Wed Him Before You Bed Him (26 page)

“We were just trying to figure out how to get to the
magistrate's office to see you,” David explained. “We have new information about a possible suspect—”

“Actually, my lord,” Pinter interrupted, “I came to ask if you would come with me.”

“Why?” Giles demanded.

Pinter's usual stoic expression gave nothing away. “Some new evidence has come to light, and we require his lordship's help in evaluating it.”

“My
help
?” David said, trying to ignore the apprehension stealing through his veins. “That's all?”

“Yes. If you will accompany me, sir—”

“What about the press?” Giles demanded.

“I brought men to restrain the crowds. My carriage is directly in front.” When David called for both their coats, Pinter added, “I believe that Mr. Masters will want to remain here.”

David narrowed his eyes on the runner. “Why?”

“Because if you will allow it, sir, I would like some of my men to conduct a search of the premises, specifically your study and your wife's bedchamber. With Mr. Masters in attendance, of course.”

The very idea of watchmen and constables crawling over his house made David's heart stop. But he knew that Pinter's “request” was only a courtesy. The magistrate's office had the right to search where it would, especially in cases of a crime. Besides, they would find nothing to incriminate him, and it seemed best not to rouse the authorities' suspicions any further.

He turned to Giles. “Stay here. I'm sure I'll return shortly.”

As he and Pinter headed off in the carriage, David was surprised to see how efficiently his men kept the crowds at
bay. Even David knew how few men were assigned to the magistrate's office, yet they made do with the ones they had.

During the short trip, David apprised Pinter of George's disappearance and the significance of that. It galled him to make his private affairs known, but this was no time to be reticent.

David was so engrossed in laying out his theory about George and a possible connection to the moneylenders his wife had apparently frequented that he didn't realize they weren't headed to the magistrate's office until they turned down a familiar street.

His gaze shot to Pinter. “Where are we going?”

Pinter was watching him with that hawkish look of his. “To the office of Mr. Joseph Baines.”

God help him. They had uncovered his connection to Baines. “Why are we going there?” he asked in a hollow voice.

“I believe you know why.”

Of course he knew why. They'd probably traced the fake codicil back to Baines through his own solicitor. And now they wanted to know how that had come about and why.

Damn the man for being so good at uncovering all the wrong things. The man couldn't find Sarah's killer, but he could bloody well turn David's life upside down.

They entered the building in silence, with David wondering how much Baines had told Pinter. The solicitor was loyal to him, but this was an unusual circumstance, and Baines couldn't afford to find himself accused of having any part in Sarah's death.

It was only when they passed a runner posted in the hall outside Baines's office that David started to feel truly
uneasy. And once they entered and he spotted Mr. Keel, the night clerk, David realized that Pinter had brought him here for another reason entirely.

As David groaned, Baines hurried forward. “I'm sorry, my lord. When Mr. Keel saw your name in the paper this morning, he felt he'd best come forward. He went to the authorities without my knowledge. I'd been trying to reach you, but—”

“Lord Kirkwood?” came a new voice from behind David.

He froze. No, it couldn't be. What was
she
doing here?

“What's this all about?” Charlotte continued as he whirled to face her. Her face showed clear bewilderment. “A clerk sent me a note saying that Mr. Baines had something to discuss with me, so I hurried here, but—”

“
I
sent you that note,” Pinter put in smoothly. “I wanted you both present to hear Mr. Keel's story.”

“You bastard,” David hissed. His carefully constructed house of cards was tumbling down about his ears. “She has nothing to do with this.”

“I beg to differ, sir,” Pinter said. “According to Mr. Keel, she has everything to do with this.”

As Charlotte stared at him, he could see her withdrawing, rethinking things. Confound it all to hell. He was going to lose her. He could see it already.

The time had come for his reckoning.

And there wasn't a bloody thing he could do to stop it.

