The Handmaiden's Necklace. Kat Martin

afternoon, Danielle.”

      Her heartbeat thundered. Anger made rosy circles appear in her cheeks. She turned away, rudely ignored him, caught the look of shock that appeared on his face, and simply started walking.

      But the Duke of Sheffield wasn’t used to being ignored, and she felt the pressure of his fingers as they wrapped around her arm. His grip was firm enough to stop her forward motion and turn her around to face him.

      “I said good afternoon. I expect at least a civil reply.”

      She clamped down on her temper, told herself not to let him bait her. “Excuse me. I believe my aunt is calling.”

      But he didn’t let go of her arm. “I think your aunt is otherwise engaged at the moment. Which means you have time to greet an old friend.”

      Her fine thread of control stretched to the breaking point and then completely snapped. “You are no friend of mine, Rafe Saunders. You are, in fact, the last man on earth I would think to call a friend.”

      Rafe’s jaw hardened. “Is that so? If not a friend, then how, may I ask, should I think of you?”

      She lifted her chin, the knot of anger in her stomach almost painful. “You may think of me as the biggest fool you have ever met. A woman foolish enough to trust a man like you. Stupid enough to fall in love with you, Rafael.”

      She started walking, but Rafe’s tall figure stepped into the path of her escape. His jaw was set, his intense blue eyes diamond hard.

      “I believe it was you, my dear, I found with one of my closest friends. You who invited Oliver Randall into your bed, under my very nose.”

      “And it was you who was eager to believe your friend’s lies instead of the truth!”

      “You betrayed me, Danielle. Or perhaps you have forgot.”

      Dani looked up at him, her eyes snapping with fire. “No, Rafael. It was you who betrayed me. If you had loved me, trusted me, you would have known I was telling you the truth.” She gave him a thin, bitter smile. “On second thought, as I think of it, certainly it is you who are the fool.”

      Rafe’s whole body vibrated with anger.

      Good, she thought. She hated the bland, uninteresting man he had become, so cool and unaffected. The sort of man she wouldn’t have found the least bit attractive.

      “You have the nerve to stand there and claim you are innocent of the affair?”

      “I told you that the moment you stepped into my bedchamber. The events of that night have not changed.”

      “You were in bed with the man!”

      “I didn’t even know he was there—as I told you that night! Now, get out of my way, Rafael.”

      Fury burned in his cold blue eyes but she didn’t care. She started walking again and this time Rafe made no move to stop her.

      She was surprised he had approached her in the first place. They hadn’t spoken since the night he had walked into her bedchamber five years ago and found Oliver Randall lying naked in her bed.

      She had tried then to tell him that Oliver was playing some kind of cruel, terrible joke, that nothing had happened between them, that she had been sleeping until Rafe had walked into the room and startled her awake.

      But for reasons she still didn’t understand, Oliver had set out to destroy the love Rafael had felt for her—or at least said he felt—and the man had brutally succeeded.

      Rafe hadn’t listened to her that night, nor responded to any of the dozen letters she sent him, begging him to hear her side of the story, pleading with him to believe she was telling him the truth.

      As word of the scandal began to leak out, he never once defended her, never once paid the slightest attention to her version of events. Instead, he had abruptly ended their betrothal, confirming what the gossipmongers said.

      Telling the world that Danielle Duval was not the innocent she pretended, but a scarlet woman who had conducted herself shamelessly, and with blatant disregard for her intended. She’d been shunned in society, banished to the country. Even her own mother had believed the tale.

      Dani’s vision blurred as she made her way through the garden. She rarely thought of Rafael and those awful days back then. But now she was here in London and Rafe was tossing the entire affair back in her face.

      She sniffed and fought back the tears she refused to let fall. She wouldn’t cry for Rafe, not again. She had wept more than enough for the man she had loved five years ago and she would never weep for him again.

      Three

      Rafe stood in the garden, angry and oddly disturbed as he watched Danielle’s elegant figure moving along the gravel path until she disappeared inside the house.

      He didn’t know what had possessed him to seek her out. Perhaps it was keeping his silence for all of these years. Whatever it was, instead of the satisfaction he was certain he would feel once he had confronted her, he was more troubled than ever.

      As she had done that night, Danielle had professed her innocence. He hadn’t believed her then and he didn’t believe her now. He’d read the note, after all, and he had two eyes in his head. Oliver had accepted Danielle’s invitation and he was there in her room, lying naked beside her in bed.

      Rafe had called the bastard out, of course. Ollie was supposed to be his friend.

      “I won’t meet you, Rafe,” Oliver had said. “I won’t fight you no matter what you do to me. We’ve been friends since we were boys, and there is no denying the fault is mine entirely.”

      “Why, Ollie? How could you do it?”

      “I love her, Rafael. I’ve always loved her. You know that better than anyone. When she asked me to come to her room, I found it impossible to refuse her invitation.”

      Rafael had known for years that his friend was in love with Danielle, had been in love with her since he was a youth in his teens. But Dani had never loved Ollie.

      Or so Rafe had thought. He had stupidly believed that Danielle loved him and not Oliver Randall, though Ollie had for years pursued her. After that night, he had come to believe she had accepted Rafe’s offer of marriage simply to become a duchess. It was wealth and power she wanted, not him.

      As he walked out of the garden, he reminded himself of all those things, told himself that just as before, nothing Danielle said was the truth.

      But he was older now, not insane with jealousy, not blinded by love as he had been in those days, not furious and aching with pain.

      And because he was a different man than he had been back then, he couldn’t get the image out of his head. He couldn’t forget the way Danielle had looked at him there in the garden.

      Without a shred of remorse, without the slightest hint of embarrassment. She had looked at him with all of the hatred that Rafe had felt for her.

      No, Rafael. It was you who betrayed me. If you had loved me…you would have known I was telling you the truth.

      The words nagged at him, gnawed at his insides all the way back to Sheffield House. Was it possible? Was there the slightest chance?

      First thing the following morning, he sent a note to Jonas McPhee, the Bow Street runner he and his friends had used over the years whenever they needed information. McPhee was discreet and extremely good at his job, and he promptly arrived at Sheffield House at two o’clock that afternoon.

      “Good day, Jonas. Thank you for coming.”

      “I am happy to assist you, Your Grace, in any way I can.” The runner was short and balding, and wore small, wire-rimmed spectacles. He was an unimpressive man whose muscular shoulders and knotted hands were the only indication of the sort of work he did.

      Rafe stepped back from the doorway,