“I don’t understand. If she loved someone else, why didn’t she just tell you?”

“She couldn’t bring herself to do that.” He pulled on his trousers and fastened them. “Her family would have been horrified. They were extraordinarily pleased with the marriage. So was mine, for that matter. It was the culmination of years of friendship between our parents.”

“In other words, Fiona was under a great deal of pressure to go through with the marriage.”

“It is a common enough story.” He fastened his shirt with grimly efficient fingers. “In spite of all those novels and plays that you find so inspiring, we both know that the vast majority of marriages are based on money, property, and family connections.”

“Yes.” Wistful regret drifted through her. “I suppose that is why novels and plays are so thrilling. The ideal of true love is very pleasant to contemplate.”

“I wouldn’t know,” he said coldly. “I am not a great fan of that sort of entertainment.”

She smiled and said nothing.

He paused in the act of dressing and gripped one of the bedposts. He looked down at her with a dangerous expression.

“You find that amusing?” he asked.

“A little.” She drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. “Say what you like about novels and plays, the truth is you possess the romantic soul of a true hero.”

He looked at her as though she had just announced that she could fly.

“What the devil are you talking about?” he asked very softly.

“It is why you are so determined to find justice for Fiona,” she explained. “In spite of the fact that she fell in love with someone else, your love for her is steadfast.”

He tightened his grip on the bedpost. His eyes narrowed. “Let me make one thing very plain here, Louisa. I am not engaged in this venture because I am brokenhearted over the loss of Fiona.”

That stopped her for a few seconds.

“You’re not?” she asked cautiously.

“Make no mistake; I cared for her. I knew her since she was in the schoolroom. She was my friend as well as my fiancée. I most certainly feel a responsibility to find her killer, but it was not my undying love for her that launched me on this quest. Do not try to make me out a romantic hero.”

She shook her head, utterly bewildered. “Then why did you undertake an investigation into the circumstances of her death?”

“At the start of this business a little over a year ago, I had to find out if she truly did commit suicide because I was about to announce that our engagement was ended.” The words sounded as though they had been ground between great stones. “Now do you understand? I needed to know if I was, indeed, the cause of her death, if she really could not abide the humiliation of being jilted.”

“Anthony.”

“I’m no hero, Louisa. Now that I know that she was, indeed, murdered, I have to find out if it was my fault that she was placed in harm’s way.”

“How could it possibly be your fault?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps my intention to terminate our engagement led her to take some terrible risk that she would not otherwise have taken. She may have become desperate. All I know is that she was my friend and she had been my fiancée. I have to find out what happened that night.”

“Stop it. Stop it at once.” Appalled, she uncurled from the bed and scrambled to her feet. She grabbed his arm, holding on to him as though he was about to be swept away by a deep current. “Listen closely to me. It does seem quite likely that Fiona was, indeed, murdered, just as you suspect. But whether that proves to be the case or whether it transpires that she took her own life, you are not at fault.”

“You don’t understand. She was so innocent. She had no experience of the world.”

“Innocent or not, if she threw herself into the river because she feared the humiliation of a broken engagement, it was her choice. If she somehow became embroiled in some dangerous affair, it was not through any fault of yours.”

“She was under a great deal of pressure, not only from her family and mine but from Society as well.” He exhaled a weary sigh that sounded as though it had been dredged up from the depths of his soul. “None of us knew that she was so unhappy. If she had just said something to me—”

“It was her decision to take the risk of falling in love with another man.” She paused as a thought struck her. “Which brings up another point. If she was intimately involved with someone else, wouldn’t she have planned to marry him after your engagement to her ended?”

“That is one of the things that made me doubt that she committed suicide,” he admitted. “All the evidence indicates that her lover did care for her. He was not married, so he would have been free to wed her.”

“What happened to him?”

“He blames me for her death and despises me to this day.”

“Julian Easton?” she asked quietly.

Anthony’s brows rose. “How did you reason that out?”

“It was obvious that he carried some great grudge against you.”

“He has never dared to level any outright accusations because he has no proof. Also, I believe he is being cautious because he does not wish to implicate himself in the gossip. Fiona’s family would be furious if he besmirched her memory by letting it be known that he’d had an affair with her before her wedding.”

She tilted her head slightly, thinking. “I hesitate to suggest this, but do you think that there is any chance that Easton harmed her?”

“No.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I looked into that possibility immediately. His whereabouts that night are well documented by several witnesses. He disappeared from the ballroom for a few minutes, but he returned almost immediately. He later left with friends and went straight to his club. He remained there, playing cards, until dawn. Fiona’s body was pulled out of the river at about that time. There simply wasn’t time for him to murder her and dispose of the body.”

“But Easton is deliberately encouraging everyone to believe the worst of you.”

“He believes she did commit suicide, and he blames me for driving her to it. Keeping the gossip alive is his notion of vengeance.”

She thought about the scene in the street in front of the Lorrington house. “Actually, I think he may well blame himself.”

Anthony frowned. “What do you mean?”

“If he loved her, he may be trying to convince himself and everyone else that you are the culprit because he wants to avoid the guilt he is no doubt feeling for having failed to protect her.”

Anthony shrugged and finished fastening his shirt. “All I know is that he hates me.”

“He has no right to make you the scapegoat,” she announced. “It is not fair. What a tragic muddle it has all become.”

His mouth curved derisively. “Easton and Fiona obviously fell victim to the overwhelming power of an illicit love affair. According to you, there is no more thrilling adventure.”

“You mistake me, sir,” she said sharply. “Illicit passion is obviously a strong force, but we are all equipped with the strength to resist it if we choose to do so.”

“So it is a choice, now, is it?” His brows lifted. “Not an overwhelming force of nature?”

“Do not mock me. I am very serious about this.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“It is one thing to find a person attractive. It is quite another to decide to act on that attraction and to willfully incur the hazards involved. That is the choice that Fiona made. You had nothing to do with that decision, either.”

He looked at her with an odd expression, but she never learned what he intended to say because at that moment she heard the sound of a carriage in the street.

“Dear heaven, what time is it?” Panicked, she glanced at the clock. “Five-thirty. Good grief, that will be Emma.”

He raised a brow. “Are you certain?”

“Yes. You must leave at once, sir. Emma must not find us together here when I am in this state of undress. Hurry.”