"I am going nowhere with you." She looked frantically up and down the street, but Charlotte had disappeared, presumably into another shop, and their coachman had not yet returned to pick them up.
"And why is that?" he asked. "I suppose you think I am going to try to kidnap you, or knock you over the head with my walking stick and stuff you into my coach. That would be rather dramatic, if I may say. Foolish, too. Your husband would pursue us without a doubt."
She stopped and faced him. "Good day, Mr. Rushton."
"But you cannot say good day to me yet," he replied, continuing to follow her when she started off again. "You haven't heard me out."
Barely able to contain her fury, she stopped and waited for him to explain whatever he wished to explain.
He strolled leisurely to the corner and leaned against a lamppost. "I am not going to knock you over the head and kidnap you because there is no need for force on my part. I am quite certain you are going to recognize the error you have made, and come home to me under your own free will."
She strode toward him, chuckling scornfully at his preposterous suggestion. "You cannot possibly be serious. I am in love with my husband."
"Which is precisely why you are going to leave him."
All at once, sickening dread seeped into her core. "Leave him? I would never do that. Not in a thousand years."
His brown eyes darkened with resolve. "I have been waiting a long time for you to be my wife, Rebecca, and that is how things are going to be. You are going to leave your husband tonight and ask for an annulment."
"An annulment! You are mad to even suggest it!"
He pushed away from the post and approached her slowly. "A divorce, then. I don't care. And I am not mad. You are going to do what I ask, and do it without a fight, or else your husband will be involved in the scandal of the decade, along with you-and worst of all, your father."
"What scandal?"
She thought of the letter she had written to her father, asking why he was afraid of Mr. Rushton. She had not yet received a reply.
He leaned closer and rubbed the back of a cold finger down her cheek. "Here is your insight, darling. Your father is not the sick, weak man you believe him to be. He is in fact a cold-blooded killer, and if you do not leave your husband and return to Creighton Manor to be my wife, I will expose your father, and I might even hear about some unfortunate accident involving your husband's early demise. Or any other member of his family, for that matter."
Her entire being wrenched with horror. "You are threatening to kill my husband, the heir to the Duke of Pembroke, or members of that esteemed family? I shall report you to the magistrate this very instant."
"That would be pointless," he said, unruffled. "I'd only deny it, and a day or two later, evidence of your father's ghastly crime would appear on that same magistrate's desk. Then the esteemed Pembroke family would not be quite so well regarded, because of their connection to you."
She shook her head. "There was no crime. There could not have been."
She wished her father had answered her letter.
Rushton handed her a note with the Creighton family crest printed at the top. It was the stationery from her father's desk, dated five years earlier. Written upon it was a note to a jeweler, asking about repairs to a bracelet. It was signed: Miss Serena Fullarton…
"What is this?"
"It identifies the victim," he casually said. "Your father gave that bracelet to her, and she is buried with it on his estate. I know exactly where."
Her stomach clenched. "Is this your handwriting?"
She knew it was not her father's…
"No, it is hers."
A sickening lump lodged in her gut as he plucked the note out of her hands and slipped it back into his pocket.
"Accept it, Rebecca. You do not know everything about your father."
She had no answer to that.
"If you want to protect your husband," he said, "leave him. Flee the palace in the night like you did when you left home, and write him a letter explaining that you made a mistake, and that you love me."
"And you think he will just let me go? Has it not occurred to you that I might be carrying his child-the ducal heir?"
Mr. Rushton turned away and started walking toward his coach, parked on the other side of the street. He glanced over his shoulder as he spoke. "For your sake, and for your father's, you better pray that you are not. And if you are, it had better be a girl. But do not worry. There will be other heirs in your future. I will see to that. Now off you go. You need to go home and pack your things."
He stepped into his coach, and the driver closed the door behind him. As soon as the man climbed up onto the seat, the door opened again, and Mr. Rushton peered out at her.
"By the way," he said, "I liked the hat with the yellow feathers. Purchase it when you go back inside and bring it home with you. I expect to see you wearing it with a smile, at my door, by tomorrow, midnight."
With that, he shut the door, and his shiny black coach rolled away.
Chapter 21
That evening after dinner, Devon made his way through the dimly lit palace corridors to his wife's bedchamber. Rebecca had been quiet and without smiles at the table during the meal, and afterward had insisted on speaking with him privately. He knew something was wrong. He intended to find out what it was.
Arriving at her room, he knocked gently. There was no answer, so he knocked a second time. He waited, then lifted his fist to knock a third time when the door finally opened, and his gaze fell upon his beautiful wife, already dressed for bed. He was relieved to see her, though he did not quite understand why.
"I've decided I prefer the secret passageways," he said. "When I use them, I do not have to wait so long at your door."
With notable wariness, she stepped back and invited him in.
He entered the room. A hot fire was blazing in the hearth. He stood for a moment looking at the flames, then turned to her.
"Rebecca, you were not yourself at dinner this evening."
She closed the door behind him, went to the bed and climbed onto it. "I know."
He studied her tentative posture, her fingers fiddling with the coverlet, the absence of light in her eyes. "Tell me what is wrong," he said. "It is obvious you are troubled. Whatever it is, I will fix it."
She frowned at him. "I thought you did not wish to be my hero, yet here you are offering to rescue me again."
A dozen misgivings began to spin through his mind. "Is there something you need to be rescued from? Or someone?" he added, feeling that familiar spark of obsession and jealousy, which he did not welcome. It made him feel like he was not in control.
She slid off the bed, covered her cheeks with her hands, and strode to the opposite corner of the room. "It is not easy to say. I am so afraid of what you will think, Devon, but I know I must tell you." She faced him. "I am in a terrible bind, and I do not know how to resolve it."
"What bind?" he asked, incredulous that something was distressing her so, and that she had not yet told him what it was.
"I…I encountered Mr. Rushton in the village today."
His jaw clamped together. "He spoke to you."
"Yes."
"What did he want?"
She stared uneasily at him, then dropped her hands to her sides. "Me. He still wants me."
Devon labored to keep his breathing under control. "But you are my wife."
"That doesn't seem to be much of an obstacle as far as he is concerned. I think he is insane."
Devon paused, swallowing hard. "Why did you not tell me about this sooner?"
"I am telling you now."
"But why did you not tell me before now?" He heard the irritation explode in his voice and knew she heard it too.