Roberta gained her feet with Jonas’s help before snatching her hand away. Eyes huge and glistening with panic, she watched William like a mouse watched a snake. Dear God, had William cowed Roberta to a point where she wouldn’t seize this opportunity to escape, even now? Sidonie’s irritation with her sister faded, as so often, to helpless pity.
Jonas held out his hand to Sidonie. “Miss Forsythe?”
“We can’t leave her.” Sidonie rose with his aid and angled her head in Roberta’s direction. “He’ll kill her.”
“I want you off this estate, you baseborn mongrel,” William insisted from the other side of the room.
“By all means show us out,” Jonas said.
William’s lip curled with futile derision. “I’ll show you to hell first.”
“For shame, cuz, there are ladies present.” Jonas gestured toward the door with the gun. “Step ahead, if you please.”
William’s face flushed so red, an apoplexy looked likely. A purple vein throbbed in his temple and his uninjured, pig-like eye narrowed with hatred. Grudgingly he limped toward the door.
“Come, sister,” Sidonie said softly. “You’ll be safe with us.”
“I’m not sure.” Roberta’s glassy gaze fixed on her husband’s broad back as he crossed the threshold.
Sidonie left Jonas’s side to take Roberta’s trembling hand. “You can’t stay. You know what he’ll do.”
Her sister stared at her as if the words made no sense. Then she nodded and followed docilely as they left the nursery. Down two flights of stairs to the landing above the flagstoned hall.
At the top of the last flight of stairs, William turned with a superior grin on his bruised face. As the beating’s effects ebbed, his native arrogance revived. “Enjoy your moment in the sun, bastard. You’re welcome to the slut, but no court in the land will keep my wife from me. Even better, when I reveal poor dear Lady Hillbrook’s addiction to the card tables, I’ll have cause for locking her up as a lunatic.”
Horror made Sidonie falter. Every time she thought she’d measured the depths of William’s villainy, he plumbed a lower level. He spoke of condemning Roberta to a living death in the same tone as she’d heard him order an unwanted litter of puppies drowned in the brook.
“We’ll see who wins that particular battle,” Jonas said grimly, his gun raised in unconcealed threat. “Overconfidence was always your failing.”
“What a fitting end to the beautiful Forsythe sisters.” William’s eyes glittered with spite as his gaze swept Roberta and Sidonie. “One a bastard’s whore, the other raving in her own filth in Bedlam.”
White-faced, Roberta snatched her hand from Sidonie’s and stood quivering under her husband’s jibes. Sidonie turned to speak to her in a low, steady voice. How she hated to see the coward eight years as William’s wife had made her sister. “He can’t do it, Roberta. He only wants to score points against you, against Jonas. He’s a toothless tiger.”
William laughed, rocking on his heels in a threatening manner. “A toothless tiger, am I? We’ll see. We’ll see.”
“I’m not mad,” Roberta insisted in a shrill voice, wrapping her arms around herself. Her gaze remained fixed on William. “You can’t lock me up.”
“Yes, I can, my greedy little dove.”
“Lady Hillbrook, don’t listen. He knows he’s lost,” Jonas said gently. Sidonie cast him a grateful glance, but Roberta didn’t seem to hear.
“Lost, have I?” William blustered, edging away from Jonas’s gun. He rested his hands on his hips in a domineering manner.
“I won’t let you lock me up,” Roberta said more strongly, daring a step toward her husband. Her fists clenched at her sides and her chin lifted with a defiance Sidonie hadn’t seen in her for years.
William’s lips curved in a smile of such patronizing sweetness that it made Sidonie’s stomach heave. On his bloodstained face, the expression was ghoulish. “You’ll have no choice, my darling.”
Roberta took another uncertain step closer. “Yes, I will, you foul bully.”
William laughed again, the braying sound harsh. “Good God, does the worm turn? Who would have thought? Mind you, if my viper of a cousin wasn’t sporting a pistol, you wouldn’t be so brave, would you, my beauty?”
The reckless light in Roberta’s eyes made Sidonie tense with apprehension. If she ventured too near, would her husband hit her? “I haven’t been brave, William,” Roberta admitted in a reedy voice, her cheeks flushing with humiliation. “I was once but you beat it out of me.”
“You were more fun to clout than to poke. Which isn’t saying much. What a pity you still lack discipline. When I get you back, we’ll remedy that. Before I shut you away forever.”
Roberta inhaled on an audible gasp. Then quick as lightning, she rushed ahead and shoved William square in his chest. “Roast in hell forever!”
“You little bitch…” William flailed to catch his wife as he teetered on the lip of the stair. He’d backed recklessly close to the edge. He snatched at her filmy skirts, tearing the fine muslin.