The Swordmaster's Mistress: Dangerous Deceptions Book Two(32)

‘And he enjoyed the kudos that having a young wife on his arm gave him, showing me off to his friends – he was quite frank about it, used to chuckle that he had made Lord This and Mr That green with envy. He said that my first husband had obviously been a scoundrel and it gave him satisfaction to think how angry he would have been to see me married to a viscount.’

‘Did you take lovers, Guinevere?’ Jared asked, deliberately breaking into her softened mood. He hated doing it, but if he was to jolt the truth out of her, even the deepest, darkest, grubbiest secrets, then he had to use every weapon at his disposal.

‘No.’ The response was immediate, fierce, utterly credible.

‘I believe you, but I had to be certain. It was one possible motive to harm you – a discarded lover.’

‘No,’ Guinevere repeated, more moderately now. ‘I owed Augustus too much to do that and, besides, I was… never tempted.’

There was the slightest hesitation. ‘Never?’ Jared probed. Was there some spurned man out there whose disappointment had turned sour and vengeful? ‘You may have to answer questions about relationships at the inquest, it is best to be absolutely prepared for the most intrusive enquiries.’

‘I would never speak of it at the inquest. But once,’ she admitted, her gaze fixed on her hands again. ‘Only once was I tempted.’

‘Who? Is it anyone who might have become obsessed, who might have felt he had received encouragement and was then spurned? Some men can become irrational, imagine encouragement where none has been given.’

‘Oh no.’ She raised her head and there was a rueful smile on her lips. ‘This man is far too intelligent and controlled to either imagine things, or to act rashly. Probably I would have to hurl myself naked into his bed before I got a reaction – and that would probably be to dump me straight out onto the floor.’

‘Guinevere?’ Surely she does not mean..? ‘No,’ he said, more in response to his own reaction than to what she had said.

‘Exactly.’ The smile was still there, reflected now in her eyes, the expression of a woman who has thrown the dice, is expecting Fate to drop a thunderbolt on her head in response and yet feels a lightening of the spirit in acting at last. ‘See? I knew that is what you would say.’

‘For us to become lovers would be the most dangerous thing you could do,’ Jared said, jolted into absolute honesty.

‘You say that almost as though you have thought about it. Of course,’ she corrected herself. ‘Of course you have. You were lecturing me about gossip almost from the start. Silly me, how embarrassing.’ The flags of colour were flying in her cheeks now, but she pressed on, her voice light, as though she was jeering at herself. ‘It must be such an annoyance in your work to have foolish women falling for you all the time.’

‘It is not, because they do not.’ He wanted to get up and pace. Or, more accurately, he wanted to get out of the door and run. Or… No. He made himself stay where he was. ‘And you are not. Foolish, that is.’ Guinevere bit her lip. ‘Or if you are, we are both fools.’ There, he had said it, the worst thing he could have said under the circumstances. He could have pretended not to understand her, he could have snubbed her, he could have shouted Fire! Instead he sat there and told her the truth, that he desired her in return.

A lesser woman would have bridled, asked Whatever can you mean? A lesser woman would have flung herself into his arms. This one swallowed visibly, then, her wide grey-green-blue eyes fixed on his face, said, ‘What do you think we should do about it?’

‘Pretend you are still a married woman,’ Jared said grimly, wondering where the nearest source of ice-cold water was.

‘Difficult, considering that we are attempting to solve my husband’s murder.’

‘We could try visualising Newgate at regular intervals,’ he suggested and then could have bitten his tongue at the sheer horror of the image. ‘Hell.’

To his amazement Guinevere laughed. ‘You are such a comfort to me, Jared.’

‘A what? I am being brutally frank, I have admitted the most dishonourable desires, I have failed to preserve your husband’s life or find the slightest clue as to his murder and you say I am a comfort?’ He did get up then, took three steps away so he could look out of the window and not at those brave eyes or the trembling lip she was biting to control or the body he wanted to possess.

‘You treat me like an adult,’ Guinevere said to his back. ‘For Augustus I was a cross between a beloved granddaughter, his favourite hound and an art object he was proud of acquiring. Everyone else – the doctor, my lawyer, Faith – all want to shield me from reality. I know I am in danger, I know someone has been trying to torture me for weeks and now has killed an old man who was dear to me, and being sheltered and treated like a child makes me want to scream.

‘Augustus once told me I must find someone else when he was gone, while I was still young. I mourn him and I honour his memory – but that does not mean I have to be a hypocrite for wanting the one thing I did not have in my marriage. It is not being disloyal, physical relations were never part of our marriage.’ She broke off abruptly, then said with a ghost of a laugh, ‘My goodness, I am being appallingly frank, am I not?’

‘You have certainly wrecked any hope I have of sleep tonight,’ Jared admitted, and found, as he turned back to her, that he could smile about it too. ‘You are in shock still, which is why you are being so outspoken, I believe. We will maintain our very proper relationship of employer and agent – and we will maintain that until this killer is caught and convicted. And then – ’