then started when he found it clammy and cold.
“Beth, are you ill?”
Beth’s eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t look at him. “No.”
Ian stopped, a tiny headache threading through his brain. He always had difficulty deciphering what another person was feeling, but Beth’s distress penetrated even the fog in his brain.
“Did you fall?” He sat down on the bed next to her.
“Were you frightened? Tell me.”
Beth sat up, her beautiful hair tumbling across her full breasts. “Ian, please explain to me what happened that night in High Holborn.”
He started shaking his head before she finished. So many people wanted to discuss it—Fellows, Hart, Beth. Hart had asked again today what Ian had done, had pried open a box in Ian’s memory that he wanted to keep locked forever.
Beth’s fingers bit down on his. “Please. I need to know.”
“You don’t.”
“I do. I need to understand.”
“Leave it alone.” His words rang harshly in the stillness. “I want you to look at me like you did when you first met me, before you knew.”
“How can I? Why can’t I know? I’m your wife.” She let go of his hand. “You were never going to tell me, were you, until Fellows let it out? How long would you have kept silent?”
“As long as I could.”
“Do you trust me so little?”
Ian looked away, his attention caught by the sharp shadow of leaves against the window shade. “With this, I trust no one.”
“Except Hart.”
“Especially
“Do you think I’d tell anyone what you say to me?” He flicked his gaze to her and then away, but not before he saw her blue eyes full of unshed tears. “Fellows asked you to.”
“And you believe I would? I know you do. But Fellows can’t put me on the witness stand, can he? A wife isn’t considered a credible witness against her husband. I heard you explain this to Hart.”
Ian’s heart raced, his mind going over every single word he’d exchanged with Hart at the folly. She’d been there, she must have been riding by, she’d stopped to listen. “Where was Cam? Was he with you? Did he hear?” Beth’s eyes widened. “No, his horse threw a shoe. I heard, no one else. I heard you talk about her blood. I heard you tell Hart you married me to keep Fellows from using me against you. Is that true?” She bleated a short laugh. “Of course it’s true. You don’t know how to lie.”
Memories rushed at him, hideous and vivid. Walking back into the room to see Sally’s white body against the sheets, the surprise on her face, the blood soaking her limbs, her dyed red hair snaking across the pillows in patterns similar to Beth’s. “I couldn’t help her. I failed her.” He’d failed Lily Martin, too, the lady who’d been in the hall outside the room, terror in her eyes. She’d seen. She’d known. She couldn’t be allowed to tell the constable. He’d hidden Lily away for five years, but in the end, she’d died. And now Beth. If she knew, she’d be in danger, too. “Help me understand,” Beth pleaded. “Tell me why you’re so afraid, why you’d do this to me.” “I should have known. I should have stopped it.”
“Stopped what? Known what?”
Ian closed his hands on Beth’s shoulders until she winced. Then he deliberately removed his grip and stood. “Cease asking me.”
“Ian, I’m your wife. I promise I will not run off to Inspector Fellows to tell him everything you say. I told you that the day he asked me.”
“I don’t give a damn about Inspector Fellows.” She laughed, and he couldn’t understand what she thought was funny. “Yet you married me to keep him from pestering me for all your secrets. What other reason would you marry a naive widow long in the tooth?”
He had no idea what she was talking about. “I married you to keep him from you. To keep idiots like Mather from you. Hart’s name protects his family, so I made you family, a Mackenzie. No one touches the Mackenzies.” “Because the mighty Duke of Kilmorgan has such pull with the Home Office?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes were so blue. Tears made them even more cornflower blue, breathtakingly blue. His headache stabbed him through the temple, and he rubbed at it.
“I want to help you find out what happened,” Beth said.
“Help you put it to rest.”
“How can I? It’s tearing you apart; it’s tearing me apart. If you tell me, if we think about it, maybe we can decide what really happened.”
Ian jerked away. “This is not a bloody detective story.” She bit her lip, white teeth on red, and his desire rose swiftly, inconveniently. But if he made love to her, if he rode her until she couldn’t breathe, she’d stop asking questions, she’d stop thinking, she’d stop looking at him. “I lived in the East End,” she was saying, her voice floating past him. “I knew game girls, and they didn’t resent me—at least, most of them didn’t. Perhaps some of them knew Sally Tate, knew who would follow her and strike her down, perhaps in a jealous rage . . . .”
Ian finally focused on her words. He grabbed her wrists. “No!” He stared into her eyes . . . so blue, so beautiful, like the skies in the middle of summer.. . .
He slammed his eyes closed. “Stay out of it. Leave them out of it. Why do you think Lily Martin died?” Silence. At last Ian opened his eyes to find Beth still in front of him, her lips slightly parted. Her breasts swelled above the chemise, soft and white and inviting his touch. “She died because she saw too much,” he said. “I couldn’t save her. I don’t want to find you like that, too.” Beth’s eyes widened. “You think he’ll strike again, then?” Ian’s breath hurt his lungs. He jerked away, fists clenching until his nails creased his palms. “Leave it the hell alone. This has nothing to do with you.”
“You made me your wife. It has everything to do with me.”
“And as my wife, you are to obey me.”
Beth put her hands on her hips, her brows rising. “You don’t know much about marriage, do you?”
“I know nothing about it.”
“It’s sharing burdens. It’s the wife helping her husband, the husband helping his wife.. ..”
“For God’s sake.” Ian spun away, unable to stand still. “I’m not your Thomas, your vicar. I never will be. I know you’ll never look at me the way you looked at him.” She stared at him, white-faced. “What do you mean?” He turned back. “You look at me like I’m the Mad Mackenzie. It’s in the back of your mind all the time.” He tapped the side of her head. “You can never forget about my madness, and you pity me for it.”
Beth blinked a few times but remained silent. His Beth, who could chatter on about anything and everything, was robbed of words.
Because Ian spoke the truth. She’d been madly in love with her first husband. Ian understood about love, even if he couldn’t feel it. He’d seen his brothers devastated by love and grief, and he knew Beth had been, too. “I can never give you what he gave you.” lan’s chest hurt. “You loved him, and I know that can never be between us.”
“You’re wrong,” she whispered. “I love you, Ian.” He pressed his clenched fists to his breastbone. “There’s nothing in here to love. Nothing. I
“Ian.”
The rest of his body wanted Beth and couldn’t understand why the anger held him back. He wanted to stop this stupid argument and spread her on the bed. Her agitated breath lifted her breasts high, and her hair straggled across her white shoulders. If he rode her, she’d stop nattering about the murder and love. She’d just be his.
