Heiress for Hire (Duke's Heiress #1) - Madeline Hunter Page 0,85
told to look into it.”
She did not move or react. She only listened.
“I learned this man had a lover. A woman of renowned beauty. And he had a rival. One of our officers. A friend of mine. A good friend.”
Only briefly did he consider not finishing. Yet it felt good to speak of it, finally. With her.
“I knew it could not possibly have been him. I knew him. I had for years. I would have sworn to his character. So I kept searching for another, and yet—there was no one else. I did not accept the truth until they arrested him. One of her servants came forward and admitted she had seen it all. An argument over the woman. A crime of passion, the French called it. The British army claimed jurisdiction, however, and we have no provisions for such an excuse. He was sure to hang.”
“How terrible for him. And for you if he was a friend.”
“It meant an ignoble death, and the loss of his good name. An embarrassment to his family and all who claimed him as a friend.” He was there again, hearing the damning evidence, and knowing all that it meant, even beyond death. He could see the fear in his friend’s eyes, worse than any seen in battle. Did you do it? Did you kill him?
“On the second morning of the trial he was found dead in his cell. A single pistol wound, well placed. A suicide wound, it appeared, but no pistol was found.”
She turned her body so she looked up at him.
“Did you kill him?”
Brave woman. Braver than he was. He had never asked her that question, after all.
“He admitted his guilt to me, then asked me to. Begged me to. I refused. I gave him my pistol, however, and stood aside, outside the cell while he used it. Then I took the pistol, so he would not in fact be a suicide.” He only got it out by speaking without pause, by forcing down the emotions of that dank donjon of a gaol and the friendship that led him to such a choice. “No one could prove a thing, but they guessed. Few thought the less of me for it. ‘I would have done the same,’ one senior officer confided, even though I had admitted nothing. When asked if I killed him, I said I had not.”
“You hadn’t.”
“Not officially. But in a way I had.”
“Is that why you left the army?”
He smiled into the dark, ruefully. “You are good at inquiries, aren’t you? It was recommended that I sell out my commission. It was the kind of story that follows a man throughout his career. As for now, and the rumors even in my own family—there is no good way to explain it, is there?”
She kissed his chest, gently. “There is no blame for you in this sad story. I hope you don’t tell yourself there is.”
“If I were not so trusting of my knowledge of him, I would have known sooner. I might have had better choices then.”
“Such as telling him to run?”
He stroked her crown. She stretched up and kissed him. “So now you only trust evidence and proof that you can list on paper, because when it mattered your deeper knowledge of a man got it all wrong. Yet, I think you did know back then. Your heart and your loyalty and your youth would not accept it, but deep inside you, even before the evidence and proof, I think you knew.”
The argument that rose in his head died on his lips. She sighed deeply, and began to doze off. He held her, glad she had not reached for her garments instead of falling asleep in his arms.
Sleep crept up on him as well. Thoughts and fragments of memories floated in what remained of his consciousness. Bits of Dolores’s story, and of conversations with Kevin and Minerva, and of events from that old inquiry. Oblivion pulled at him, making him drift down. With his last awareness he felt her body against his, and his hand and arm around her nakedness.
Yes, damn it. I knew.
Chapter Nineteen
“I have been thinking. You said in passing that you could use someone like Jeremy at times. If you meant that, you have my permission to offer him a situation, as long as I don’t lose his services.”
They were in a carriage, riding to her home in the gray light of dawn. Not that anyone at her house would be unaware she had been