Pride & Passion Read Online Free PDF Page B

ate at him, made him want to discover Orpheus’s identity, and tear at him—destroy him. For what, he had asked himself? And the answer was always there, whispering in his mind. For taking the woman he loved, for turning her away so that she could not see him, or his need; for making her unable to accept anything he offered her.
    “You’re woolgathering again, brother,” Lizzy murmured. The touch of her fingers pulled him out of his reverie and escalating anger, and helplessness that had been his constant companion these past weeks.
    “This man who shot Knighton, he obviously didn’t want us to capture Knighton alive. Before he shot him, I spotted him on the roof of the lodge. I ran to the back of the building and gave chase, but he had quite a head start on me, and when he was out of sight, I stopped, deciding it prudent to return to Black who had beenshot. And then I saw it. A lace handkerchief, with three initials.”
    The memory made his stomach fall to his feet, just as it had when he’d picked up the lace and saw what he held.
    “Lucy Ashton’s initials, I presume.”
    “Yes.”
    “I think I know the rest. She had given this man her favor—and he is the lover that she’s trying to connect with on the other side, via all the séances and soothsayers she’s been visiting.”
    Adrian could no longer deny the truth to himself. “She loves him,” he said on a breath that he knew sounded pained. “She believed him dead, and when I gave her back the handkerchief, it told her that he was indeed very much alive and not killed in the fire as she had assumed. She doesn’t seem to give a damn that he’s a murderer, and my enemy, and also the enemy of her cousin’s husband. She’s obsessed with finding him,” he snapped. Lunging up from the settee, he paced the room like a caged lion.
    “She’s determined to find him, even knowing that we search for him. She’s resolved to stand in our way, and if it makes her an enemy of us, so be it.”
    “Then we must protect her for her own good.”
    “How? She won’t do or say anything that might help us.”
    Rising, Elizabeth held out her hand, and he grasped it, steadying her. “She won’t tell you, brother, but she’ll confide in a friend—I am sure of it. Now, I hear a carriage…that will be them. Take yourself off, Adrian. Your expression, I’m quite certain, is rather ferocious.It will hardly induce poor Lucy to share her confidences with me.”
    He stood there, stunned. “You would do that?”
    “Betray Lucy’s confidence?” She shrugged, and reached down to where Rosie, now off the settee, placed her head against Elizabeth. “Only so far as it might help you. Anything she says that is of no consequence to this case, or Orpheus, I will not share. I like her, Adrian. And I could not live with myself if she were to be hurt by this man.”
    “Thank you, Lizzy.”
    “There is no need to thank me, yet. I haven’t gotten her to confide in me—and I won’t if you’re standing around.”
    “All right,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. “I’ll head out to Blake’s. I’m meeting Black and Alynwick there.”
    “A good idea. Be back for tea and I shall share what I learn.”

CHAPTER THREE
    I F IT WASN’T for Elizabeth’s excellent conversation and friendship, Lucy wouldn’t dare step foot inside the huge town house. Despite its size, there was every possibility she might very well run into the duke—whom she was presently arduously avoiding.
    “Ah, good day, ladies,” Elizabeth said as she breezed into the foyer with the help of a footman, her pet spaniel at her side. “You have brought the contraband, I hope?”
    Isabella held up a stack of leaflets. “The penny dreadfuls. Hot off the press. I made Black run out early this morning to get them.”
    “How fortunate for us that you have the ability to persuade your reclusive husband to leave his home, and at so early an hour.”
    “There are some inducements his lordship is unable to