The Devil Rogue (34 page)

“You still married her knowing she was in love with someone else, carrying his child?”
Ian had trouble reconciling the bitter, hateful man before him with the one who would rescue an abandoned, pregnant woman.

The baron lifted his chin
.
“Yes
.
I loved her.”

“You loved her, but not her child,” Ian
said
coldly.

“I tried, but I couldn’t do it
.
Angela was a constant reminder of
Anna’s
love for another man
.
We were never able to conceive children together, so my resentment grew worse.”

“You’re a foolish man, Eberly.”

“More than you’ll ever know,” Eberly
whispered
.

“I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you this,
”
Ian said, his
voice filled with
the intensity of his emotions
, “b
ut I’ll say it anyway
.
S
tay away from Angela
.
If you ever go
near her again, you’re a dead man
.
” It was true
. Ian
would kill this man
,
or any
other
who threatened Angela.

“Are you through?”

“Not just yet
.
I have one more question
.
Angela had a suitor
.
His name was John Winston
.
Do you remember him?”

Eberly shifted in his chair, his eyes darting from side to side
.
“Angela had many suitors, so I suppose he could have been one of them.”

“A situation you apparently used to your advantage
,” Ian said with a sneer of disgust
.
“I know about the blackmail, and I know John was one of your targets
.
What I need you to tell me is if you had anything to do with his murder.”

“Murder
?
How dare you imply
—
”

Ian shot forward, once again, grabbing the baron’s shirtfront
.
“John Winston was like a brother to me, so stop your self-righteous blathering, and tell me the truth, or I
swear I’ll kill you right now.”

Eberly tried to shrink away, but he was held immobile by the strength of
Ian’s
grip on his shirt
.
“I-It wasn’t me!” he sniveled
.
“
I didn’t do it
!
I
never intended it to happen that way
.
I-I mean, yes, I hired a couple of thugs to rough him up a bit
.
You know, j-just to bring him around to paying the money
.
”
At the thunderous look on Blackridge’s face, he whined defensively, “How was I to know those two would take it too far and kill him?”

Ian shoved Eberly back into his chair
.
Straightening, he ran his fingers through his hair
.
How he would like to wrap his hands around the baron’s throat, watch his eyes bulge from lack of air, look into those eyes until
the flame of his life went out
.
But as Eberly said, he wasn’t the one who killed John
.
He may have put him in danger’s path, but it was ultimately the act of the two men hired by the baron
.
Ian’s conscience wouldn’t allow him to sink to their level.

Eberly sobbed out his excuses
.
“You don’t know what I’ve been through
,
what I’ve had to do all these years just to keep things afloat
!
You don’t know what I’m up against now.”

“It’s quite evident what you’ve been up to as far as Angela is concerned,” Ian said, barely in control of the impulse to
beat the man senseless
.
“
You’ve made your own fate
. You have
no one else to blame but yourself.”

“And what about
your
own fate
?
It’s all become clear to me now
.
You planned to ruin
Angela
a
long with me
right from the beginning, didn’t you?”

“I admit I thought her as guilty as you at first, but now I know differently.”

“When she learns what you’ve done, she will never forgive you,” Eberly said with a satisfied smirk.

“That’s for me to worry about, but as for you, baron
—
”

“W-what do you intend to do
,
a-about the blackmail, that is?”
Eberly looked up at Blackridge with bloodshot eyes glistening with moisture.

“I intend to do nothing
.
I get the impression you’re in
it
up to your neck on another front
, that your debts of the past are coming due
,
with interest
.
Oh, don’t get me wrong – I’d still like to kill you with my bare hands
,
but y
ou’re
just
not worth
it.”

Ian turned on his heel and strode from the room
.
He exited the house only to find the sky had become overcast, the air heavy with building moisture.

Ivan stood in the shadows, watching Blackridge’s departure
.
He’d heard every word of the baron’s conversation with Blackridge, and knew his master would be pleased
.
The princess ha
d
apparently
found herself an admirable protector.

The sky mirrored
Ian’s
own gray thoughts, and as the coach pulled away from the curb into traffic,
he
wrestled with his newfound information concerning Angela
.
His spirits sunk with the realization that if what
Eberly
had said was true – that Angela really was a princess – then
Ian
may have lost his chance to keep her to himself
,
to marry her
.
She would be far above him in station, and worthy of a much better match than one with a reputed rogue.

