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Ian never kneent on behind people’s expressions Everyone else instinctively knew the signs of rage and - fear, happiness or sadness in others Ian had no idea why people burst into laughter or into tears He had to watch, to learn to do as they did

He seized Beth by the shoulders and shook her "What are you thinking? Tell me I don’t know"

She looked up at hi his strength, she rested her hands gently on his arms "You think Hart did this, don’t you?" Ian shook his head He closed his eyes and kept shaking his head, but he held on to Beth as though he’d be torn away if he didn’t "No" The word echoed through the rooain

"Ian"

With effort, Ian stopped, but he kept his eyes shut tight "Why do you think so?" Beth’s voice wrapped around hiuish of five years trying to drown him Sally had boasted that she knew secrets that would ruin Hart, cut hiether Hart loved politics, God knehy In theon and on how she’d blackmail Hart, that Ian had withdrawn, snatched up his clothes, and left the rooo

He’d walked the house, searching for whiskey, searching for Hart and not finding hiain, he’d returned to Sally’s room "I opened the door and saw Hart in the bedroom I saw hies rose before Ian could stop thele one as coldly clear as it had been that day Hart with Sally, her naked li to fear

"Hart took a knife away from her--I don’t knohy she had it She swore at him He tossed the knife away Then he pressed her throat until she quieted, and she laughed I don’t want you to know these things"

"But" Beth frowned "Sally wasn’t strangled, too, was she? No one has mentioned bruises on her throat" Ian shook his head "Hart, he used to beYou wouldn’t understand the tered to hiland"

For soh "They obeyed hi to theer, and then her brow cleared

"Oh" The syllable was short, pregnant with"He did it before he ain He was very discreet, but we knew He was grieving He needed the brooches," Beth said faintly "But ould he try to strangle Sally Tate?"

Ian placed his hand at the base of Beth’s windpipe