Page 92 of A Deal with the Broken Duke
“Not that,” Harry interrupted her. “What did you say about her tea?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Willow bark.” His voice was tight. “You said that I put willow bark in her tea.”
“Well… didn’t you?”
“Nobody knew that. I never told anyone I’d done that. And nobody saw it either. The only people who knew were the members of my staff involved in preparing the tea, and they wouldn’t have told you. And I know Susan never told you, because it’s just as you said, she wasn’t strong enough to speak by then. How did you know how Susan’s tea was being prepared?”
“This is a ridiculous question,” Lady Annie scoffed. “What difference does it make how I knew that?”
But she looked edgy and frightened. All the aggression had gone out of her. She moved towards the door.
Harry stepped forward to block her. “Tell me how you knew,” he hissed.
“What difference does it make?” she asked.
“It matters, because that was a private and painful moment in my life, and I never shared the details with anyone. Somehow, you know something you shouldn’t have known. Were you in my house when Susan was dying, Lady Annie?”
Harry didn’t know what to think. He wondered if she might have slipped in in hopes of winning him over while he was grieving. If she had, it was appalling. He could never forgive such a thing.
But nothing could have prepared him for the unpleasant look that crossed her face. She looked downright malicious all of a sudden.
“She never deserved you,” Lady Annie spat out. “My cousin. She never deserved you. She never even loved you, Your Grace.”
“What are you saying?” Harry’s head was spinning.
“You would learn to love me in time,” Lady Annie said. “All I ever wanted was for you to give me a chance. Can’t you understand that? All I ever wanted was to get the others out of the way so that you’d give me a chance.”
CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE
Harry stared at Lady Annie in horror. “What do you mean,get the others out of the way?What did you do?”
“I had no choice,” Lady Annie said darkly. “You were never going to look at another lady after your father died. You didn’t even love Susan. She didn’t even love you. But you were determined to marry her. No one else had a chance.”
“I said,what did you do?” His hands were balled into fists that he couldn’t remember making. He tried to force them to relax—he couldn’t hit her—but his whole body was trembling, and he was afraid that if he didn’t get some answers quickly he wouldn’t be able to control himself. “Did you do something to hurt her?”
“It was easy.” Lady Annie’s voice was cold. She sounded nothing like the person Harry had thought he knew. “I dressed in servant clothes and came to your manor every morning. No one bothered to ask me where I had come from or whether I was supposed to be there. Your staff is to blame if you want my opinion. So very careless. They would have let anyone walk in and do anything.”
“What did you do?” His voice was barely above a whisper now. It took everything he had in him to restrain the violence that threatened to come forth.
“It was a simple matter of poisoning her tea,” Lady Annie replied. “Every day, just a few drops in her drink. I knew that it would make her look ill. I knew that her condition would grow gradually worse, and I was sure you would believe it was the same disease that had taken your mother. And I was right. All my plans fell perfectly into place. She grew sicker and sicker, and you thought it was just that same lung disease, so you never so much as bothered to check her tea for poison. You never told her to stop drinking it. You didn’t even suspect.”
“Why would you do this?” Harry asked, horrified. “She was your cousin.”
“Susan always got everything, and she wasn’t even grateful for it.” Lady Annie sneered. “She didn’t care about you. She didn’t feel anything for you. She didn’t even care about being a duchess. She went along with the engagement because her parents wanted her to do it.”
“And that’s a crime worth dying for?”
“I was right there. You could have had me. All you had to do was turn and look in my direction, but you never did. I might as well have been nothing at all to you. I’ll never forget the first time I saw you. You had come over to meet with my cousin, and I was there. I’ll never forget the way you made me feel. But I’m sure you don’t remember that day at all, or if you do, I’m not the reason. You never thought of me that way.”
“You said you didn’t think of me that way either.”
“Well, I lied. You left me no choice. All I wanted was to be your wife. You’d never have had me if you’d known it was because I actually admired you. You would have hated that.”
She was right. He did hate it. It repulsed him. He had preferred thinking that she just wanted to be a duchess.
“You murdered her,” he growled. “You murdered Susan for this.”
