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She hated him, too—or, rather, she didn’t know him well enough to hate him personally, but she hated what he stood for. He was responsible for the miners’ terrible lot. Underpaid and overworked, they suffered too many accidents like the one that had claimed Tommy’s life. The long hours of crouching and crawling in narrow tunnels had stunted the growth of some and distorted their bodies. Others had miner’s lung, the disease that had killed her father. Yet the earl lived in luxury, apparently indifferent to their difficult existence.
“Miss McTavish?” he prompted when she didn’t speak.
“Someone paid my father to fire Blackmoor Hall.” She stated it baldly and then looked away to avoid seeing the satisfaction on his face. “He took the money… but he could not go through with the agreement.” She faced him, hoping to convince him of something she was no longer sure of herself. “He did not set the fire.”
“And how can you be so sure?” The tension in Lord Druridge’s body reminded Rachel of a hound straining at the end of a leash, only he was, at the same time, master, holding himself in check.
“Because he told me so.”
“Would he readily admit to murder, Miss McTavish?”
“Why would he deny it? He knew he wasn’t long for this earth.”
“To protect you from the taint of his deeds, perhaps?”
“No. He told me about the money so he could die with a clear conscience. Why admit only half the truth? Leave something far worse to harrow up his soul?”
Druridge seemed skeptical, but didn’t press the point. “Who gave him the money?”
“He wouldn’t say, so for all I know”—Rachel clenched her hands in her lap—“the money could have come from you.”
The earl gave an incredulous laugh. “You think I tried to hire your father to fire my home and kill my wife and, when he refused, did it myself?”
Superstitiously fearing the earl’s hypnotic eyes, Rachel once again dropped her gaze to the floor. “That is one possibility.”
He moved toward her, his deliberate steps reminding Rachel that she was completely at his mercy. She doubted whether any of the servants sleeping in the nether regions of the manse would hear her should she cry out. There was only Mrs. Poulson, and she was no ally.
“Except that I did not hire your father,” he breathed, now only inches away. “That much I know, despite my fickle memory. If I tried to pay a man to kill my wife, I would be more prudent than to let him live long enough to die of miner’s lung. Or to tell someone like you, someone who could conceivably prattle the tale about town.”
His words caused the short hairs to rise on Rachel’s nape. Half-expecting him to reach for her, to encircle her neck with his powerful hands, she shrank into the chair as he towered over her.
“Have you no answer to that?” he asked.
She dragged to her lips the words flying around in her head. “Perhaps you thought the money sufficient to buy his silence.”
“So my bothering you is just a way to see if he kept his end of the bargain?”
“I don’t know you, my lord,” she said, scrambling to hide her fear. “I can only judge according to instinct, and my instincts tell me that you are indeed capable of such a thing.”
“Capable of murder?” He laughed. “Perhaps. But then, under the right circumstances, I think we are all capable of murder.”
Rachel said nothing. She wanted to leave and never see this man again, but he leaned over, propping his hands on the arms of her chair and pinning her to her seat.
“Your attitude raises another question,” he said. “Believing, as you do, that I tried to finance the commission of this crime, I cannot help but wonder why you haven’t contacted the authorities. Was it because you were so eager to keep the money? Is that why you closed your eyes to the probable truth? Were you hoping the deed would simply fade into the past? That no one would come looking for the money or for answers?”
Rachel dared not move lest she come into contact with him. She tilted her head back to look in his face and saw a steely determination that frightened her even more than his words. “My mother insisted we say nothing. We needed the money to stock the shop”—she cringed at the mercenary light in which her words painted Jillian—“and we did not know who to return it to. If you had indeed paid my father to set the fire, we felt safe as long as we said nothing. Our shop serves a great purpose. It is the only outpost for books this far north. Many of the country homes in the surrounding counties rely on us to stock their libraries, seeing that we are much closer than London.”
“Justification, surely.”
“Not only that but my mother was trying to protect against—”
“My turning you out.” His breath, smelling faintly of brandy, fanned her cheeks, and Rachel nodded.
“Funny how you suffered no qualms about keeping money that was not your own. That was, according to your knowledge, given in trade for a woman’s life. Yet you dare censure me?” His voice sharpened. “You would let the mystery of a murder go unsolved while holding a piece of the puzzle, and for money and security’s sake never come forward? Tell me, have you no respect for truth and honesty?”
Rachel stiffened at his condescending tone. The question of whether or not it had been honest to keep the money and hold her silence had troubled her from the beginning, but she’d used her belief in her father’s innocence to justify her behavior. In the beginning, no one had connected Jack McTavish with the fire. So why cast any aspersion on his name? Her father hadn’t killed Lady Katherine. Someone else did, and it could have been Lord Druridge as easily as not.
She summoned the last of her courage. “That’s an easy thing for you to say,” she replied. “Forgive me for not shouting what I know from the rooftops, but I felt the money well spent. It is not as though we have lived like you do.” She waved a contemptuous hand around her. “We used the money to keep the shop open and to buy books—for our wealthy clients, yes, but also so that we could teach the villagers how to read and write. On some level I considered it your contribution to the community, if you will. Besides, what I know would not have helped anyone, you least of all. So forgive me for letting you run the gauntlet alone. You, who are virtually untouchable by the law and, by comparison, have known so little of need or loss or difficulty. Even the fire rid you of a wife you no longer wanted!”
