She shook her head, utterly bewildered. “Then why did you undertake an investigation into the circumstances of her death?”
“At the start of this business a little over a year ago, I had to find out if she truly did commit suicide because I was about to announce that our engagement was ended.” The words sounded as though they had been ground between great stones. “Now do you understand? I needed to know if I was, indeed, the cause of her death, if she really could not abide the humiliation of being jilted.”
“Anthony.”
“I’m no hero, Louisa. Now that I know that she was, indeed, murdered, I have to find out if it was my fault that she was placed in harm’s way.”
“How could it possibly be your fault?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps my intention to terminate our engagement led her to take some terrible risk that she would not otherwise have taken. She may have become desperate. All I know is that she was my friend and she had been my fiancée. I have to find out what happened that night.”
“Stop it. Stop it at once.” Appalled, she uncurled from the bed and scrambled to her feet. She grabbed his arm, holding on to him as though he was about to be swept away by a deep current. “Listen closely to me. It does seem quite likely that Fiona was, indeed, murdered, just as you suspect. But whether that proves to be the case or whether it transpires that she took her own life, you are not at fault.”
“You don’t understand. She was so innocent. She had no experience of the world.”
“Innocent or not, if she threw herself into the river because she feared the humiliation of a broken engagement, it was her choice. If she somehow became embroiled in some dangerous affair, it was not through any fault of yours.”
“She was under a great deal of pressure, not only from her family and mine but from Society as well.” He exhaled a weary sigh that sounded as though it had been dredged up from the depths of his soul. “None of us knew that she was so unhappy. If she had just said something to me—”
“It was her decision to take the risk of falling in love with another man.” She paused as a thought struck her. “Which brings up another point. If she was intimately involved with someone else, wouldn’t she have planned to marry him after your engagement to her ended?”
“That is one of the things that made me doubt that she committed suicide,” he admitted. “All the evidence indicates that her lover did care for her. He was not married, so he would have been free to wed her.”
“What happened to him?”
“He blames me for her death and despises me to this day.”
“Julian Easton?” she asked quietly.
Anthony’s brows rose. “How did you reason that out?”
“It was obvious that he carried some great grudge against you.”
“He has never dared to level any outright accusations because he has no proof. Also, I believe he is being cautious because he does not wish to implicate himself in the gossip. Fiona’s family would be furious if he besmirched her memory by letting it be known that he’d had an affair with her before her wedding.”
She tilted her head slightly, thinking. “I hesitate to suggest this, but do you think that there is any chance that Easton harmed her?”
“No.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I looked into that possibility immediately. His whereabouts that night are well documented by several witnesses. He disappeared from the ballroom for a few minutes, but he returned almost immediately. He later left with friends and went straight to his club. He remained there, playing cards, until dawn. Fiona’s body was pulled out of the river at about that time. There simply wasn’t time for him to murder her and dispose of the body.”
“But Easton is deliberately encouraging everyone to believe the worst of you.”
“He believes she did commit suicide, and he blames me for driving her to it. Keeping the gossip alive is his notion of vengeance.”
She thought about the scene in the street in front of the Lorrington house. “Actually, I think he may well blame himself.”
Anthony frowned. “What do you mean?”
“If he loved her, he may be trying to convince himself and everyone else that you are the culprit because he wants to avoid the guilt he is no doubt feeling for having failed to protect her.”
Anthony shrugged and finished fastening his shirt. “All I know is that he hates me.”
“He has no right to make you the scapegoat,” she announced. “It is not fair. What a tragic muddle it has all become.”
His mouth curved derisively. “Easton and Fiona obviously fell victim to the overwhelming power of an illicit love affair. According to you, there is no more thrilling adventure.”
“You mistake me, sir,” she said sharply. “Illicit passion is obviously a strong force, but we are all equipped with the strength to resist it if we choose to do so.”
“So it is a choice, now, is it?” His brows lifted. “Not an overwhelming force of nature?”
“Do not mock me. I am very serious about this.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
“It is one thing to find a person attractive. It is quite another to decide to act on that attraction and to willfully incur the hazards involved. That is the choice that Fiona made. You had nothing to do with that decision, either.”
He looked at her with an odd expression, but she never learned what he intended to say because at that moment she heard the sound of a carriage in the street.
“Dear heaven, what time is it?” Panicked, she glanced at the clock. “Five-thirty. Good grief, that will be Emma.”
He raised a brow. “Are you certain?”
“Yes. You must leave at once, sir. Emma must not find us together here when I am in this state of undress. Hurry.”
He reached for his boots. “You will note that this is one of the great drawbacks to an illicit affair. One must maintain constant vigilance.”
She grabbed her robe off a hook. “You can’t go out the front door; she will see you. You’ll have to use the back stairs and leave through the garden.”
He picked up his coat. “I hesitate to mention this, but my hat is still in the front hall.”
“Damnation, I forgot all about your hat. We must get it.” She rushed toward the door.
He seemed amused by her rough language, but he followed obediently.
She hurried down the stairs, Anthony directly behind her. Out in the street the carriage had come to a halt.
She snatched Anthony’s hat off the hall table and tossed it at him.
“Go,” she ordered softly.
He caught the hat easily in his left hand. “One question before I leave, Louisa.”
“No questions. There is no time.” She made desperate, shooing motions. “You must hurry, sir. Emma will be at the door any second.”
“I really must have an answer,” he warned, but he started down the hall toward the rear door carrying his hat and coat.
“For heaven’s sake, keep your voice down,” she said, trailing urgently after him.
Anthony opened the back door and halted on the threshold. He turned back.
“My question is, did you experience anything approaching transcendence this afternoon?” he said.
She was horrified by the delay. “For pity’s sake, sir, this is no time to talk about that sort of thing.”
“I am not leaving until I get an answer.”
“Yes, yes, it was all a marvelously transcendent experience. Just as the novelists describe it. Now, leave at once.”
He smiled, kissed her once more, very quickly, very possessively on the mouth, and departed.
She thought she heard him whistling in the garden.
She closed the door as quietly as possible and dashed up the cramped rear stairs. Back in her bedroom, she shut the door, and set about straightening the bed.