C
harlotte could not breathe. The look of guilt on David's face gave her pause. And why would Mr. Pinter have wanted him here at Mr. Baines's office? She knew Mr. Keel in passing, but what possible story could he have to tell? Unless David
was
Cousin Michael…

No, how could he be? She had already dismissed the possibility for obvious reasons.

Mr. Pinter took over, bidding them to sit with a politeness that belied the cool calculation in his dark eyes. After everyone else took a seat, he sat down where he could see everyone.

“Mr. Keel,” he then said to the night clerk, “I would be most obliged if you would repeat for our benefit what you told me earlier.”

The clerk looked none too eager to speak. “Begging your pardon, Lord Kirkwood,” Mr. Keel said as he worked his hat through his trembling hands, “but I didn't think it right that you should be accused of murder when you were here with me the night Lady Kirkwood died.”

Charlotte's immediate relief that David was exonerated was very brief. Why was David so chummy with Cousin Michael's solicitor that he would come to his office at night? A painful knot formed in her belly. Especially since David would not even look at her, but stared blindly at the wall.

“And why was his lordship here with you?” Mr. Pinter prodded.

Though Charlotte now suspected what the man's answer would be, it still rocked her when he said, “He was delivering a letter for Mrs. Harris.”

Only one person sent letters from Mr. Baines's office. She could feel Mr. Pinter's assessing gaze on her, but she did not care. All she could do was stare at David, hoping for him to deny it, to say this was a huge mistake and she had misunderstood.

But it explained too much—his sudden reappearance in her life, the codicil to the will, the way she kept sensing that he was holding something back from her. It explained why he had said his “alibi” involved protecting a “friend.”

Because his so-called friend was his own alter ego.

“
You
are Cousin Michael,” she whispered.

He squared his shoulders, then nodded tersely.

And her heart broke. All this time, he had been lying to her, deceiving her,
manipulating
her…While she had been too much a fool to see it. “I-I considered that it might be you, but it made no sense. Why would you do it? I deserve to know that, at least.”

He met her gaze with one so haunted that it made a fist close around her heart. “Which part do you want to know?”

“All of it! Why you lied to me, when you knew how desperately I wanted to know the truth. Why you continued the role even after I…” As she saw Mr. Pinter's eyes narrow, she caught herself. “After I learned there was no bequest from Sarah. And why you started the cursed masquerade in the first place.”

Why you made me fall in love with you all over again.

No, she did
not
love him. How could she love such a liar?

“When you approached me as my husband's ‘cousin,'” she went on, “it was only four years after that stupid letter of mine went to the papers. I cannot imagine why you would have let me rent your valuable piece of property—”

“Ah, but the property doesn't belong to him, does it, my lord?” Mr. Pinter broke in.

She had almost forgotten that the Bow Street runner was there, but clearly he had learned everything about her association with Cousin Michael. “Of course it belongs to him,” she told Pinter, then glanced at David. “Doesn't it?”

“Actually, Mrs. Harris,” Mr. Baines put in with a pained expression, “the property belongs to Mr. Pritchard. His lordship won a lien on it in a card game and is allowed only the rents for a period of fifteen years.”

She shot the solicitor a glare as she realized how very much the man had kept from her. Then his words sank in. Fifteen years. It had been nearly fourteen and a half years since…

God help her. She felt another blow to her heart.

She shot David an accusing glance. “Is that why you invented the codicil and approached me about moving the school? Because you knew you would no longer be my landlord?”

“Look here, Charlotte—”

“
Answer
me, curse you!”

He nodded, his eyes dark with guilt. “Pritchard has said he'll evict you when the fifteen years is up. I could think of no other way to—”

“How about telling me the truth?” she bit out. “Instead of all this folderol about finding another property? If you had told me I was about to be evicted, I would not have vacillated about moving the school.”

“But you would not have taken my money either, would you?” he pointed out. “You would have been trapped, unable to get past your pride and unable to afford moving to another location. I couldn't risk that. I didn't want you to lose your school.”

