Seducing an Angel by Mary Balogh Page A

had no alternative but to kill him?”
    But he answered his own question before she could do so.
    “It must have been. Why were you not arrested?”
    “I shot him in the library,” she said, “late in the evening. There were no witnesses, and by the time a number of people gatheredthere, drawn by the noise, there was no knowing who had done it. There was and is no proof that I did. Anyone could have. Anyone at all. The house was full of servants and other residents. The library window was open to the whole world beyond. No one can prove anything except that he died of a bullet wound.”
    “And except,” he said, “that you have confessed to me.”
    “And to no one else besides you,” she said. “You will fear from this moment on that when you are asleep one night I will kill you too in order to keep you silent.”
    “I am not a tattler,” he said, “and I am not afraid. You must not be either.”
    “I do not fear you,” she said. “A gentleman does not reveal a lady’s secrets, and I believe you are a gentleman. And I do not fear you would ever abuse me. If you did, I would not kill you. Why would I when I can simply walk away from you as I could not from a husband? A widow has power, Lord Merton. She is free.”
    Except that she was not. Her lack of money set her in thrall. And somehow this conversation was not proceeding at all as she had planned it in her mind. Then she had been able to control his answers as well as her questions. She was not sure there was a way of bringing it back under her control.
    “I will be happy,” he said, “to be your lover. I will treat you kindly. I promise you that. And when it is over, you will simply tell me and I will go.”
    “But the trouble is, Lord Merton,” she said, “that I cannot afford a liaison that is simply an affaire de coeur.”
    It was not at all as she had intended to say it. But it was too late now. The words were out, and his gaze had sharpened further on her.
    “Cannot afford ?” he said.
    “A man who succeeds to his father’s title and property and fortune,” she said, “is almost always going to consider his surviving stepmother an encumbrance. But most such men honor their obligations nonetheless. The present Lord Paget did not.”
    “Your husband left no provision for you in his will?” he said, frowning. “Or in your marriage contract?”
    “Certainly he did,” she said. “Do you think I would have killed him if I had known I would be left destitute, Lord Merton? I was to have the dower house at Carmel for my use during my lifetime, and the house in town here. I was to have a money settlement, all my personal jewelry, and a comfortable pension for life.”
    He was still frowning.
    “Can Paget legally withhold any of those things from you?” he asked.
    “He cannot,” she said. “Neither can I legally kill a man. His father, in fact. It was a stalemate, Lord Merton, but he resolved it. He would not pursue prosecution against me if I just simply went away empty-handed.”
    “And that is what you did?” he asked her. “Simply went away? Even though there was no evidence against you?”
    “Evidence, Lord Merton,” she said, “can very easily be trumped up against someone one does not like.”
    He stared at her for a few moments before closing his eyes and lowering his head again.
    Seduction by a lady of questionable reputation followed by a business agreement by a courtesan—an expensive courtesan, an irresistible courtesan. And he would come to heel like a well-trained puppy because his appetite would have been aroused but not fully sated. He would be panting with lust for her.
    That had been the plan. It had been clear in her head, and it had seemed perfectly reasonable. She had not expected it to be at all difficult to implement.
    The plan had gone quite awry, however.
    She began swinging her foot slowly again. She looked at his tousled golden blond curls with as much scorn as she could muster. She waited for him to get up