A Daring Liaison(76)

He gave a negligent shrug. “Or draw her out. Did you ever think our culprit might be a woman, Georgiana?”

“I...I never considered that. Why would a woman want my husbands dead?”

“Jealousy? Dislike?” His voice had been offhand, but it lowered a moment later. “To do you a favor and extricate you from unpleasant or unwanted marriages?”

She had never seen Charles in such a strange mood, almost as if he were trying to tell her something but did not want to give it voice. “Why?”

He released her hand and stepped back, then snatched her wrapper from the foot of her bed and tossed it to her. “Put your wrapper on, Georgiana. I cannot think with you standing there half naked.”

Embarrassed, she looked down at her sheer lawn nightgown. It did reveal rather more of her than was modest. She slipped her arms into the sleeves and secured the tie. “Sorry,” she murmured.

He went to stand in front of the banked fire. “Have my servants made you comfortable?”

“They...they’ve been most hospitable. Clara and Sanders are settling in well. Clara is taken with your bathroom. She says the tub is the largest she’s ever seen.”

One corner of Charles’s mouth quirked in the semblance of a smile. “There is another in the servant’s wing, though the tub is not as large.”

“She will be delighted, I am sure.” She looked around and tried to hide her nervousness and the questions that rose to her mind. Was it odd that Charles had not come to bed with her but had preferred to spend the night in a chair?

She turned to see if there was a bell-pull by her bed. “Do you want tea, Charles?”

He was silent so long she turned to look at him. He rested one elbow on the mantel and was watching her with what she could only describe as detached curiosity. “I’ve told the servants to stay away unless I call them.”

Things were not going well at all. Perhaps it would be best to be blunt. “Why do you not tell me what is wrong, Charles? What do you want of me?”

“Answers, Georgiana.”

A feeling of dread settled in her heart. For all his control, she now understood that Charles was quite angry. His earlier comment, that perhaps the killer, if there was one, was a woman, suddenly became clear. “Do you think... Can you be suggesting that I killed my husbands?”

“The possibility crossed my mind.”

“Before or after our marriage? Because if you suspected me before, Charles, you’d have been insanely reckless to have gone through with it.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“By whom?”

“Never mind that, Georgiana. Just answer the question. Was it you?”

She gripped the bedpost to brace herself and sat on the side of the bed before her knees could give out. He thought she was a killer! He thought her capable of the most heinous crime possible. He had seduced her, slept with her and now married her, and he could believe such a thing of her?

Tears stung in her eyes. That he could even ask....

“Would you believe my answer? Or would you require proof?”

“Proof, if you have it.”

“I do not. How could I have proof of something I have not done?”

“Then you are saying you are innocent?”

Something snapped in her mind and her anger bubbled up from deep inside. “That you can even ask such a question disgusts me. Why did you marry me, if you think me guilty of such a crime?”

He spread his arms wide in a bewildered gesture. “I think I may not have had all the facts when I made that decision.”

She glanced toward her dressing table. He’d said the little journal she’d been reading was in the drawer. Placed there by Charles. Had he read it? She had thought he’d be pleased to learn she had not jilted him her first season. Instead he had become a suspicious tyrant.

“You are thinking I read your aunt’s journal.” His voice was deep and steady, and she realized this was a part of him she’d never seen before. “You are wondering how much I know, are you not?”

She met his stare and did not flinch. “Did you?”

“You answer my question first, Georgiana. Did you rid yourself of your husbands?”

A deep well of pain churned inside her. He’d never believed in her. He deserved to believe whatever he pleased. “Will you be able to sleep knowing I am in the next room? Wondering if you will be my next victim? Waiting for my footsteps?”