Wicked Temptation (Regency Sinners 6)(13)
“The ladies they were each to investigate?”
“Yes.”
“Because they have all been proven innocent?”
“Yes.”
“And Worthington is dead.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes widened. “Because he was investigating my sister as being the traitor?”
A nerve pulsed in Romney’s clenched jaw. “No, I was investigating your sister.”
“Then…” Pru was finding it difficult to think straight with so much information bombarding her at once. Only one thing seemed of relevance. “Does that mean Worthington was investigating me?”
“Yes.”
Her mouth and lips had gone dry. “And the accident?”
“Was not an accident.” Romney confirmed her suspicion. “Someone deliberately tried to injure or kill us.”
Pru gave a dazed shake of her head. “But…but there was a fault with the wheel. And no one could have predicted the carriage would catch fire.”
“No, no one could have predicted that,” Titus acknowledged heavily. “But the shots fired at me when I managed to escape from the carriage were most certainly deliberate. They missed,” he added as Pru continued to stare at him. “They also missed Wessex and instead hit Lady Jocelyn on the evening they attended the theater together. Five weeks ago,” he added pointedly.
Pru rose abruptly to her feet, too agitated to remain seated any longer. “Jocey was not ill but had been shot…?” She had visited Jocey several times, believing her bed-ridden friend to be suffering from a severe cold or influenza.
He nodded. “Wessex was beside himself, believed she would die of the wound. I have never seen him so agitated,” he recalled with a frown. “He has sworn to kill the person who almost took Lady Jocelyn from him.”
“This is… It is all so incredulous.” Pru raised her hands to where her temples had begun to throb. “I truly believed Jocey had the influenza.”
“As you were meant to.”
Pru waited until her head started to clear a little, and with it, the ability to understand exactly what had happened. “Cilla died because you wrongly suspected her of treason?”
Romney’s eyes narrowed at the accusation. “She died because the real traitor became aware of our investigations and decided to add mayhem and confusion to the mix. Worthington died too,” he reminded her huskily.
Pru was well aware of that, and she had already voiced her regrets over that gentleman’s death. But Cilla… Cilla had been an innocent, and the other half of herself. The two of them had shared the womb, been inseparable during their childhoods. As adults, they were never far from each other’s company, and had giggled and flirted with and over the same handsome gentlemen of the ton.
Latterly, two of those gentlemen had been Worthington and Romney.
Gentlemen Pru now knew not to have been showing a romantic interest in the two of them at all, but investigating them both under suspicion of treason.
And she had just allowed… Had let Romney…
“If it is any consolation, I no longer suspect or believe you to be guilty of treason,” he added softly. “In fact, I have had some of my own men in place protecting you day and night since the accident happened.”
“I… That’s…” Her eyes narrowed. “Your words imply someone else does still believe me to be a traitor to my country and the Crown?”
Romney shifted uncomfortably. “I have not discussed the matter with the other Sinners, but I know Stonewell still has his doubts, yes.”
“Damn the Duke of Stonewell. And damn you,” she added vehemently. “God, how I hate you all!”
Romney nodded acceptance of the emotion. “I suspected you might.”
Pru eyed him scornfully. “Is that the reason you pleasured me before telling me these things?”
A nerve pulsed in his clenched and scarred cheek. “As I recall, I inflicted physical pain in order to snap you out of the emotional self-pity you had lapsed into—”
“Self—! How dare you! How dare you, you…you unfeeling bastard!” Pru rushed across the room toward him, her hands raised and her fingers curled into claws.
Titus easily caught hold of Pru’s wrists to stop her nails from making contact with his already scarred flesh. His fingers tightened about those slender bones as he held her at bay. “Whatever you feel toward me now, I am not your enemy.”
“Oh, but you are,” she scorned. “You and all of your Sinners friends have become exactly that.” She gave a disgusted shake of her head. “I knew it. I knew that you and Worthington were somehow responsible for what happened to us.”
“Pru—”
Her glare silenced him. “If you and Worthington had not singled Cilla and me out as being suspects in your investigation, if we had not been traveling in the carriage with you that evening, Cilla would still be alive.”
Titus had no defense against that accusation, because he knew it to be the truth. Admittedly, neither he nor any of the other Sinners had been involved in the initial investigation in which it was decided Priscilla and Prudence Germaine were two of the likely suspects, but neither had any of them questioned those findings.
And perhaps they should have. Perhaps that was where the weakness in this investigation lay all along. He needed to discuss that possibility with Stonewell.