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Rafe took a deep breath.
“Can you answer something for me before we go on?”
“What?”
“Why did you proposition my wife?”
Hayward blinked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You offered the chance of having an affair with my wife just a day before you came by and suggested this. Why would you do that?”
Hayward snorted.
“Who told you that I even suggested such a thing?”
“My valet told me this morning. Victoria sent you away with a flea in your ear, didn’t she?”
“She’s just not willing to commit adultery, even if she hates the man she’s married to. While I admire her loyalty when it’s not deserved, she shouldn’t have to suffer without the comfort of another man.”
He was actually admitting it?Rafe stared.
“You’re going to admit that you tried to ask a married woman to have an affair with you? Why would you do that?”
Hayward’s eyes narrowed, his mouth curling into a snarl.
“I’ve loved her for years. Victoria knows that she’s mine.”
“If she knows that she’s yours, why didn’t you marry her years ago?”
“She turned me down. I was slowly breaking her down, and then she had to marry you.” Hayward scowled. “I loved her first, and I’m not going to let a murderer like you get in the way.”
Rafe had been expecting a reaction, but nothing like this. He wondered if he was still asleep.
“I’m not a murderer.”
“Everyone believes it.”
“Actually, they don’t. There are eyewitnesses that know I didn’t kill Richard.”
“You mean Benjamin Millinchip? He’s going to die pretty soon. And then you won’t have an eyewitness.”
Rafe frowned.
“How do you know about Millinchip? I never told you about him.”
“Victoria told me.”
“No, she didn’t. We both decided to keep this quiet.”
Hayward’s jaw tightened. Then he went to the tree he had come around.
“I thought you were going to follow me into the woods like a good little lamb, but you decided to argue about your wife having a lover that isn’t you.”
“She’s a married woman. She knows it’s wrong.”
“Well, she’s not going to be a married woman any longer.” Hayward brought out a rifle and pointed at him. “She’s going to be a widow. Nobody’s going to care about a widow having an affair.”