“Do not blame this on me,” she said, unable to keep the hurt from her voice.

David threaded his fingers through his hair, distractedly. “I didn't mean to. I just…didn't want you to suffer.” He released a shuddering breath. “And I didn't want to reveal why I started the masquerade. I didn't want you to know the truth.”

“That you were a friend to me? That you gave me money to start the school all those years ago and helped me with the rents?” Charlotte said in bewilderment.

David flinched. Glancing at Mr. Pinter, he hesitated, as if considering what he should say.

But right now, Charlotte didn't care about Pinter or Sarah's death or any of it. “Tell me all of it, curse you,” she bit out. “Why did you become Cousin Michael?”

“Because I wanted to revenge myself on you.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Godwin was right, damn his eyes. He just got the timing wrong.”

Revenge
. The fist around her heart tightened painfully. “I don't understand.”

“I know. Why do you think I didn't tell you?” He leaned forward, his eyes alight with remorse. “I was so angry at you back then. When I heard you were teaching in that expensive school in Chelsea, it infuriated me that you were on the road to pursuing your dream while my life was still in a shambles. So I thought…”

He dropped his gaze. “I thought I'd offer you a loan and
a cheap rent so you could establish your academy. Once you had it going, I'd intended to demand full payment on the loan and raise the rents beyond your ability to pay. Then I could watch you fail. Watch you suffer. The way you made me suffer with your letter to the papers.”

“Why do you keep talking about a letter to the paper?” Mr. Pinter demanded.

Both Charlotte and David ignored him.

She reeled from the idea that he could have set out to destroy her in such a calculating manner. “You…you hated me that much?” she choked out. “You thought it acceptable to publicly humiliate me?”

“The way you did me? Yes!” As if realizing how heated his words were, David let out an exasperated sigh. “Remember, back then I didn't know the truth of what had happened that night at my estate, Charlotte.”

“I can understand your wanting to strike at
me,
” she said, tears clogging her throat. “But your plan would have hurt others, too. I had students, teachers, people who depended on me—”

“As my family depended on me, before you ruined my hopes of a decent marriage!” When she recoiled, he groaned. “Damn it, I am only explaining how I felt
then.
How I justified my stupid plan to myself. At the time it seemed…fair.”

“When did it stop seeming fair?” she whispered in a hollow voice. “Or has the past month just been the culmination—”

“Don't be ridiculous,” he said in a low, aching voice. “The last month was heaven for me. And hell. I wanted to tell you, especially after I realized—” He broke off with a frustrated glance at Mr. Pinter. “But I knew what you'd think.”

“That I do not know you at all?” She couldn't hold back her tears any longer. As they trickled down her cheeks, she shot him an accusing glance. “That the man I thought was my friend was merely a figment of my fancy? Instead, I find he is exactly the sort of cruel and manipulative man my father was.”

He recoiled. “No! I never carried out my plan.”

“Why not, when you went to so much trouble?”

“Because of your letters. I wanted to hate you, but you just…wouldn't let me. From that very first letter, I saw the girl I'd once fallen in love with, and I couldn't stay angry. It took only a handful of them before I decided I could never go through with it. After that…”

“You pretended to be my friend.”

“I
was
your friend, damn it! I still am. Nothing has changed, not for me.”

And everything had changed for her. He had lied to her repeatedly, manipulated her, kept important information from her, and for what? So he could save the school? But why?

Mr. Pinter cleared his throat. “How exactly did your wife fit into this cozy arrangement, my lord?”

David turned a fulsome glare on Mr. Pinter. “She had nothing to do with it! I married Sarah for her fortune, and she married me for my title. It's a common arrangement, and one that I'm sure you already know or you wouldn't be hounding me like this.”

The runner's eyes narrowed. “I am trying to get at the truth, my lord.”

A harsh laugh escaped David. “By unveiling my secrets to a woman who had nothing to do with my wife's death?”

“Are you sure?” Mr. Pinter said coolly.

