Fanning the Flame Read Online Free PDF

order."
    "Indeed," the butler said.
    They left the house and returned to the carriage, Adam's anger building all the way.
    "I take it that wasn't exactly the story you got from Miss Whitney," Clay drawled from the seat across from him.
    "No."
    "Then perhaps she is guilty, after all."
    "Perhaps." But Adam couldn't quite convince himself. Not when every time he thought of her, he saw her feeding the ducks, her face etched into the softest, kindest smile he had ever seen.
    He thought of the lies she had told and the image disappeared. By the time he had returned the duke to his home, Adam's anger had resurfaced. A memory of Jillian rose into his mind and unconsciously his hand balled into a fist.
     
    Chapter Three
     
    Jillian paced the floor of the drawing room. Like the rest of the town house, it was done in impeccable taste, from the cream brocade draperies and gold-striped wallpaper, to the ivory and gold brocade sofas in front of the sienna marbled hearth. Thick Oriental carpets covered finely inlaid parquet floors, but the most interesting items in the room were the Egyptian artifacts sitting on bookshelves and tables: stonework, jewel-encrusted beetles, magnificently carved figurines.
    The study of ancient Egypt had been a passion of her father's. Over the years, he had become a rather well-known expert on the subject and some of his knowledge had, of course, seeped into her. Jillian recognized the stonework as coming from the Early Dynastic period, somewhere around 3000 B.C. The figurines were Middle Kingdom, believed to be some thousand years later.
    She wondered if Lord Blackwood had collected the objects during his years in the army, surprised that a hard man like the earl was attracted to such fine, exquisitely crafted works of art.
    Mostly, she wondered what he might find out at Lord Fenwick's mansion.
    A noise sounded in the entry. Her heartbeat quickened at the rhythm of the earl's heavy footfalls pounding down the marble-floored hall. Then the door slammed open, Blackwood stood in the opening, and the dark look on his face told her all she needed to know.
    "You lied to me."
    She shook her head, unconsciously backing away. Dear God, what had they told him?
    "You lied to me, Jillian," he repeated, striding toward her on long, powerful legs. "I want to know why."
    She swallowed, kept on moving backward. Her shoulders came up against the wall and still he kept coming. "What . . . what did they say?"
    "Why didn't you tell me about the pistol?" He was standing so close she had to tilt her head back to look at him and the fury in his face made her heart pound even harder.
    "Pistol?" she repeated, then, for the first time, remembered the weapon she had seen on the floor next to the earl. "Oh, dear Lord, I forgot. Last night, I just . . . I didn't think to tell you. Everything was so muddled and I was so frightened that I . . . I could scarcely think."
    A muscle tightened beneath the scar on his jaw, and she raced on, hoping to defuse some of his anger. "I noticed it when I knelt beside him . . . it was lying just a few feet away."
    "And you saw it when you ran into the study—after you heard the shot."
    "Yes . . . that's right."
    "So you were outside in the hall?"
    "Yes."
    He reached out and caught her arms, pressed her up against the wall. He looked utterly ruthless, his anger barely contained, and suddenly she was afraid.
    "You were in the study with Fenwick when it happened, Jillian."
    "No!"
    "The butler heard you talking to him just before the shot was fired."
    Her throat closed up. Her eyes slid closed and her knees buckled. If he hadn't been holding her up, she would have slid into a puddle at his feet. She had prayed no one had seen her, that they would believe she had run into the study after she heard the shot. Obviously someone had known she was there.
    His fingers tightened around the tops of her arms until it was almost painful. "Why did you kill him? Did you do it in self-defense? Had the earl done