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PROLOGUE

Northeastern Coast of England

January 1838

He’d kill her Just as soon as he could get his hands around her delicate neck, he’d stop the black heart that beat beneath all thatbeauty and put an end to his own misery

Although True, had come all the way from London to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and had a bit farther north to go before he reached his home, blind fury caused his pulse to pound as fast as the hooves of the horses that were pulling his coach His driver had been pushing the poor beasts so hard it’d been necessary to stop and change them out at every opportunity But he was determined to reach Blackmoor Hall in record time, to confront his wife as soon as possible

“How dare you?” he h that he’d lost his beloved parents to a terrible carriage accident shortly after he’d married Katherine? That the child she bore him had lived only six months—and died under mysterious circuht have had so to do with it?

He glared down at the letter she’d sent him, at all the lies written in her perfect penmanship Did she really think he was so addle-brained? So terribly gullible as to believe the child fronancy could be his?

My Dearest Husband,

I aood neith you, so pleased, in fact, that I dare not wait until your business has concluded in Town and you have returned hoer you have been to have a child—

He noticed that she did not refer to their firstborn She never did, never had Since the nored hiiven her the incentive to do what he believed she did She’d seeularly detero

Think of it, she wrote Now, if God grants us a son, you will have an heir to your lands and title At last our prayers have been answered

“Prayers,” he growled, feeling the rage boil up again “Prayers?” He’d long since quit asking God for any type of a child—boy or girl—with Lady Katherine He didn’t think she was stable enough to be avital that was ain in that odd, blank stare of hers In her spiteful, cutting words In the way she laughed at anything that brought him misery

The letter went on to say she o, when he was intoxicated and, although she’d represented it differently, desperate enough that he nearly took her back into his bed He’d started to kiss her, to touch her—his body had demanded a release after the many months he’d reht of Jeremy and been unable to finish As drunk as he was, he had not been so drunk that she could rewrite history

So as this really about?

He wished he couldn’t answer that question, but it was all too obvious He’d left her alone long enough that she’d grown desperate for a way to cover her betrayal After threeto show and knew she had to explain the pregnancy to hi with child would look too suspicious So she’d penned this letter full of false exciteood news” and hope of an heir

Instead her words had brought all the hate he’d begun to feel for her rushing to the surface

“Are you well, m’lord?”

It was his driver, calling out to him from the box on top Tru on him