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“Wait!”
The old man paused and turned at Trenton’s command. “Are you summoning me, Your Grace?”
“Yes.” Trenton stalked up to him. “You said my wife purchased this book?”
“She did, sir.”
“What did she look like?”
“Pardon me, sir?”
“My wife: What did she look like?”
“Well, Your Grace, my eyes are not what they used to be.” Wiltshire appeared distinctly uncomfortable and utterly bewildered by the question. “But your wife is not an easy woman to forget. A real beauty, the duchess is. All that glorious red hair and those splendid green eyes.” He smiled fondly. “And so eager to please you, she was. Yes, Your Grace, if you don’t mind my saying so, you are a lucky man.”
Trenton nodded woodenly, an eerie, sick sensation forming in the pit of his stomach. Wordlessly, he returned to the manor, leaving Wiltshire to his cab. In the drawing room, he scooped the book off the floor and reread the marked passage.
She must die … betray more men … The rose, it needs must wither…
Die … betray … die…
With a hard shudder, he slammed the book shut.
Violently, he crushed the rose beneath his heel. Either Ariana had an unknown affinity for roses and Othello, or this was someone’s very sick idea of a joke.
“Thank you, Jennings.” Ariana smiled absently, handing her wrap to the butler. The outcome of her meeting with Baxter, although unsurprising, had drained her emotionally.
“Is that my wife, Jennings?” Trenton bellowed from the drawing room.
Ariana looked questioningly at Jennings, who had paled at the sound of Trenton’s booming voice.
“Yes, Your Grace, it is,” the butler called back. “The duke wanted to see you the moment you arrived home,” he advised Ariana in a swift whisper.
“Very well …” Ariana began. She had no time to finish her sentence before Trenton stalked down the hall, seized her hand, and dragged her into the drawing room and out of earshot.
“Trenton?” She gazed up at him, her eyes wide and startled.
“When was the last time you went shopping?” he de
manded.
“Shopping?”
“Yes: Shopping. Specifically, to a bookstore in London. To buy me a gift … a volume of Shakespearean plays.”
“Trenton, I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about. If I’d been in London I would have told you. As far as Shakespeare, you never mentioned being a great fan of his. Were I going to buy you a gift—”
Trenton snatched the volume from the sofa and held it out to her. “You didn’t purchase this book?”
Ariana gave the volume a cursory glance. “No, of course not. I just told you—”
“Are you certain?”
“My head is not that far in the clouds. I don’t forget the purchases I make.” She planted her hands on her hips. “Why are you interrogating me about this?”
Trenton cursed under his breath. “A merchant delivered this book today. He said my wife had bought it as a present for me and asked him to deliver it personally.”
“Are you sure he said your ‘wife’?”
