Read Through the Smoke for Free Online

seeing that we are much closer than London.”
    “Justification, surely.”
    “Not only that but my mother was trying to protect against—”
    “My turning you out.” His breath, smelling faintly of brandy, fanned her cheeks, and Rachel nodded.
    “Funny how you suffered no qualms about keeping money that was not your own. That was, according to your knowledge, given in trade for a woman’s life. Yet you dare censure
me
?” His voice sharpened. “You would let the mystery of a murder go unsolved while holding a piece of the puzzle, and for money and security’s sake never come forward? Tell me, have you no respect for truth and honesty?”
    Rachel stiffened at his condescending tone. The question of whether or not it had been honest to keep the money and hold her silence had troubled her from the beginning, but she’d used her belief in her father’s innocence to justify her behavior. In the beginning, no one had connected Jack McTavish with the fire. So why cast any aspersion on his name? Her father hadn’t killed Lady Katherine. Someone else did, and it could have been Lord Druridge as easily as not.
    She summoned the last of her courage. “That’s an easy thing for you to say,” she replied. “Forgive me for not shouting what I know from the rooftops, but I felt the money well spent. It is not as though we have lived like you do.” She waved a contemptuous hand around her. “We used the money to keep the shop open and to buy books—for our wealthy clients, yes, but also so that we could teach the villagers how to read and write. On some level I considered it your contribution to the community, if you will. Besides, what I know would not have helped anyone, you least of all. So forgive me for letting you run the gauntlet alone. You, who are virtually untouchable by the law and, by comparison, have known so little of need or loss or difficulty. Even the fire rid you of a wife you no longer wanted!”
    The muscles of the earl’s face tensed until he looked as though he had been carved and polished out of marble. With a haughty glare, he pushed himself away. “Are you certain my life is so much better?”
    “At least you don’t have to worry about hunger or deprivation.”
    “I didn’t know that affluence, or possessing a title, for that matter, made me any less human, any less capable of feeling than other men.”
    “My lord, if you had a heart beneath that fine dressing gown, you would not have forced me to betray my father’s memory to save my dying mother—”Her voice broke, causing Rachel to draw a shuddering breath that sounded more like a sob. Standing, she shoved past him and headed for the door, eager to make good her escape before she lost any more of her dignity. “I am going back, with or without your precious physician. So if you plan to kill me as you did your wife, you had better do it quickly.”
    Catching her by the elbow, he spun her around before she could reach the door. “Kill you? You little idiot! If I were the monster you accuse me of being, you would have been dead long before now. Instead, you are alive and well enough to make damning judgments on matters you know nothing about. Do you think I felt no betrayal when my wife slept with other men? Do you think it wasn’t painful to be taunted by the knowledge of it? To receive the bland smiles of those I considered my friends, who had taken my wife into their beds? That I could not feel—that I still do not feel—the loss of my son, a life I valued more than my own?” His fingers tightened almost painfully on her arm.
    “Stop, you’re hurting me,” she said, but he wasn’t hurting her. Not yet. She was just afraid he would. The pressure of his grip eased, but still Rachel could not twist out of his grasp.
    “Not until you answer me. Do only the poor feel pain, Miss McTavish, while the rich know nothing but peace and happiness? By your own admission, you are an educated woman. Please, do not try to sell me that bag