Rules of Passion (Greentree Sisters 2)

just as much a victim of this as Max.

“Well,” Susannah stood up and smoothed her skirts. “This is very nice, but I wish to retire.”

She smiled vaguely and drifted toward the door. No one stopped her, Dobson even stepped aside to let her pass, and they listened to her footsteps fading into silence.

“All those years,” Max said bleakly, shaking his head in disbelief. He looked at his cousin. “How could you not know, Harold?”

“I didn’t know,” he insisted. “There were times when she was low, when she stayed in her room, but Susannah has always had her moods. You know that. We always took great care not to upset her. I did not think it was anything more than melancholy. I didn’t realize it was…”

Madness.

Harold’s voice took on a new urgency. “Max, let me take her home to Jamaica. I’ll buy a house for us and she can live there quietly. I can find a doctor. I can…Please, do this for me. For all the years we have been friends.”

Max turned and read the same misery and shock in Harold’s eyes as he knew must be in his own. It was easy to convict someone in hindsight, and how could he blame Harold for failing to see something he had not seen himself?

“Don’t let her go to court,” Harold whispered. “The scandal. It would kill her, and destroy us. Max?”

“Yes,” he said, “do as you think best.”

Harold stretched out his hand and after a moment Max took it. Their fingers gripped hard.

“Do you think she really wanted me dead?” Max asked as if he couldn’t help it.

Harold hesitated. “She tried so many times and failed. I wonder if she really meant it to happen. She was such a good shot, Max, and yet she missed you that day.”

“Yes,” Max seemed to take comfort from that.

“What does it matter anyway?” Harold went on, his voice shaking. “We’ll be gone and the duke will make you his heir again. You will be Duke of Barwon and live at Valland House. It’s your destiny and it seems that no matter how you wriggle like a worm on a hook, you can’t escape it.”

And with a grim smile, Harold followed after his wife.

Max sat down on the piano seat as if his legs could no longer hold him. He felt sick. How could he have thought he knew Susannah so well? She had been a stranger to him. Had he failed her when she first came to England? Perhaps if he had paid more attention to her, got her to talk about her past…But the duke hadn’t wanted that. He had warned Max and Harold not to remind the girl of sad memories, and they had obeyed him.

“Max?”

The voice was familiar, but for a moment he was so lost he couldn’t place it.

“Max, it’s me,” it went on gently. “It’s Marietta.”

He turned to look at her. “Marietta,” he said. He rubbed a hand over his face. “I suppose you’re going to tell me you can’t marry me now.”

She stepped back from him, startled, her eyes as blue as the ocean. He wanted to lose himself in them, find the love and peace he knew was there, but he held back.

“It’s ironic, isn’t it? My father will want to reinstate me as the heir to the dukedom of Barwon, and all that goes with it—I’ll be one of the richest men in England—and you don’t want me.”

He was not himself, Marietta could see that. She did not blame him for being angry and hurt after what he had just witnessed; he must be wondering if he could trust anyone ever again. But Max had nearly died tonight; Marietta had nearly lost him forever. That tended to put things like soiled reputations and scandals into perspective.

“I want to marry you, Max. I love you. I can be a duchess if you want me to be, in fact I think I would make an extremely good duchess.”

Was that a smile in his eyes? But it was gone as quickly as it came. He looked bruised. “But there’s more, isn’t there?” he asked bleakly.

“Yes, there’s more. I was about to explain to you at Vauxhall Gardens, when we were interrupted by Slipper.”

“Marietta,” he groaned, “will you just tell me.”

“Aphrodite and my father plan to leave me the club. Not now, of course, but later on, when Aphrodite can no longer run it. They’ve said they want me to have it and, Max, I think I would like that very much. But I can see you may not approve of your wife being the owner of a place like that, and I’ll understand if—”

Max frowned. “What nonsense is this?”