Page 77 of Worth Any Price
“In all the years that we’ve known each other,you’ve demonstrated domination, obsession, and desire... but those things aren’t love.”
“Then tell me what love is.” His voice was thick with scorn.
“Respect. Acceptance. Selflessness. All the things my husband has shown me in just a few short weeks. My flaws don’t matter to him. He loves me without conditions. And I love him the same way.”
“You owe your love tome,” he said harshly.
“Perhaps I could have felt something for you had you ever tried to be kind.” Lottie paused, closing her eyes as she felt the pistol nudge harder into her temple. “Strange, but I’ve never thought it mattered to you, whether I cared for you or not.”
“It does,” Radnor said furiously. “I deserve that much from you, at least!”
“How ironic.” A humorless smile tugged at her dry lips. “You demanded perfection from me—something I could never attain. And yet the one thing I might have given you—affection—you never seemed to want.”
“I want it now,” Radnor stunned Lottie by saying. Keeping the pistol pressed to her head, he moved in front of her and knelt until their faces were level. His face was ruddy with color that burned not on the surface of his skin but from deep underneath. His eyes were black with rage, or perhaps despair, and his thin mouth was contorted by some powerful emotion. Lottie had never seen him like this. She did not understand what moved him, why he should seem so ravaged by loss, when she knew to the bottom of her soul that he was not capable of love.
His clawlike hand took hers, brought her resisting fingers to his perspiring cheek. She realized with amazement that he was trying to make her caress him... here, like this, with a gun held to her head. “Touch me,” he muttered feverishly. “Tell me that you love me.”
Lottie kept her fingers still and lifeless in his. “I love my husband.”
Radnor flushed with baffled anger. “You cannot!”
She almost pitied him as she stared into his uncomprehending eyes. “I’m sorry for you,” she said. “You can’t conceive of loving anyone who is less than perfect. What a lonely fate that must be.”
“Ididlove you,” he shouted, his voice striated with rage. “I did, damn your cheating soul!”
“Then you loved someone who never existed. You loved an impossible ideal. Not me.” She licked at the beads of sweat on her upper lip. “You don’t know anything about me, my lord.”
“I know you better than anyone,” he said vehemently. “You would be nothing without me.You belong to me.”
“No. I am Lord Sydney’s wife.” She hesitated before giving voice to the thought that had occurred to her more than once in the past few days. “And I am fairly certain that by now I am carrying his child.”
Lord Radnor’s eyes became two wells of utter darkness in a face that was skull white. She perceived that she had shocked him deeply, thatthe thought of her being pregnant with another man’s child had never even occurred to him.
Delicately Radnor’s fingers withdrew from hers, and he stood. The cold barrel of the gun never left Lottie’s temple as he moved behind her once more. She felt the perspiring flat of his palm catch slightly on her hair as he caressed it. “You’ve ruined everything,” he said in a curiously flat tone. The pistol cocked, the heavy click reverberating against her skin. “There’s nothing left for me. You’ll never be what I wanted.”
“No,” Lottie agreed softly. “It was always futile.” Cold sweat trickled down her face as she waited for him to pull the trigger. In the face of such absolute defeat, Radnor would surely kill her. But she was not going to spend the last moments of her life cowering in fear. She closed her eyes and thought of Nick... his kisses, his smiles, the warmth of his arms around her. Tears of regret and gladness prickled behind her lids. If only she could have had a little more time with him... if only she could have made him understand what he meant to her. A slow sigh escaped her, and she waited almost peacefully for Radnor to act.
At the sound of her exhalation, the barrel of the pistol lifted from her head. In the weighty silence that followed, Lottie opened her eyes, perplexed by the absolute stillness. Had she not heard the faint rasp of Radnor’s breathing, she would have thought that he had left the room. As she began to turn, she was suddenly assaulted with an explosive sound that made her ears ring. She fell backward, her backside hitting the floor,while a curious hot splatter landed on her skirts and arms.
Dazed, she tried to catch her breath, and wiped numbly at the red droplets on her arms until they made long, wine-colored smears. Blood, she thought in amazement, and looked at Radnor’s crumpled form. He was lying on the floor a few feet away from her, his body spasming in the throes of death.
Agreeing reluctantly that they would have to report to Morgan, Nick and Sayer went to Bow Street. Nick was in considerable pain, the strained muscles on his side burning, his broken fingers swelling beneath the handkerchief he had bound them with. He was tired and aching, and he could hardly wait to go home to Lottie.
As soon as they entered the comfortably shabby building on Bow Street, they headed straight for Sir Grant’s office in the hopes that he had returned from the afternoon court session. The court clerk, Vickery, jumped up from his desk as Nick and Sayer approached. His bespectacled face registered astonishment at their filthy appearance. “Mr. Sayer, and Mr.... er, Lord Sydney...”
“We had a bit of an altercation near Fleet Ditch,” Sayer said. “Is Morgan available to see us, Vickery?”
For some reason, the clerk gave Nick an odd stare. “He is questioning someone at the moment,” he replied.
“How long will that take?” Nick asked with annoyance.
“I have no idea, Lord Sydney. The matter appears to be one of some urgency. Actually the visitor is your footman, my lord.”
Nick shook his head as if he hadn’t heard correctly. “What?”
“Mr. Daniel Finchley,” Vickery clarified.
“What the hell is he doing here?” Instantly concerned, Nick went to Morgan’s office and opened the door without knocking.
