He waited while, with a suspicious and wary glance, she sat and settled her skirts, then he sat beside her and took her hand in his. Looked down, played with her fingers as he assembled his words.
Then, keeping his voice low yet clear enough for her to easily hear, he told her simply, without embellishment, all he’d learned of Ruskin.
She listened, increasingly attentive, but made no comment.
But when he came to how and where he’d discovered the initials A. C., her fingers tensed, tightened on his. He glanced at her.
She studied his eyes, searched his face. Then she breathed in tightly. “You know I didn’t kill him—that I’m innocent of all this?”
Not so much a question as a request for a clear statement.
“Yes.” He raised her hand to his lips, held her gaze as he kissed. “I know you didn’t kill him. I know you’re not involved in any treasonous use of shipping information.” He lowered their locked hands, then added, “However, you—we—have to face the fact that someone started the rumor I heard.”
“I can’t understand it—how could anyone know?”
“Are you sure, absolutely sure, that your secret, whatever it is, was known only by Ruskin?”
Frowning, she met his gaze, then looked away. Her hand remained resting in his. After a moment, she replied, “It might be possible that, in the same way Ruskin had learned what he had, then someone else might have, too. But what I can’t understand is how that someone could know Ruskin was using the information as he was.”
She looked at him.
“Indeed. Blackmail doesn’t work if others know.” He paused, then added, “From what I’ve learned of Ruskin, he wasn’t the sort to give away valuable information. He’d have charged for it, and—”
Releasing her hand, he stood; he thought better on his feet. “The dates of payments noted in his black book not only match the dates he paid his debts, but also follow by about a week the dates he noted for certain ships.” He paced, caught her eye. “However, there’s no other payment—any unaccounted payment—entered. So I think we’re on firm ground in assuming he hadn’t sold any information other than the shipping directives.”
Halting by the fireplace, he considered her. “So the question remains. Who would he have told about you, and why?”
Her brow creased as she looked at him; her gaze grew distant.
“What?”
She flicked him an impatient glance. “I was just wondering…”
When he moved toward her, she quickly continued, “When he left me, Ruskin was sure—absolutely confident—that I’d agree to his proposal. He”—she paused, blushed, but lifted her head and went on—“was so certain he expected to call the next evening and… receive my acceptance.”
After a moment, she met his eyes. “I didn’t know him well, but given his nature, he probably couldn’t help gloating. About me—I mean, about gaining a wealthy widow as his wife.”
Tony could visualize such a scenario readily, but he doubted it was her wealth Ruskin would have gloated about. Nevertheless…
“That would fit.” He paced again. “If Ruskin, quite unsuspectingly, mentioned his coup—and yes, I agree, he was the type of man to gloat, then…” Bits and pieces of the jigsaw slid into place.
“What?”
He glanced at her, and found her glaring at him; he felt his lips ease. “Consider this. If Ruskin was murdered by whoever he’d been selling his information to—”
“By this A. C., you mean?”
He nodded. “Then if he mentioned he was about to marry, quite aside from any risk from the blackmail going wrong—it’s always a risky business—the knowledge that Ruskin would soon have a wife would have increased the threat Ruskin posed to A. C.”
“In case he told his wife?”
“Or she found out. Ruskin even mentioning knowing A. C., even years from now, might have been dangerous.”
Alicia pieced together the picture he was painting. At one level, she could barely believe all that had happened since they’d entered the room. That searing kiss—it was as if it had cindered, felled, and consumed all barriers between them. He was talking to her, treating her, as if she was an accomplice, a partner in his investigation. More, a friend.
Almost a lover.
And she was reacting as if she were.