. So what was Rupert doing at Wyndmoor Manor sneaking into the stables?
She wrenched her wrist free. “What do you want?”
“Is that any way to greet your beloved brother-in-law?” he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.
“Roger’s dead. You never came to the funeral.”
“Alas, I could not. I was away on business matters and far from Plymouth.”
“Why are you here?” she said.
“My twin is dead and some rumors say that you were responsible for his untimely demise.”
A ribbon of fear threaded low in her belly. He couldn’t know. Could he? “The rumors are lies. Roger fell down the stairs.”
His dark eyes were like bits of stone. “I asked a few of his staff. They said he was quarreling with you at the top of the landing. You pushed him down.”
“I didn’t! He tripped on his own and fell. He was drunk!”
“I wonder if the authorities would believe the same.”
“The constable was called, and he concluded rightfully that it was an accident,” she insisted.
“But I have a witness that says otherwise.”
“Who?”
“Roger’s former housekeeper.”
“She wasn’t there.”
Rupert laughed bitterly. “A few shillings and that greedy woman will testify to anything. You would surely languish in prison. What would happen to your beloved nursemaid? Roger told me he often used her as leverage. He enjoyed manipulating and twisting you to his will, Bella.” He reached out to tug a wayward curl at her shoulder. “You are even more beautiful than on your wedding day. I can understand my brother’s obsession.”
Repulsed, she slapped his hand away. “I cannot imagine you have traveled all this way to threaten me. What do you really want, Rupert?”
“It’s simple, really. My brother and I were engaged in certain shipping activities—”
“Are you referring to Roger’s imports of French brandy, or his illegal exports of guns and ammunition to the French?”
“So you know,” he said in a nasty tone. “You always were more intelligent than you let on. I tried to warn Roger, but he was infatuated from the first time he saw you in the village.”
Disgust roiled through her. She had found documents that revealed Rupert occasionally had aided Roger with his endeavors, but she had not known to what extent. Looking into his frighteningly similar features, a fierce hatred ran down her spine.
Hatred commingled with a sickening fear.
He turned and it was then that she saw the pistol in his waistband. A shaft of light from the parted stable door glinted off the steel.
She swallowed. “If you’re here to find out whether I told anyone of my knowledge, I did not.”
“Good, but that’s not why I traveled all this way. You were a hard woman to find. I knew you wouldn’t remain in Plymouth after Roger had convinced people you were mad, but I was certain you would head for London. I never thought you would buy a country estate until I learned you were living with a man. You wasted no time in finding a benefactor, did you? A duke, no less! I would have filled the position had I known it was open.”
“You flatter yourself.”
His eyes narrowed to slits. “I’ve been following you, waiting for the perfect moment to get you alone.”
Realization dawned. “It was you in the Black Hound and later in the shopping district.” She hadn’t lost her mind imagining Roger’s ghost.
“Yes. The fight at the bar prevented me from approaching you. As for your excursion in St. Albans, you never separated from your female companion.”
“What do you want?”
“Roger kept detailed ledgers of all his business dealings. I want them.”
“You can’t be serious! Roger kept many, many ledgers.”
“We both know he kept two sets of his import/export activities. One for the tax collector to inspect and the other, well, to keep record of his more illicit activities.”
Bella knew this. She had stumbled across the second set of books and was reading about Roger’s treasonous activities when he had walked in on her. He had never been as furious.
“I don’t have his books,” she said. “I left Plymouth with only our necessities. The ledgers must still be hidden in the house.”
“I purchased the house after you fled. I searched every nook and loose floorboard in the place and came up empty. The ledger isn’t there. I suspect Roger hid it in your belongings unbeknownst to you,” Rupert said.
“You’re jesting.”
“The ledger will be simple to find now that you know to look for it. I must have it as it incriminates me as much as it did my twin.”
Bitterness spilled over into her voice. “What’s to stop me from turning the ledger over to the authorities myself to have
you
sent to prison?”
A lethal calmness lit his eyes. “I’m impressed, but I’ve thought of that already. Should anything happen to me, I paid a man to drag you before the constable to be tried for my brother’s murder and to see to it that your old hag of a nursemaid suffers in your absence. Find the ledger, give it to me, and you shall never have to set eyes on me again.”
Bella felt as if an iron fist tightened around her heart. He would do it, she knew. He could easily bribe Roger’s housekeeper to testify to anything he chose. The hint of truth behind the threat made it even more ominous.
Still, the new Bella Sinclair had sworn never to cower to a man again.
She raised her chin. “As you astutely pointed out, there is a duke in residence. Even your paltry threats won’t work on him.”
“Then I’ll have to kill him.”
Bella halted. Was he serious? Roger wouldn’t have hesitated to hurt the Regent himself if the royal had stood in the way of his own greed. “An accident can easily be arranged,” she had heard her husband say when speaking of one of his enemies.
But to murder a duke?
Rupert, it appeared, shared not only his twin’s looks, but his ruthlessness as well.
Rupert pushed her roughly toward the stable door. “Go. Now. And tell no one you saw me. Especially your duke.”
Bella found Harriet hard at work in the larder, checking the stores against her list and instructing one of the maids on how to properly label the jars of jam and vegetables. The maid, relieved at the distraction, scurried out of the room, and Bella drew Harriet into a far corner of the kitchen.
“Where did you store all the trunks?” Bella asked.
“What’s all the fuss?” Harriet countered.
“It’s imperative we search through everything we took with us from Plymouth.”
“Why?”
“I had a run-in with Rupert in the stables,” Bella said.
“Roger’s twin?” Harriet asked incredulously. “But that’s impossible. He died last—”
“No, that was another of Roger’s lies. Rupert is very much alive, I assure you.”
“Why has Rupert come now?”
“He’s seeking one of Roger’s business ledgers.” Bella needn’t specify which one; Harriet knew everything about her former employer. “Rupert couldn’t find the ledger in the Plymouth house, and he is certain Roger hid it amongst my belongings. The man won’t leave until he has it.”
“So? It seems to me that we have the upper hand. Can we not use the ledger against him?”
Anxiety spurted through Bella. “No! That’s not an option.”
Harriet grasped Bella’s hand. “Don’t let that scoundrel use me to manipulate you to his will the way Roger did.”
“It’s not just that,” Bella rushed on. “Rupert threatened everyone’s safety, even the duke’s, and he claims he can bribe Roger’s former housekeeper to say I pushed Roger down the stairs.” Bella bit her bottom lip. “There’s truth to it. When Roger raised his hand to strike me, I did—”
Harriet squeezed her hand. “Bella, stop that nonsense and listen to me. We are under the protection of the Duke of Blackwood.”
“We most certainly are
not.
Sharing a residence does not mean the man owes us the slightest shred of protection.”
“I’ve got a good sense of people’s characters. Blackwood wouldn’t allow harm to befall you. He’s half in love with you. You have the power to make him fall all the way.”
“As his
mistress.
Truth be told, Rupert’s arrival has awakened me to my folly. I swore never to remarry and put myself under a man’s domain. A mistress is no better off—she is lulled into a false sense of independence and security until her benefactor tires of her and casts her aside. The law was written by men and fails to protect women. I’d lose Wyndmoor Manor for certain.”
“What about Rupert?” Harriet asked.
“We need to find that ledger.”
James understood Investigator Papazian required time to solve the mystery surrounding Bella Sinclair. A successful barrister spent many hours patiently waiting for results, whether from his own investigators or in the hallowed halls of the Old Bailey waiting for witnesses, trials to commence, or for delayed jury verdicts. But this time, James’s patience seemed to have abandoned him as strange and disquieting thoughts ran through his mind regarding Bella’s safety.