Page 45 of The Pleasures of Passion
His eyes glittered at her. “I’m saying that you’re making the whole thing up to malign his character. He’s dead, after all. It’s not as if he can defend himself.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, why would I do that?”
His features looked carved from ice. “I don’t know. So you can make yourself look less like the adventuress you were, and more like my beleaguered sweetheart?”
The attack came so out of the blue that it snatched the breath from her lungs. “An adventuress! That’s what you thought of the woman you claimed to love.”
He leaned forward to stare her down. “Who married another man scant months after I left. Just today, your father told me you were ‘mad for’ Trevor.”
The very idea of Papa speaking such an untruth made her shake with fury. “So you’re listening to myfathernow, the man who may very well be counterfeiting banknotes, who only looks out for himself, who wants to take over Camden Hall and weasel his way into every aspect of my life.”
That seemed to bring him up short. Temporarily.
“Fine,” he said in a hard voice. “What was in this letter you wanted sent to me?”
“I thought you said there was no letter?” she spat.
He muttered a foul oath. “What do youclaimwas in the letter?”
She glared at him. No matter what she told him, he would gainsay it. Meanwhile, he wouldn’t admit anything about the duel, he called her a liar and an adventuress, and he acted as if she should tell him all the humiliating little details of her life, while he pretended he had never abandoned her and had never had a mistress. Well, she’d had enough of bullying men.
She’d had enough ofhim. “You can go to the devil, you and Lord Fulkham both.” She opened the door to the carriage. “I don’t have to put up with your plotting and scheming and this ridiculous farce of an engagement. Nothing is worth enduring your company.”
As she climbed down from the carriage, he caught her arm. “We are not finished.”
She snatched her arm free. “Oh yes, we are.”
Anger darkening his handsome features, he jumped out. “And your father? What about him?” With a glance up at the coachman, he bent to hiss, “Will you let him hang?”
Her stomach clenched. “No. I’ll simply have to find another way.”
But as she hurried into the house, she knew that finding another way was impossible. So what was she to do now?
She’d have to beg Lord Fulkham to call off this mad scheme. Surely they could put their heads together and figure out how to cut Niall out.
Because she wasnotputting up with him for one more moment.
Niall’s gut twisted as he watched Bree disappear into the house. He’d handled that with all the finesse of a drunk playing billiards. He should have elicited her confession with subtle questioning.
Deuce take it, he shouldn’t have tried eliciting anything! This mission wasn’t about her and him, and the fact that he’d tangled their lives up in it showed how far afield he’d gone from investigating counterfeiting.
He’d have a devil of a time explaining to Fulkham how he’d managed to alienate the one woman who could enable them to get close to Sir Oswald.
But damnation, she drove him mad!
Throwing himself back into the carriage, he ordered his coachman to drive on, then sat and stewed. How could she accuse his father of such deceit? The idea that Father had seen her and never said a word to him about it,knowinghow Niall felt . . .
God rot her—his father would never have told her that the duel had been over a mistress!
Unless it was to protect Clarissa.
No, how could he believe Father would have purposely cut him off from his love?
Part of their conversation the day of his departure came to him:The last thing you need as you head off to an uncertain future is to be saddled with a wife who’s unhappy about your exile. She did you a favor, don’t you see? Now you can start life over abroad without such a burden.
Niall’s throat closed up. What if Father had decided to take matters into his own hands? To ensure that Niall wasn’t “saddled” with the wrong sort of wife?
He recoiled. It wasn’t possible. His father had promised to help her, to treat her like Niall’s fiancée. He’dswornit.
