A Bride by Moonlight Read Online Free Page B

it,” Lazonby predicted, cutting an assessing glance around. “But press that point too loudly, my dear, and you’ll be giving yourself a clear motive for murdering him.”
    She looked suddenly afraid. “But I . . . I need to tell Napier everything ,” she whispered. “He’ll find out, Lazonby. And then I shall be the one in prison, not you.”
    “Don’t you dare,” Lazonby grimly ordered. “I can only do so much to protect you.”
    “I wonder you even trouble yourself,” she said bitterly.
    “Only because I want something from you,” Lazonby returned. “I need my good name cleared. I can’t have you accused of murder. Napier is dangerous; he’d have a noose round your neck in an instant—regardless of guilt. Trust me. I know how his father was.”
    “Trust you!” she murmured. “Dear God.”
    “Elizabeth, listen to me. You’re the only person who heard Sir Wilfred’s confession before he died. After all these years of blaming me, now you know I’m innocent—and you are going to make Napier believe it. Ruined, you’re of no use to me. Moreover, I’ve been to prison, you’ll recall. I would not wish it on anyone.”
    “Yes, he’d see me hanged, wouldn’t he?” she whispered, looking away. “You will never let me forget this, will you?”
    “Why should I?” he said calmly. “By the way, kindly adjust your shawl. You have a powder burn on your bodice—yes, just there. Thank God you had the presence of mind to wear gray.”
    “I always have presence of mind,” she returned.
    “Indeed, I have noticed.”
    “Though I’ll say it again, Lord Lazonby,” Miss Ashton interjected, “just in case you failed to grasp it the first time: I did not carry that pistol in my reticule all these months with any intention of shooting Sir Wilfred Leeton.”
    Lazonby flashed a muted grin. “Lord, no!” he agreed. “I think we all know your intent was to shoot me— assuming you couldn’t get the noose round my neck again.”
    But this insightful pronouncement was met by Napier’s reappearance from the shadows of the dairy to converse with his constables. A moment later, Napier was striding purposefully toward them.
    Lazonby cut his gaze toward her and winked. “Well, curtains up, my dear!” he murmured. “Now, are we ready to tread the boards?”
    W ith the torch passed and a few simple reminders given for the coroner, Napier went back up the steps and onto the manicured swath of green that stretched to the Leetons’ mansion.
    “Direct everyone away from here,” he ordered to the two officers he’d dragged with him from Scotland Yard, “save for Lazonby and the other witness.”
    “Aye, sir,” said the more senior. “And what of the widow?”
    But Napier’s gaze—and his breath—had caught on the woman in gray again. “Just see Lady Leeton safely inside,” he murmured distractedly, “and I’ll speak with her after I’m done with Lazonby and the governess, or whatever the devil she is.”
    Already Napier had asked the butler to provide him the garden party’s guest list; the thing would doubtless read like a page ripped from DeBrett’s. But it little mattered. All of them, he’d been told, had been situated by the tea tent on the west lawn. They had merely heard rather than seen the shot that felled their host.
    All save for Lady Anisha, and the pair who now regarded him across the swath of grass.
    He watched the woman carefully as he approached. Those icy, blue-green eyes flickered again with the faintest hint of discomfiture as he drew up before them, but the tell was quickly veiled, and her pale, luminescent mask thoroughly returned to its place.
    The look of her set him on edge. There was something . . . something familiar in the turn of her face. And yet it was wrong somehow.
    No. He did not know her.
    Did he?
    “Lazonby.” Napier gave the earl a too-curt nod then introduced himself to the woman.
    “Elizabeth Ashton,” she returned, her voice husky as if with tears.