He looked into her eyes, and realized she didn’t, in fact, know how he would answer. Didn’t know how deeply in thrall to her he still was. Which meant…
He arched a brow. “How much is my help worth to you?”
She blinked, then searched his face, his eyes; hers narrowed. After a pregnant pause during which she assessed and considered his true meaning, she replied, “You know perfectly well I’ll do anything—anything—to clear Justin’s name.”
Absolute decision, total commitment, rang in her tone.
He inclined his head. “Very well.”
He heard himself urbanely agree; he hadn’t known he would, certainly hadn’t thought what he might ask of her in return. Wasn’t even sure of his motives in pressing such a bargain on her, but “anything” gave him a wide field.
Revenge of a sort for all the years of hurt might yet be his.
At the thought, he stirred, whether in discomfort or anticipation not even he could say. “Tell me what happened—the sequence of events leading to Randall’s death as you know it.”
Letitia hesitated, then gathered the black reticule that had sat throughout in her lap. “Come to the house.” Rising, she reached up and flipped down her veil. “It’ll be easier to explain there.”
She’d thought it would be easier—having places and things to point out to distract him—but having him by her side again kept her nerves in a state of perpetual reactiveness. Ready to respond to any touch, however slight, to luxuriate in the steady warmth that radiated from his large body, luring her closer.
Gritting mental teeth, she pointed to the spot on the study floor of the house in South Audley Street where she’d been informed her late husband had lain. “You can see the bloodstain.”
The spot in question lay between the fireplace and the large desk.
She wasn’t particularly squeamish, but the sight of the reddish-brown stain had her gorge rising. No matter what she’d felt for Randall, no man should die as he had, brutally bashed to death with the poker from his own fireplace.
Christian shifted closer, looking down at the stain. “Which way was he facing—toward the fire or the desk?”
He felt like a flame down one side of her body. She frowned. “I don’t know. They didn’t tell me. And they wouldn’t let me in here to see—they said it was too…gory.”
She raised her head, fought to concentrate on what they were discussing—struggled not to close her eyes and let her other senses stretch. She’d forgotten how tall he was, how large—forgotten he was one of the few men in the ton who towered over her, who could make her feel enclosed, shielded…protected. That wasn’t why she’d turned to him, but at that moment she could not but be grateful for his size, his nearness, for the reminder of virile life in the presence of stark death.
“They’ve taken away the poker.” Drawing in a tight breath, she turned and waved at the table by one of the armchairs flanking the hearth. “And they’ve cleared the table—there were two glasses on it, so I’ve been told. Brandy in both.”
“Tell me what you know. When last did you see him?”
The question gave her something to focus on. “Last night. I went to dinner at the Martindales’, then on to a soiree at Cumberland House. I returned rather late. Randall had stayed in—he sometimes did when he had business to attend to. He waylaid me in the hall and as
ked me in here. He wanted to discuss…” She paused, then continued, knowing her voice, hardening, would give away her temper. “…a family matter.”
She and Randall had been married for eight years, but there’d been no children. With any luck, Christian would imagine that had been the subject of their discussion, the subject she’d so delicately refrained from mentioning.
His gaze on her face, Christian knew—just knew—that she was hoping to lead him up some garden path. Declining to follow, he made a mental note to return to the subject of her late night discussion with her husband at some later point. For now…“Discussion?” With a Vaux involved, “discussion” could encompass verbal warfare.
“We had a row.” Face darkening, she continued, “I don’t know how long it went for, but I eventually swept out”—a gesture indicated the force of her sweeping, something Christian could imagine with ease—“and left him here.”
“So you argued. Loudly.”
She nodded.
He let his gaze travel the room, then looked back at her. “No broken vases? Ornaments flung about?”
She folded her arms beneath her breasts, haughtily lifted her chin. “It wasn’t that sort of argument.”
A cold argument, then, one without heat or passion. For her, with her husband, that struck him as odd.
He looked away, again scanning the room. In reality looking away from her so he wouldn’t focus on her breasts. Breasts he knew—or had, at one time, known well. Hauling his mind from salacious images from the past—all the more potent for being memory rather than imagination—took more effort than he cared to contemplate. He shifted. “So you left Randall here, hale and whole, and then what? What next did you know of this?”
“Nothing at all until my dresser came rushing in this morning to tell me about the body.” She turned away from the bloodstain.