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“I want to tell you something very important. Are you listening?”
Suddenly he sounded so serious. She felt uneasy. “I’m listening,” she said warily.
“Good. I want you to stay away from Lord Lawson. He is an extremely dangerous man. Do you understand? I am going to tell you something now that you must not repeat to anyone, especially not Lord Lawson.”
“What is it?”
“Lawson killed my brother.”
Weariness and shock combined to make it difficult for her to take in what he had said, but she did her best. “You mean it was an accident?”
“No, I mean he murdered him. Anthony had something Lawson wanted, something that would cause the ruin of his political career, and he killed him for it.”
He was serious.
“Is that what you meant when you said you were going to avenge your brother? You meant Lord Lawson?”
“Yes. I’m going to bring him down, Vivianna. I’m going to see him in a court of law, and then I want him hanged by the neck.”
His voice was cold and deadly, and Vivianna suddenly had no doubt he meant what he said. This was an Oliver she had not seen before and it shocked her. Where was the rake with the lazy smile and mocking stare? Confused, she forced herself to listen as he went on.
“The night Anthony died he was coming to see me, to ask my advice. Some letters had come into his possession, letters concerning his friend Lord Lawson. Anthony did not feel comfortable about them, and he had thus far refused to return them to Lawson. But Celia was there, and Anthony walked out and made his way to Candlewood and the letters were forgotten. But not by Lawson. He followed Anthony there. I don’t know exactly what happened. I suspect he demanded that Anthony return the letters and Anthony again refused. Perhaps he had decided to make them public. Lawson shot him, trying to make it seem like suicide, and then he looked for the letters. Only he couldn’t find them. And over the following weeks and months he continued to search and still he could not find them.”
Vivianna found her voice. “Where are they?”
“At Candlewood. My grandfather had a secret chamber built and Anthony knew of it. I suspect they are in there.”
“And you don’t—”
“No, I don’t know where it is. I plan to take Candlewood apart stone by stone until I find it.”
“What if you don’t?”
Oliver looked down at her, and he was a stranger. All the warmth had gone from him. Suddenly she understood the sense of aloneness she had felt the first time she met him.
“I will. That is why Candlewood must be demolished, stone by stone, brick by brick.”
Candlewood would not be saved. It could never be saved. She had been working toward something that was an impossibility in Oliver’s eyes. Her heart plummeted with the realization, and suddenly she felt like a fool.
“When we met Lord Lawson at the opera…”
“I didn’t want him to know who you were.”
“You pretended to be drunk.” She sat up straighter, cold now, the pleasures of the night forgotten. “You have been pretending all along, haven’t you!”
To her horror, Oliver didn’t deny it. “I didn’t need the complications you brought with you. I wanted to frighten you away, Vivianna, by playing the bad man, but you wouldn’t be frightened. I don’t say I didn’t enjoy it. But now it isn’t safe any longer to continue with our little game. Lawson has his gaze fixed on you. He thinks he can use you to stop me from tearing down Candlewood and finding the letters. He pretends he’s concerned for the orphans, but he isn’t. Don’t ever believe that. Lawson does nothing that does not benefit himself.”
Vivianna was turning the information over in her mind. Well-worn memories, beloved scenes, returned to her, one after the other, but now they looked so different. They had taken on a new aspect, as if she had been looking at them from the wrong angle. When Oliver had followed her to Lady Chapman’s meeting he had been playing a part. When he had taken her to the opera, he had been playacting. When he had made fierce love to her just now, it had been make-believe. He had said it was a game to him, and so it was.
Oliver was no more a lost soul than she! He had bee
n pretending all along, and probably laughing at her behind her back.
“You’re not a rake,” she said tightly, and the pain in her chest made it hard to breathe.
“You’re not happy with your one night in the arms of the lecherous scoundrel Oliver Montegomery?” he mocked. “I thought it was rather fine.”
“Stop it,” she whispered. Anger made her tremble, the heat rising up her throat and into her face. Tears blossomed in her eyes, but she blinked them back furiously. He would not make her cry, he would not.
