Page 51 of Honor Unbound

She shook her head.

“Hardly gentlemanly considering he had been visiting you for…how long was it?” Brett asked.

“Almost two years.” She smacked her palm on the table. “There’s no loyalty these days, I tell you. None a’tall.”

Brett tsked. “Two years.” It did seem quite a long time to patronize one doxy. He supposed men had favorites when it came to that sort of thing. “Even when you were at his home, he still showed you the same lack of respect?”

“I was never at his home.” She took a large swallow, a line of foam coating her upper lip.

“No? Never?” He removed the embroidered handkerchief from his pocket and unfolded it. “I wonder how this found its way to his study then.”

Peg gave him a roguish smile. “Well, maybe I was there, just the once. When he knew that I knew how well he lived, I thought he’d understand he needed to be generous.”

“A sound plan,” he agreed. “Weren’t you worried Mrs. Trent might discover it?”

She lifted her shoulder. “A scolding wife makes a man realize how good he has it with someone else. I could have been there for him on a permanent basis. He could have set me up in my own apartment. He had the money.”

Brett blinked. Peg was pretty, but surely she must realize that men like Trent didn’t make mistresses of their common doxies. Especially not ones who downed pints like a stevedore and attempted to make mischief with the missus. “But he refused you?”

She smacked the table again. “Laughed at me. Treated the idea like a joke.”

“That must have made you angry.” He signaled the barman for another pint, hoping it would keep her tongue loose.

“Angry?” She huffed. “Oh, he got an earful, I promise you that.”

“When was this?” He tried to keep his tone casual, but either he failed or she hadn’t dipped as deeply as he’d thought.

She narrowed her gaze. “Not the night he died. I was in his house a full week before that.” She took a healthy swallow from the new pint. “You can’t put that on me.”

“You’ll have witnesses who saw you elsewhere that night?”

She scowled. “I wasn’t working that night. I was still sore so I was sleeping. Alone. But Mrs. McKendrick can tell you I didn’t go nowhere. Besides, with Eddie dead, I don’t get any money.”

“You weren’t getting any with him alive, either.” Brett could envision the woman letting her temper overcome her judgment, grabbing the nearest sharp object and attacking Trent.

He couldn’t see a fit man being overcome by her small stature, however. Nor allowing her to hold a hand to his mouth so he couldn’t yell out whilst being stabbed repeatedly. Even if she took him by surprise, it seemed improbable.

Peg stood up with only a slight wobble. “He laughed at me. He deserved what he got, but I wasn’t the one who gave it to him.” She made to take her handkerchief, but Brett stuffed it back into his pocket.

“I’ll need to keep this for now,” he said.

“Do as you will.” She sniffed. “It doesn’t mean anything. Unless you weren’t the first to find it.”

“What do you mean?”

Her eyes narrowed with a mean smile. “If Mrs. Trent found it, well, she might have been as unhappy with her husband as I was.”

“You think Mrs. Trent might have killed her husband because he was having an affair with you?”

“I don’t go around making accusations.” She pressed a hand to her bosom. “But a woman never likes to learn a man prefers another to her.” And with her head held high, she swept from the tavern.

When he’d spoken with the errand boy earlier, Harold hadn’t known of any other particular favorites of Peg’s. Didn’t think she was close to any of the male workers at the brothel. Brett also hadn’t discovered any family that might help Peg take revenge on the man who’d hurt her.

That didn’t mean they didn’t exist.

He paid the bill and left.

There were two too many scorned women in Trent’s life. Brett didn’t know whether to feel sorry for the man, or to think he’d gotten just what he’d deserved.