Page 9 of An Inconvenient Duke

A pang of guilt pierced him for confronting her without warning like this, but he’d been trying to speak with her since he returned, only to be refused at every turn. But when he found that note among his sister’s belongings, a deeper urgency to uncover the truth gripped him. Starting with discovering what Danielle knew.

She sucked in a steadying breath and continued, “They asked me to identify her body.”

Despite admiration for her control, Marcus glanced away and twirled her into a tight turn, unable to bear the sight of her grief. Or to have her see his.

“They said that she must have fallen from her horse, that her mare was found nearby. That her neck was broken. What reason would they have had to lie to me? Or me to lie to you?” More than grief rose inside her now. Anger was beginning to simmer beneath her calm, collected surface. “As soon as I was able, I came here and told Claudia, informed the staff when Claudia was too overcome to do so herself, made arrangements for the funeral… And then I wrote to you.”

Dear God, the hell those two women must have gone through here while he was hundreds of miles away, unable to help. His heart pounded brutally from the omnipresent grief that had shadowed him for the past two years, and from the guilt, which was made worse by this confrontation.

Yet it couldn’t be helped. “That wasn’t how she died.”

“But the guards said—”

He whirled her through another turn. “She didn’t die from being thrown from her horse.”

Danielle frowned at him, bewildered. “How do you know that?”

“She didn’t go out riding that morning. She’d left the night before to meet up with a man named John Porter and never came home.”

Her voice softened as she repeated, her face paling, “How do you know that?”

“Because I found a letter from him among her things, confirming the date and time of their meeting.” The information spilled out of him in a rush of frustration and grief. He didn’t want to wound her, but now that he could finally challenge her with what he knew, he couldn’t stop, for Elise’s sake. “Then I tracked down the stable boy who had been working in my mews at the time of the accident. He said she often saddled her own horse and rode off alone. Apparently, she’d done that several times in the months leading up to her death. I think she did it that night, too.”

He twirled her through a circle so unexpectedly that she glanced up at him, startled by the movement.

“Elise was too good of a horsewoman to be thrown from her mare. Certainly not on a morning trot through the park. Especially when she didn’t go out on horseback at all that morning.” His gaze fixed on hers with a hardness that told her he’d brook no dissembling. “So let’s start over with the truth, shall we?”

“I did tell you the truth! I told you everything that the guards…” As her voice faded, the confusion on her beautiful face melted into anguish.

Her reaction pierced him. She certainly wasn’t pretending the emotions behind that. Not even an actress at the Theatre Royal would have been good enough to fake such raw pain and sorrow.

Fresh guilt assaulted him. Good God, did she truly not know? Had it never occurred to her that Elise’s death hadn’t happened at all the way she’d claimed?

He searched her face for answers. “You didn’t know that she’d left Charlton Place at night, alone, to meet a man?”

“No. Or I would have stopped her.”

Looking at her now, hearing the resolve in her voice,thathe very much believed. “And John Porter?”

“I don’t know who he is.”

A bitter taste rose on his tongue. “Was he her lover?”

“No! Elise would never…”

Her cheeks flushed, and she glanced away in embarrassment. Danielle might have blossomed into a woman while he’d been away, but her reluctance to put to words that his sister had taken a lover assured him that she was still innocent. He had no idea why he should care, but he thanked God that some things hadn’t changed.

“Why else would a widow meet up alone with a man at night?”

“Notfor that.” Irritation sparked in her eyes that he would assume that of his sister. Despite himself, a warmth blossomed in his chest at her defense of Elise’s reputation. “Not her.”

His fingers tightened around hers as he continued to waltz her around the room. “Are you certain she wasn’t planning to elope?”

She gaped at him, thunderstruck. “What on earth makes you think that?”

“In his note, Porter wrote that everything was set for their vanishing that night.”

She blanched and missed a step. If his arms weren’t around her, she would have stumbled again. She rasped out hoarsely as she hurried back into step with him, “A vanishing?”