“Send her in please,” Jacob responded.
Roxanne hadn’t known what to expect as she entered the room. She’d figured Jacob would introduce her to his bastard half-brother. Or perhaps his brother was staying for supper or for the night, and she’d have to arrange it.
Well, she would do whatever Jacob required. In that, she would be grace personified.
“You needed me, Jacob?” she said as she swept in.
She looked beautiful and glamorous, and she wanted his brother to be envious, but as she assessed the two men, a bit of anxiety flared.
Jacob was seated at the massive desk, and his half-brother was standing behind him, like a sentinel guarding his back.
“Sit down, Roxanne,” was Jacob’s answer to her greeting.
There was a chair positioned directly opposite him, and it was obviously for her. There was a perception in the air that an inquisition was about to start—and she would be the tortured party.
She nearly refused his command, nearly stomped out, but from how Caleb Ralston was glaring, she suspected he might run her down and drag her back.
She strolled over and eased down, taking an inordinate amount of time to adjust her skirt.
“From how you’re glowering,” she said to Jacob, “it appears you’re angry. Have I upset you? If so, let me apologize.”
Caleb Ralston snorted at that, and Jacob said, “This is my brother, Caleb.”
“Hello, sir.”
He didn’t acknowledge her by so much as a dip of his head, and a niggle of panic ignited. Those blasted rumors from Florence! Had they caught up with her?
“Is this about the duel in Italy?”
The question burst out; she couldn’t swallow it down, and Jacob blanched. “No, but that’s probably a subject we’ll have to address before we’re finished.”
“Her foibles in Italy are irrelevant,” Caleb Ralston said. “You have plenty of proof without it.”
Roxanne scowled ferociously. “Mr. Ralston, as you and I are not acquainted, there’s no need for us to converse. I should like to speak to my fiancé in private. Would you leave us?”
“No.”
The arrogant oaf looked so much like Jacob—same eyes, same mouth, same broad shoulders—that it was uncanny. Their bigamist father, Miles, had definitely passed on some strong traits.
“What’s happened?” Roxanne demanded of Jacob, seizing the initiative. “Why are you staring at me with such . . . such malice?”
“Caleb brought me some interesting news.”
“On what topic?”
“On you and some of your history.”
“Your half-brother and I only met this very moment, so I can’t imagine what details he could possibly possess.”
“Tell me about you and Kit.”
“Me and . . . Kit?” She frowned, pretending confusion. “What about us? I loathe him and it’s a mystery to me why you continue to employ him. He’s rude, lazy, and incompetent, and his very presence at the estate is a disservice to you.”
“I’m not talking about your current relationship. I’m talking about a decade ago when you and your mother lived in Telford.”
Her heart fell to her feet. Somehow, she managed to keep her gaze steady. She would deny and deny until she drew her last breath.
“I didn’t know Kit a decade ago.”
“He had kin there for a few years, and he visited them in the summers.”
“I really don’t recall.”
“Don’t you?” The query hung in the air between them, then his expression grew a tad cruel. “I don’t necessarily judge you for your affair. He always viewed himself as quite a rake, and you had to be . . . what? Fifteen? I’m sure the liaison spun out of control before you completely understood what was occurring.”
“I’m a virtuous woman, and I’m astonished that you’d raise such a hideous accusation.”
Jacob chuckled nastily. “Give over, Roxanne. Your sins have been exposed. What’s truly aggravating me is how you’ve practiced your subterfuge. The family previously intended a match for us, yet secretly, you were an unwed mother. You birthed Clara, then you fled the country without a hint to any of us.”
“You’re spewing nonsense.”
He ignored her. “Then, when my mother suggested we finally follow through with the engagement, you raced home to marry me. It must have come as a shock to find Clara here too.”
“I’m totally bewildered as to who you mean.”
Jacob had a method of staring a person down, one he’d perfected on the sailors under his command. Who could stand up to him when he glared like that?
She glanced down at her hands, unable to persist with their visual battle, but her mind was awhirl as she struggled to devise the best path. A fraught silence festered, and Caleb Ralston filled it.
“Joanna James is safe and staying with my fiancée. She told me how you nearly murdered her and Clara. You stabbed her dog, then set their house on fire—with them in it—so they’d die in the blaze.”
“Shame on you, Roxanne!” Jacob scolded. “What were you thinking?”
Before she could stop herself, she said, “I didn’t do anything to the pathetic trollop. It was Kit’s idea.”
Caleb Ralston tsked with offense. “When I meet a woman like you, I wonder how the Good Lord lets some of you bear children.”
“It was Kit’s doing, was it?” Jacob’s tone was even, his deportment calm. They might have been discussing the weather. “I figured you’d blame him for any mischief, but this isn’t about Kit. This is about you and how you’ve deceived me for so long.”
“I didn’t deceive you! How would I have?”
Caleb Ralston butted in again. “Are you deaf, Miss Ralston? Or are you stupid? You had a child out of wedlock, then you snuck to Italy so Jacob wouldn’t learn of it. You paid the midwife to make your daughter disappear. Then, years later, when you discovered she was living in Jacob’s woods, you attempted to murder her all over again.”
“Murder her!” Roxanne huffed. “That’s insane.”
“What precisely,” Jacob asked, “were you assuming Joanna’s aunt did with Clara? Did you suppose she drowned her in a stream? Did you hope she left her in the forest for the fairies?”
“You have no right to criticize me,” she fumed, abandoning any pretense. “You can’t imagine what that period was like.”
“Exactly. I can’t imagine it,
