Son of a rogue and a gypsy, Hero Fiennes Tiffin was a notorious rake until a shattering betrayal left him alone and embittered in the Welsh countryside. Desperation drives quiet schoolteacher Josephine Langford to ask Hero Fiennes Tiffin to help sav...
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His gaze on the pistol, Hero stood and stepped away from Josephine. "So we're back to that," he said conversationally. "You never did say why you want me dead."
Michael moved closer. With the sun no longer behind him, Hero could see the wild despair in his green eyes. Whatever madness Michael carried had been triggered by the violence that had almost engulfed them all.
White-faced, Josephine struggled to her feet and leaned against the stone wall. "If you kill Hero, you'll have to kill me too, Lord Michael," she said fiercely. "Do you think I'll keep silent if you murder my husband?"
"Of course not. You'll see me hanged, and justly so. That doesn't matter." He stepped over to the whip. Keeping his gaze on Hero, he stooped and tossed it out of reach. "Perhaps I'll save the hangman the trouble of executing me, because I can't imagine living with myself after this."
"Then don't do it!" she cried. "What has Hero done to warrant death at your hands?"
"I promised that justice would be done, never thinking that I would be called on to fulfill my vow," Michael said bleakly. "When the time came, I turned coward. I spent four years in the army, hoping that a bullet would spare me from having to do this. Yet fate preserved me and brought me here." Pain crossed his face. "I can no longer fight fate."
"To whom did you make your vow?" Hero asked softly. "My grandfather? He hated me and did his best to alienate my friends, but I never thought he would try to have me killed."
"Not your grandfather. Caroline."
There was a moment of frozen silence. Then rage exploded through Hero. "Christ, so you were one of her lovers! I should have guessed. The evidence was all there, but I didn't want to believe it." His voice cracked. "I wasn't able to believe it, not of you."
"We loved each other from the first time we met, at your wedding, when it was already too late," Michael said, his face stark with guilt. "Because you were my friend, I fought against my feelings, and so did she. But... but we could not stay apart."
"So you became another victim of Caroline's lies," Hero said with furious disgust.
"Don't speak of her that way!" Michael's fingers whitened on the butt of the pistol. "She would never have been unfaithful if you had not mistreated her so wickedly." His words poured out as if they had been festering. "She told me all about you—your cruelty, the revolting things you forced her to do. At first I had trouble believing it. Yet how much does a man know about how his friends treat women?"
"And how much does a man know about how a woman treats other men?" Hero said caustically.
Before he could continue, Michael cut him off. "After I saw the bruises on her body and she had cried in my arms, I came to believe. Caroline was terrified of you. She said that if she died mysteriously, you would be to blame, and that I must avenge her. I gave her my word, never thinking that I would have to carry it out. Even though you had treated her monstrously, I never believed you capable of murder."
