Page 38 of A Virgin for the Cruel Duke

“It won’t have been her fault, Your Grace,” she said quietly, a note of pleading in her voice. “She is a good girl, a kind girl. I am certain my father - someone must have threatened her. Please do not hurt her, let me send her away. She cannot stay with us, but I could not stand it if she were to be killed, please Stephen.”

His mouth thinned a little and he looked back at the girl who was standing very still, her eyes on the ground.

“I want to talk to her alone. Please leave us.”

“No! No, please Stephen,” Elizabeth grabbed his arm with both hands, naked terror in her face. “Please do not be angry with her, she is only a pawn in my family’s games. It’s not her fault. Please.”

“Elizabeth,” he said gently, taking her chin between two fingers and pressing a soft kiss on her cheek. “Have faith in me, sweetheart. I will just talk with the girl. I mean her no harm.”

He could not even be angry that she would think such a thing of him as he saw her shiver and lean into his caress. Who knew what kind of world she had grown up with under Albert Barnes’ roof? Who knew what they might do to a servant that betrayed them. It was not her fault that she was so protective, any more than it was her fault that she had been born into that family.

“Go,” he said, squeezing her hand. “I will tell you all after we have spoken.”

She nodded, wordless and wan, and left the room.

The girl, red eyed and still crying, tried to meet his gaze. She was a stoic little thing, her arms still wrapped around herself as though she might burst apart in a moment, but her chin set as she faced him, her lips pressed into a white line and misery painting her face.

“Are y’gonna kill me?” she asked, hiccupping a little on a sob. “I don’t want my mama to know. She’ll die of a broken heart, she will, sir. I don’t want Daisy to know neither.” Tears brimmed and fell down her cheeks but she didn’t look away from him.

“I don’t make a habit of slaughtering children,” Stephen said dryly, gesturing at a chair. “Sit down, girl. I won’t harm you, I don’t lie.”

She hesitated, but she was trembling too hard to keep standing, so she eventually slid over to the chair and settled on it, looking between him and her knees. She was still crying but trying not to be loud about it, like she felt she didn’t deserve to weep. Perhaps she did not in front of the man she had nearly killed, but Stephen would see. He always wanted all the facts before making a decision.

“Why did you come here, Miss Adams?” he asked, stalking to stand in front of her, hands behind his back.

She wriggled a little and hiccupped. “Was sent with a message, sir. And - “ she glanced up at him, a quick searching look. It wascunning but the kind of cunning of a trapped fox kit trying to survive. “I don’t know how to say it, sir.”

“Start at the beginning.”

The girl rubbed at her face and he sighed and passed her his handkerchief. He could be just while not being unkind. “Come on now. Start with why you were sent to me. Who sent you?”

She blew her nose and was silent.

“Was it the Duke?”

A head shake, she glanced at him again and there was fear in her gaze. Not fear of him. Fear of something else.

“Was it the Duchess?” It was not the Duchess. Stephen already knew that. Duchess Rosenburg was not one to meddle in the matters between the two families, and she would have known enough to send a proper messenger, not a slip of a child. It had seemed strange at the time, but Stephen had assumed that the Duke was trying to insult him.

She shook her head again, harder this time.

“It was Lord Barnes, wasn’t it, Annie?” Stephen said, gentling his voice a little. “Dudley Barnes sent you to me. He wanted you to hurt me?”

Annie shuddered all over and ducked her head into her hands, a fresh bout of sobs shaking her. “No,” she wailed. “He didn’t want me to hurt you, sir. He didn’t want me to hurtyou.”

A cold hard horror settled in Stephen’s stomach and he stepped back, sharply. “What do you mean?” His voice was flat, harsh in his own ears.

She raised her face, tears pouring down her cheeks. “It was Lady Elizabeth, sir,” she whispered. “He wanted me to hurt Lady Elizabeth.”

A rush of fury so hot that it left him unable to speak consumed him.

The girl kept talking, now she had said the most horrible thing it seemed to have opened the floodgates. “Lord Barnes, sir. He told me if I didn’t do what he said he would kill my mother, that he could do it easy sir, just go in her room and slit her throat while she sleeps and blame a robber. I know he’s a bad man, and I know he’d do it and I didn’t want my mother to die,” she sobbed, raw and desperate. “He told me I had to come here and stay long enough to get some stuff into Lady Elizabeth’s food, that it would make her sick and then his dad would be able to bring her back home and start war with you again. I know she’s happy here and I didn’t want to ruin it for her but I’m so scared all the time at home and I miss my Daisy and Lady Elizabeth and he swore me it wouldn’t do her lasting harm, sir, I promise he did!”

Stephen clenched his fists tightly enough to feel his nails cut into his skin and took a deep breath. Every fiber of his beingwas aflame with fury. Barnes had tried to murder his wife, his Elizabeth, with poison in the hands of a terrified girl. He would have had this child responsible for a death and Stephen’s family blamed, for who would believe that a little girl would murder someone?

It was a cruel plan, one that hurt so many innocents. God only knew what impact unknowingly murdering a lady she clearly held dear to her heart would have on the child, let alone her family, and then the death would ruin his entire household if the Duke decided to get revenge.

“He told you that it would not kill her,” he said in a dangerous voice, forcing himself not to move as in the fierce fire of his rage he could not be certain he would not do something that would terrorize the girl. “Did he tell you what the poison was?”

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