When the runner turned his hard gaze on Charlotte, a chill of horror passed through her. “What are you saying, sir?”

“You and his lordship have clearly been…friendly…for some years. How can I be sure that you did not conspire together to kill his wife?”

“I did not even know that the man I corresponded with was Lord Kirkwood!” she protested. “How could I possibly have ‘conspired' with him? Besides, didn't you bring us here to establish that he has an alibi?”

“Yes. But I am talking about
you
now, not him. What is
your
alibi?” Mr. Pinter asked.

David shot to his feet. “You've lost your bloody mind if you think Mrs. Harris would ever hurt a fly. She sure as hell wouldn't have killed my wife!”

“Can you be certain of that?” Mr. Pinter cast her a cynical glance. “How do you know this isn't all an act? That she found out that this Cousin Michael fellow was you, and then set out to gain you for herself by eliminating your wife?”

“How dare you, sir!” Charlotte hissed. “Sarah was my pupil. I would never have hurt her. And believe me, if I had known Lord Kirkwood was Cousin Michael, I would never have accepted the fake legacy he offered me in the first place.”

“Perhaps you saw the means to save your school,” Mr. Pinter said, “and jumped at the chance to get a bit of your own back against him while gaining his wife's money.”

Charlotte gaped at him. “That is the most appalling accusation I have ever heard!”

“And one that will instantly be refuted by her letters to me,” David ground out. “If you want them—”

“What do you think my men are searching your home for, my lord?”

“They won't find them there.” A muscle ticked in David's jaw. “Mr. Baines has them. I did not want to risk my wife's coming across them and revealing my secret to the world. He also has all of my original letters to Mrs. Harris, since I had the clerk copy them out for me to keep her from recognizing my handwriting.”

Oddly enough, that little deception cut her to the heart. He had gone to that length to keep her from knowing the truth? What kind of decent, honest man wove such a web of deception?

“Mr. Baines,” she said, wanting only to be done with this madness so she could leave here, “if you would give my letters to Mr. Pinter, I would be most grateful. Now, gentlemen, I ask that you excuse me. I need to get back to my school.”

As she rose, Mr. Pinter rose, too. “I'm not done with you, Mrs. Harris. I still have not heard your alibi for that night.”

“I was at the school!”

“And did anyone see you?”

She thought back to the night of Sarah's death, when her pupil Lucy had run off with Diego Montalvo. She had retired early. “Not after I went to bed.”

“What time was that?” he asked in a hard voice. “And remember, I will speak to your servants to confirm whatever you tell me.”

“Nine o'clock.”

“So you had plenty of time to slip out, ride to London, accost Lady Kirkwood in her bedchamber, and make sure she did not pose a threat to your romance with Lord Kirkwood.”

Charlotte could only gape at the man, astonished that he could manufacture such a devious character for her.

“That's enough!” David snapped. “I wish to speak to you in the hall, Mr. Pinter. Now!”

Though the runner raised one eyebrow at David's imperious tone, he gave a faint nod and headed for the door. He paused there to look back at Mr. Baines. “Gather those letters up for me, will you, sir? I'll send a man in to help you with it. We don't want any of them to go missing.”

Mr. Baines bristled at the man's insinuation but wisely held his tongue until Mr. Pinter and David had left the room. Then he came to sit beside Mrs. Harris. “I am so sorry, madam. I never dreamed they would accuse
you
of anything.”

“It is not your fault,” she said stiffly. “It's your employer's.”

Now that Mr. Pinter was gone, the full ramifications of his accusations hit her. It was even worse than she'd feared when she'd told David that the authorities might think they had conspired together. Back then, she hadn't known that there would be proof of a previous friendship.

Lord help her, what was she to do?

The other runner entered the room, but they both ignored him.

“His lordship has long regretted the plan he threw together in such anger, I assure you,” Mr. Baines went on. “He has been going mad these past few weeks, trying to figure out a way to save your school without alerting you to his identity.”