The Handmaiden's Necklace. Kat Martin

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      Fury burned in his cold blue eyes but she didn’t care. She started walking again and this time Rafe made no move to stop her.

      She was surprised he had approached her in the first place. They hadn’t spoken since the night he had walked into her bedchamber five years ago and found Oliver Randall lying naked in her bed.

      She had tried then to tell him that Oliver was playing some kind of cruel, terrible joke, that nothing had happened between them, that she had been sleeping until Rafe had walked into the room and startled her awake.

      But for reasons she still didn’t understand, Oliver had set out to destroy the love Rafael had felt for her—or at least said he felt—and the man had brutally succeeded.

      Rafe hadn’t listened to her that night, nor responded to any of the dozen letters she sent him, begging him to hear her side of the story, pleading with him to believe she was telling him the truth.

      As word of the scandal began to leak out, he never once defended her, never once paid the slightest attention to her version of events. Instead, he had abruptly ended their betrothal, confirming what the gossipmongers said.

      Telling the world that Danielle Duval was not the innocent she pretended, but a scarlet woman who had conducted herself shamelessly, and with blatant disregard for her intended. She’d been shunned in society, banished to the country. Even her own mother had believed the tale.

      Dani’s vision blurred as she made her way through the garden. She rarely thought of Rafael and those awful days back then. But now she was here in London and Rafe was tossing the entire affair back in her face.

      She sniffed and fought back the tears she refused to let fall. She wouldn’t cry for Rafe, not again. She had wept more than enough for the man she had loved five years ago and she would never weep for him again.

      Three

      Rafe stood in the garden, angry and oddly disturbed as he watched Danielle’s elegant figure moving along the gravel path until she disappeared inside the house.

      He didn’t know what had possessed him to seek her out. Perhaps it was keeping his silence for all of these years. Whatever it was, instead of the satisfaction he was certain he would feel once he had confronted her, he was more troubled than ever.

      As she had done that night, Danielle had professed her innocence. He hadn’t believed her then and he didn’t believe her now. He’d read the note, after all, and he had two eyes in his head. Oliver had accepted Danielle’s invitation and he was there in her room, lying naked beside her in bed.

      Rafe had called the bastard out, of course. Ollie was supposed to be his friend.

      “I won’t meet you, Rafe,” Oliver had said. “I won’t fight you no matter what you do to me. We’ve been friends since we were boys, and there is no denying the fault is mine entirely.”

      “Why, Ollie? How could you do it?”

      “I love her, Rafael. I’ve always loved her. You know that better than anyone. When she asked me to come to her room, I found it impossible to refuse her invitation.”

      Rafael had known for years that his friend was in love with Danielle, had been in love with her since he was a youth in his teens. But Dani had never loved Ollie.

      Or so Rafe had thought. He had stupidly believed that Danielle loved him and not Oliver Randall, though Ollie had for years pursued her. After that night, he had come to believe she had accepted Rafe’s offer of marriage simply to become a duchess. It was wealth and power she wanted, not him.

      As he walked out of the garden, he reminded himself of all those things, told himself that just as before, nothing Danielle said was the truth.

      But he was older now, not insane with jealousy, not blinded by love as he had been in those days, not furious and aching with pain.

      And because he was a different man than he had been back then, he couldn’t get the image out of his head. He couldn’t forget the way Danielle had looked at him there in the garden.

      Without a shred of remorse, without the slightest hint of embarrassment. She had looked at him with all of the hatred that Rafe had felt for her.

      No, Rafael. It was you who betrayed me. If you had loved me…you would have known I was telling you the truth.

      The words nagged at him, gnawed at his insides all the way back to Sheffield House. Was it possible? Was there the slightest chance?

      First thing the following morning, he sent a note to Jonas McPhee, the Bow Street runner he and his friends had used over the years whenever they needed information. McPhee was discreet and extremely good at his job, and he promptly arrived at Sheffield House at two o’clock that afternoon.

      “Good day, Jonas. Thank you for coming.”

      “I am happy to assist you, Your Grace, in any way I can.” The runner was short and balding, and wore small, wire-rimmed spectacles. He was an unimpressive man whose muscular shoulders and knotted hands were the only indication of the sort of work he did.

      Rafe stepped back from the doorway, allowing McPhee into his study, then turned and led the man over to his desk and indicated that he should take a seat in one of the dark green leather chairs in front.

      “I’d like to hire you, Jonas.” Rafe sat down behind his massive rosewood desk. The room was two stories high, with book-lined walls and an elegant molded ceiling. A long mahogany table sat in the middle of the room, lit by green glass lamps that hung down from above, and surrounded by a dozen carved, high-backed chairs. “I’d like you to investigate an incident that happened five years ago.”

      “Five years is quite a while, Your Grace.”

      “Yes, it is, and I realize it won’t be easy.” He settled back in his chair. “The incident involved a woman named Danielle Duval and a man named Oliver Randall. Miss Duval is the daughter of the late Viscount Drummond, who passed away some years back. Lady Drummond died just last year. Oliver Randall is the third son of the Marquess of Caverly.”

      “I’ll need to make some notes, Your Grace.”

      Rafe held up a sheet of foolscap. “I have all the information written down for you right here.”

      “Excellent.”

      Rafe set the paper down on his desk. “At one time, Miss Duval and I were betrothed. That ended five years ago.”

      Rafe went on to tell the ugly story of what had happened the evening he found the note Danielle had sent to Oliver. He explained how at midnight he had gone into Danielle’s room and found the two of them together. As the tale unfolded, Rafe did his best to relay the information without revealing any of the emotions he had felt back then.

      “Is there any chance you kept the note?” Jonas asked.

      Rafe had anticipated the question. “Oddly enough, I did, though I can’t begin to tell you why.” Opening the bottom drawer of his desk, he moved the pistol he kept there aside and pulled out a small metal box, then fished out a key he kept on a ring in another drawer to open it. The note inside was yellowed and faded, the creases where it had been СКАЧАТЬ