Page 28 of Lady Arabella’s Reluctant Hero

He released his hold quickly, but she could not miss the anger he was trying to keep in check.

"I am sorry," he said. "Go on."

She drew a breath.

"And that has been my life for the past two years. I climbed out the window of the inn that night and rode home in a hired chaise. I never went back. But Pierce— He had what he needed. The marriage was on a parish register in Buckinghamshire, and he had only to produce it to ruin me and my family. So since then, he has told me what to do. And I have done it."

The duchess shifted in her seat. "What sorts of things has he asked of you?"

Arabella's eyes closed. Mrs. Marbury. Clarissa. "Information, mostly. Things I might overhear in drawing rooms, things I might be told by older women who liked me, things I might gather from suppers at my father's club. Sometimes other things. Cruelty, when it served his purposes. Cutting someone out or…" Shame rose up so hot and sickening she could barely finish. "Or spreading rumors."

"I see," the duchess said.

There was no judgment in her tone, but Arabella knew how they must see her. It took everything in her not to shrink back in her seat.

A small silence. Arabella couldn't bring herself to look at the duchess. She also did not look at Lord Alderton. In fact, she did not know how she would ever look at either of them ever again.

Some part of her was still reeling from the fact that she'd just confessed the very secret she'd spent two years trying to bury.

Had it been a mistake? Maybe. It was possible she'd just gone and ruined herself before Mr. Pierce even could.

But also…

She couldn't deny a softening in her chest. A sort of…relief at having said it out loud.

For the first time in two years, she wasn't the only one to know about Pierce and his hold on her. They might judge her. Truly, they ought to judge her. But she wasn't the only one who knew anymore.

"And the incidents of late?" the duchess said. "In the garden, and your encounter at the hotel yesterday…"

Arabella sighed. "He told me three months ago that the most recent task would be the last. That he would have the marriage annulled and that I would be free. He—" For a moment, she could not go on. "He told me yesterday that this had never been true. That the one more would always have been one more. That I should not have been so foolish as to have believed him. He gave me a new assignment instead."

She closed her eyes. "He is never going to let me go."

The room was silent.

Then the duchess spoke in a cold voice Arabella did not recognize. "He very much is going to let you go, my dear. Whether he knows it yet or not."

Arabella opened her eyes.

The duchess was sitting in her chair with the same composure as always. There was nothing visible on her face. But her voice just now…

Well. It was honestly a little frightening. Arabella shifted in her seat.

"The men in the parlor," the duchess said. "Did you hear any of their names?"

Arabella tried to think. It was easy enough to bring herself right back to that moment, on the staircase, trying not to weep. "A Mr. Smith was mentioned," she said. "I do not know who he was."

"Anyone else?"

"Linley." She shuddered as she recalled Pierce's response to that name. "That was the other one."

When she looked at the duchess's expression, she nearly shuddered all over again.

"What did you say?" the duchess asked.

"Linley?" She wasn't sure why it came out as a question. But truly, the duchess was intimidating at times. "One of the men said 'once Linley's done, we shall have the funds we need.' I do not know what he meant by when he's done. I will say, Pierce reacted harshly when I mentioned him yesterday."

Without thinking, her fingers came up to her throat.