He had to tell her the truth
,
about her true identity
,
about the baron’s blackmail
,
about his
own
plan to ruin her
. E
verything
.
If only there was a way to avoid it.

No.

Angela’s life
has already been built on too many lies
.
He didn’t want their life together to begin with more lies,
if by some miracle
she still agreed to marry him
.
But wou
ld she accept another proposal after hearing what he had to tell her?

He needed to verify it all first
,
but how?

The coach came to a sudden halt, almost jerking Ian from his seat
.
The door was thrown open and before he could react, rough hands dragged him outside
.
It had begun to rain, the low rumble of thunder adding a sinister quality to his predicament
.
He struggled to free himself as he was forced along the walk
by at least three large men
.
The afternoon had advanced
in
to evening
making
it difficult
to see in the growing darkness combined with
the heavy downpour.

He had no idea where they were taking him, until moments later he was thrust into another coach – a very large coach
.
From his position on the
floor, the first thing he noticed was the finely woven rug under
his nose
, and then
a pair of well-clad feet.

“Have a seat, lad,” said a deep voice from above Ian’s head.

Ian picked himself up off the floor,
t
aking
the seat opposite the man who spoke
.
The curtains were drawn,
the flickering
lamps illuminating the interior with a warm glow
.
From the opulence of the décor and the rich elegance of the man’s clothing, Ian had no trouble figuring out who the man must be
.
Looking him directly in the eye, he asked,
“
To what do I owe this
honor, your majesty?”

“Hah
!
You are a bold one, eh
?
I am
Matvei Vasilii
Mikhail
Fedorovich, King of Moldova
and, yes, Angela Hopkins is my daughter.”

The king’s thick accent was the same as Ivan’s
.

“How sure are you of that fact?”
Ian asked.

“Very sure, Lord Blackridge.
”
Smiling, the king stated
with pride, “Her mother’s belly was already rounded with my child when duty forced me away from her.”

“Duty
?
Was it your duty to leave a pregn
ant woman alone and unmarried?
Angela was left to be raised by a bitter,
cruel and
hateful man.”

“For that I feel great remorse, but
at the time I had no choice
.
It was
not as peaceful
in my country
,
then
,
as
it
is
now.”

The king’s eyes were
not the same mesmerizing blue as Angela’s, but
brown
.
Even so,
for an instant, the
expression in them reminded Ian of
her
.
T
he king’s
hair
was a deep chestnut
, so s
he must have inherited her golden hair color from her mother
.
His age showed in the gray at his temples, along with the few streaks running through his closely cropped beard
.
He was well built, physically, showing no signs of
the
overindulgence one might expect of a man
of
his
exalted station
.
“
Then why did you leave her?”

“You are aware, Lord Blackridge, that I owe you no explanations
.
B
ut since you are in love with my daughter, I will indulge you.”

Ian understood the warning
.
He was in the presence of royalty, after all, and
as a peer of the realm,
was expected to behave accordingly
.
But it was damned hard when his emotions swirled like a funnel cloud within his chest where Angela was concerned
.
He
gave a clipped
nod
of
his head in acknowledgement
.

T
he king grinned when
Ian
voiced
no denial of being in love with Angela.

“You are a fierce warrior
in your love for her
.
T
hat I understand, as I was fiercely in love with her mother
.
I was not king back then, but a prince
. I was
the next in line to the throne.

“
I met Anna at a ball I attended while visiting your country
.
We fell in love and planned to marry
.
It all went wrong when I received a summons to return home
. M
y father
, the ruling king,
had been
assassinated
during an uprising led by my cousin, Dimitri.”

The king paused for a moment, lost in the telling of painful memories.

“It would have been too dangerous to bring her with me, and we had no time to acquire the proper documents for her to marry a foreigner
.
She made a decision that I ultimately had no control over
.
When I returned to my country,
I spent many months planning and strategizing, and then fighting against my cousin
.
I was young and stupid in those days, achieving nothing more than my own capture and imprisonment, along with
costing
the lives of loyal men.”