A Stroke of Malice (Lady Darby Mystery #8) - Anna Lee Huber Page 0,97

to a place where it might be found, but not connected to them or Sunlaws Castle. The castle had been bursting with visitors since early December. Maybe they’d been waiting for the right time.

Whatever the case, they were definitely suspects.

“But we didn’t,” she insisted. “And just because I despise my husband and would be only too happy never to see his arrogant, heartless, deceitful face again, does not mean I wish him dead.”

I noted her emphasis on the word “deceitful,” wondering if it was somehow telling. But she wasn’t finished.

“And neither does Marsdale!”

This was too much. For if Gage had met and fallen in love with me while I was still wed to Sir Anthony, I knew he would have wished my husband dead. That didn’t mean he would have helped him to such a state, but he certainly would have wished it. “Marsdale didn’t wish him dead?” I repeated doubtfully.

“Well . . .” She flushed. “Maybe. But he didn’t kill him!”

I tilted my head, studying her heaving breast, her frantic gaze. She was desperate to convince me of this. But was she desperate to convince herself as well?

“I understand you and Marsdale were close when you were younger. So close that it was expected you would marry.”

She swallowed, her eyes dipping.

“What happened?”

Her brow creased in remembered pain. “Does that really matter?”

“It might.”

She began to pluck at a loose string on her gown and then, as if realizing what she was doing, forced herself to stop. “There was an expectation we would marry, though we never discussed it. Whenever I tried, he changed the subject. So I . . . decided to tell him I was with child.” Her gaze lifted to mine briefly, as if to gauge my reaction. “We had been intimate. Numerous times.” Her mouth twisted. “Expectations.” She muttered the single word to explain her decision to lie with him before their wedding night. They wouldn’t have been the first engaged couple to do so. Many a supposedly seven- or eight-month-old, fully developed baby had been born into the nobility.

“But you weren’t truly expecting?” I guessed.

She shook her head. “And he figured that out rather quickly.” She sighed. “I can’t blame him for being angry at my deception.” She scowled. “But I can blame him for tupping the barmaid, and arranging for me to find him doing so.”

My eyes flared wide in shock, as I had suspected Marsdale had done something stupid, if not quite so awful as that. The perfect idiot.

Her troubled gaze strayed toward the window, though I didn’t think she was seeing anything but the past. “I told him I hated him and that I never wanted to see him again.”

“And let me guess? That’s when you met Helmswick.”

She nodded. “He seemed so gentlemanly, so polite. Two things that Wesley has never been.” She fell silent. “I didn’t pause to consider whether Helmswick was feigning it.”

“When did you realize you were still in love with Marsdale?”

She didn’t try to deny it. “He came to see me, actually. About six months ago. He confessed he was nervous I might turn him away, but I didn’t even consider it. I suppose I was curious to hear why he was calling. Helmswick was off on another of his trips with another of his doxies, and I didn’t really care if Wesley’s visit led to rumors.”

I found the timing of Marsdale’s visit to be interesting, for it must have been soon after his return from Ireland. Soon after the death of a cousin he’d been particularly fond of. Soon after I’d noted a change in him.

“He asked after me and my children, and then he came straight out and apologized. He didn’t hem or haw, didn’t make any excuses. Except to say that, though he was ashamed to admit it now, he’d been a bit terrified of marriage, and afraid I’d been trying to control him like his father controlled his mother. That the only marriages he’d ever witnessed had made both parties miserable.” Her eyes were round, as if still finding it all nearly incomprehensible. “But he’d since realized that needn’t be true. That marriage could be a wonderful thing when the two people involved wanted it to be so. And that his cruel actions toward me had probably been the most foolish thing he’d ever done in his entire life. They were certainly the ones he most regretted. That there hadn’t been a day in the past nine years when he hadn’t thought of me and