Her Secret Lover (Aphrodite's Club 2)

On cue, Lady Appleby lifted her hands and pushed back the hood of her cloak, disclosing her gaunt face and boyish fair hair. Her smile was ghastly. “My dear husband,” she greeted him, “I’ve been waiting for this moment for so very long.”

As Appleby stared into her face, all color drained from his own. He shook his head and turned to the Prince, but whatever he saw in the other man’s eyes was enough to stop any excuses he was about to make.

“My lord, I find it difficult to reconcile the beauty you created in the Crystal Palace with what I have learned of you tonight.”

“Sir, I beg you—”

“You never visited me once, Rudyard,” Lady Appleby interrupted, her voice so much bigger than her person.

“Visited you?” Lord Appleby stared at her in amazement. “How could I have visited you?”

“Why not? I know you paid for my little holiday in the asylum. The least you could have done was call now and again.”

He gritted his teeth. “I couldn’t visit you because you were supposed to be dead, you stupid woman!”

Lady Appleby went off into peals of laughter, and Antoinette wondered if the whisky had gone to her head. “Did I have a nice funeral? I always wanted white lilies, you know. Nothing but white.”

“I don’t remember,” he said stiffly. “The undertaker made the arrangements.”

Lady Appleby smiled. “Dear me, Rudyard, still with a heart of stone?”

The viciousness in his voice seemed to stun even his wife. “You are nothing but a crazy old woman. No one wants to listen to you.”

“I am listening,” Prince Albert informed him in a very stern voice. “I have sent for the police, my lord.”

Appleby shook his head in apparent disbelief. “Sir, you know how important my manufacturing business is! I couldn’t allow it to falter. I couldn’t let that happen. You must see that? You told me yourself how proud you were of men like me, men who were self-made. Don’t you agree it would be in everyone’s interest—Britain’s interest—if we pretended this hadn’t happened? I could find my wife a house in the country, make her an allowance, and no one need ever know.”

He believed it, Antoinette thought. He truly believed he could slide out from under the weight of his crimes and merrily carry on. She knew she shouldn’t have been surprised; she’d heard him on the subject of his own importance many times. But still his arrogant self-interest stunned her.

“I’m afraid I do not approve of criminals, my lord,” the prince answered, and now his eyes were as cold as his voice.

But Lord Appleby didn’t believe it. He tried again, his words tumbling over one another as he made his case. When he saw the negative expressions on his audience’s faces, he grew frustrated and began to curse his wife once more, heaping blame on her for his predicament.

“Why couldn’t you just accept you were of no use anymore?” he ranted. “Wives were put aside in days gone by. It was expected.”

Disconcertingly, Lady Appleby was enjoying herself hugely. She began to laugh, and the more he ranted, the more she laughed, until finally Appleby could take no more and lurched toward her, intent on violence. Prince Albert gave a sharp order, and his servants restrained Appleby. But he shook them off, panting, his graying hair tousled, glaring wildly about him.

“The letter, Appleby.”

It was Gabriel, wanting to know, needing to know. He confronted the man who’d stolen his dreams.

“Where is my mother’s letter?”

Appleby focused his gaze on Gabriel. “Young Langley,” he sneered.

“So, are you saying I am Adam’s son, after all?” Gabriel pretended his heart wasn’t pounding as he waited for an answer.

Appleby’s mouth tightened. “You’re no blood of mine, boy. I still bear the scars from your assault on me.”

“You took what didn’t belong to you, Appleby.”

“I took because I could. Your mother lied to me and your father was too weak to deal with it. If he was a stronger man, a better man, I wouldn’t have been able to take anything from him. He’s taken two women from me, and I wanted him to suffer for it, no matter how long it took.”

“My father is worth a dozen of you.” Gabriel took a step toward him. “He gave you Wexmoor Manor because he was protecting my mother. Something you wouldn’t understand. How could you understand, when you care for no one but yourself? You’re a cad, Appleby. A lying, thieving rogue who deserves to be locked up forever. You call yourself a self-made man? You’re nothing but a disgrace.”

Appleby gave a roar. He was holding his cane, gripped in white hands, and when he suddenly lifted it Antoinette thought he meant to strike Gabriel with it. Instead, suddenly, he pulled on the handle and the stalk of the cane came away, and to her horror she saw it was a rapier, thin and deadly. Before Gabriel could get out of his way, Appleby struck, his arm jerking in and out.

Antoinette screamed, and then everything turned to chaos. Prince Albert’s servants ran to restrain Appleby, wrenching the rapier from him, forcing him to his knees.