Chapter 21 #2
“What choice did you leave me?” His face grew red and spittle flew from his mouth as he spoke.
“You and your sisters stole any chance I had of furthering myself through your marriages. And then you went and whored yourselves out so blatantly, damaging my name. It took me this long to work on Trafford. To convince him through a variety of means.”
“Blackmail him, perhaps?” she asked softly. “He has a secret family, yes?”
He arched a brow. “Seems you have your information, too.”
“What in the world would your disgusting bargains with Trafford have to do with me?” she asked.
“A few weeks ago you started up with that Windham bastard. All your scandalous activities started spiraling back to the country. The scandal rags were dripping with the stories of your races and gambling and running around like a fool with him. They named your sisters, they named me .”
She flinched. Using her own name, trying to tweak her father’s fury, it had been her biggest mistake. And now it seemed it was coming back to haunt her.
“And?” she asked coolly, though she had an idea of what happened next.
“Trafford said he was trying to avoid a scandal, not fall back into one. He refused the match, bought off my source of information about his other family. Matched his daughter to some other man before I could protest too publicly. I lost my connection to an increase in my worth because of you .” He got even closer and she backed up, but there was no more room to move.
He had to her pinned against the table. “And it will keep happening. You will keep up what you are, and it will always damage me. But if you’re dead, then it ends. ”
Raw, powerful fear roared through Arabella as she stared into the face of a man who should have loved her, but had only ever hated her even before she ran. A man who looked entirely serious about what he wanted to do.
There was a light knock on the parlor door and they both froze and looked toward it. “Miss Comerford?”
It was Barnaby. When she looked back at her father, she saw he had a gun out now. Pointed toward the thin door and the servant beyond.
“No,” she whispered. “Let me.” She hoped her voice sounded less shaky when she called out, “Yes?”
He hesitated when she didn’t call him in, but then said, “The food has been delivered to your chamber—a few of your favorites.”
“Good man,” she called back. “You’re so kind. Now, please, you and your lovely wife must take the rest of the night off, as I said earlier. I’ll lock up before I go up.”
“Yes, miss. Goodnight,” Barnaby said, his tone lined with confusion. But he didn’t try to come in and she heard his footfalls moving away. To safety. At least she could provide that.
“Funny how you’d protect a servant but you’d throw your sisters to the wolves and destroy me.
” Her father caught her arm and dragged her toward the door, his fingers digging hard into her flesh and his gun pressed against her side.
“Now, you’re going to write a letter of goodbye, Arabella. And we’re going to take care of this.”
“Fine,” she said. “Fine, I’ll do as you like. Let me write it upstairs. I can leave it where someone will see it.”
He glared at her as he pulled her into the hall. There the light was fuller and she gasped. He looked twenty years older rather than just six. And his gaze was wild and so cruel.
“If you alert anyone in this house to my presence, if you think you’ll get away somehow by tricking me, know that I will kill anyone who comes for you with no hesitation. Your servants, your sisters, your latest lover. I’ll shoot any of them without any remorse and let you watch them die.”
She nodded, blinking at the tears stinging her eyes. “I won’t do anything.”
He drew her to the stairs and they staggered up together and into her chamber. She looked past her bed, toward the dressing room. “I’ll write it in there,” she said, and pulled from his arms.
She went into the other room, ignoring the tub where she’d last been with Silas for the moment.
To realize that might be the last time they were ever together in any intimate way was too painful.
She would die and he might believe she’d killed herself.
Might think it had to do with their supper tonight and the rejection of his family.
God, he would hate them and himself. She had to make sure he didn’t believe that.
That her sisters knew she wouldn’t leave them on purpose.
She had to leave clues that her demise had been at this man’s hand so she could protect her sisters from any retribution he might seek against them when he wasn’t satisfied with only destroying her.
She drew paper from a drawer in her dressing room and stood at the table, staring at that blank vellum for a moment. “What should I say?”
“That you know you’re a ruining whore who doesn’t deserve to live and that you went to the Thames to kill yourself. Wash away all that disgusting sin. Oh, and add that you’re mostly sorry to your dear father.”
She shut her eyes and drew a shaky breath. He had no idea that he was playing into her hand. No one she knew or loved would ever believe any of that nonsense.
My dearest Evelina and Julia,
This is all too much for me, knowing how I destroyed you.
She stared at those words, knowing that sometimes she had truly believed them to be true. Salvation had been so close to destruction for both her sisters. She blinked at tears and continued.
And I cannot go on with the guilt any longer.
Not in harming you, nor in the humiliation I caused against our innocent father, who only wished to raise us with love and kindness.
To free us all from my mistakes, I must end my life.
Think of my favorite spot and know that I’m washed away from all the pain.
With all my love to you and to Silus, goodbye. Arabella.
Her father held out a hand for the note and she watched with bated breath as he read it.
Would he notice she’d spelled Silas’s name wrong?
Or that she’d gone on a little too far about his kindness?
Would he ask about her favorite spot, a little grove along the Thames that was just across from the house she now stood in?
The one she’d now try to convince her father to take her to?
Would they see the clues and find her, either dead or alive? Would they avenge her or save her? Or at least would they understand she hadn’t done this out of her own volition if he succeeded?
He handed the letter back and grunted. “Put it where it will be found.”
She looked at the hat box on the table where she’d written her note. She hadn’t ever put it back after she hid his latest letter inside. If she set it here, surely one of her sisters would wonder at the odd placement when she normally put her things away carefully. They’d open it.
They’d see the threats she’d so often pushed aside and minimized, both to them and to herself. They’d realize what a danger their father truly was.
She folded the paper and set it carefully on top of the box. “Julia wished to borrow the hat within. She’ll come looking for it in the morning and find the note.”
Another lie, but he seemed to believe it. He caught her arm and began to drag her out of the room and down to the back of the house. “Now, let’s go,” he said.
“Wait, how will you take me?” she asked, tugging back slightly and feeling the press of the gun in her side become harder. “If you get my carriage, my servants will have to be called. If you have a horse, it will draw attention to have two on it and to ready my mount will take time.”
“Oh, you are so interested in making certain your suicide goes well?” he asked.
“I’m interested in making sure you don’t kill anyone innocent in your zeal to destroy me.
” She was trying to catch her breath, but it was getting harder now.
“May I suggest that the Thames runs through the park just across from my house? Wouldn’t it make more sense that I’d go somewhere close to end myself? ”
He glared at her. “You aren’t in control of this.”
“No. I am certainly sure of that.” She glanced down at the gun buried in her side, the barrel bruising her. “Please, if you’re going to end this, at least do it quickly and without harming others.”
He seemed to accept that and turned her toward her front door. They exited together, looking every bit the happy pair, she supposed, as they stepped out onto the drive and moved their way across the street toward the dark park.
Toward her end, if she couldn’t figure out a way out of this. And the fact that she’d never again see her sisters or Silas was the greatest heartbreak she’d ever felt.