Page 84 of Along Came a Rogue

“You…” The word was thick on her tongue as she struggled to clear her mind and form words. “You…”

The haze lifted fully from her eyes now, but she had no idea where she was. Empty except for pieces of trash and debris strewn across the plank-board floor, the room must have been inside an abandoned building, an old warehouse or office still inside the noisy city. And near the river, judging by the stench of fish rot pinching at her nose. The last reds of the sunset seeped in through the holes in the roof over their heads, and the sound of rumbling wagons and horses drifted up from below through the broken windows. A rat scurried along the far wall.

She sat on a wooden chair in the middle of the room, her wrists tied to the chair arms. Her feet were free, but her legs were still too weak from the drug to function. Even if she’d been able to stand, she would have fallen to the floor.

“Yardley.” Her lips tingled as the feeling slowly returned to them, and she concentrated on the woman before her, willing herself to find clarity and regain control of her body. “What…what’s happening?”

Her maid shook her head, distress pinching her face. “I tried to help you when we were back at Snowden Hall. I tried to make you understand that you had to convince those men to leave,” Yardley told her quietly, “but you wouldn’t listen.”

Ice water ran through her, and fear stole her breath away. “The fire…you set the fire?”

“I had no choice. It was only a matter of time until they found out about the baby and—”

“Shut up!”

The man who was with her shoved Yardley aside and leered down into Emily’s face. Her eyes widened in recognition—Harold Crenshaw, the bored young man who came to her house for tea with his father.

“You…it was you all along,” Emily whispered fearfully, knowing she was looking into the eyes of a murderer. “You killed Andrew.”

“Of course, I did,” he admitted arrogantly with a sneer at his thin lips. “You think I’d let anyone stand between me and my fortune? Now, with you and your bastard gone, my father becomes a marquess, and when he dies, it all becomes mine…the estates, the title, every last pound and penny. Mine.”

His eyes flickered coldly in the lamplight. She realized with sinking terror that there was absolutely no mercy in him, no empathy. He’d pitilessly murdered Andrew and tried to do the same to her—and he was still planning on killing her and her baby. If she couldn’t find a way to escape.

“I wasn’t able to make you have an accident like your husband, although God knows we tried, didn’t we, Yardley? The fire, the phaeton…”

The maid shifted silently from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable beneath his attentions, as if she didn’t trust him not to come after her as well.

“Fortunately,” he murmured as he trailed his knuckles down her cheek, and she shuddered with revulsion, “there are other ways.”

Emily swallowed hard, the swirling fear making her shake. “You don’t have to kill me.” She prayed she could talk him out of this, or stall him just long enough to get away. “If the baby is a girl—”

“Then she’ll take part of my inheritance in that damned allowance and dowry my father promised her.” He laughed bitterly. “But I can’t take the chance that it won’t come out a boy and take everything. Besides, once it’s born, if it has an accident then, I’ll be blamed, and I’ll swing at the gallows. Better to stop it now, I think.”

“I don’t think you really want to hurt an innocent baby.” She tried again to make him see reason. “If you’d wanted to kill me, you would have done it by now, while I was still unconscious.”

A slow, wicked smile spread across his face. He tsked his tongue with a shake of his head. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Panic swelled inside her, the metallic taste of fear sickening in her mouth. Fun…An abhorrent shudder sped through her—he was enjoying this.

He put his hands over her bound wrists, pinching her arms painfully against the chair until she winced, and leaned in closer with a low chuckle.

“Of course I want to kill you, bitch. But if I’d done it while you were in Chatham House, someone might have interrupted us. And in the carriage it wouldn’t have looked like an accident.”

Her mouth went dry. “Why does it have to be an accident?”

She didn’t care—dear God, she didn’t care how he planned on killing her!—but if she could stall him a bit longer until her leg muscles worked again, she might have a chance of running away. Testing herself, she kept her eyes locked onto his but tried to wiggle her toes…and they moved. They moved!

Now, if only she could untie her hands and get herself free of the chair. She wouldn’t have to run far to escape, only down to the street and into traffic, screaming for help, causing a scene—

He shrugged. “Accident, suicide…no matter as long as you’re dead and no one suspects me.”

Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. “No one will believe I killed myself.”

“You were horribly unhappy recently, everyone could see that. Yardley will testify to it, too, won’t you?”

Yardley folded her arms nervously across her chest and nodded stiffly, looking down at the floor and guiltily avoiding Emily’s eyes.

“In fact, she’s already written the note you left behind before you took your life and placed it in your bedroom for your family to find.” He shook his head with a mocking look of grief. “You poor dear…you were inconsolable over the loss of your husband, whom you loved deeply, and the thought of having to raise this child by yourself was overwhelming. You just couldn’t live with the constant reminder in your child of your dead husband.”