Die I Will Not by S. K. Rizzolo Read Free Book Online Page B

arrived, or I would not have spoken of the matter to Jeremy. I know I can rely upon your discretion.”
    Penelope was taken aback. “I heard Mr. Leach was gravely injured. Will he recover?”
    â€œLittle chance of that, I’m afraid. His death is hourly expected. You must be surprised to find us entertaining guests under the circumstances, but I do not choose to trumpet our affairs to the multitude. Besides, these little entertainments are expected of me.” His cynical gaze took in the long windows hung with gold-embroidered damask, the matching gold brocade furnishings, and the array of richly dressed guests who looked as if they hadn’t a care in the world.
    â€œIs it known who did such a horrible thing?”
    â€œLeach is not an easy man to like—he has made many enemies in his career. Of course, the Countess and I are distressed for my poor Mary.” He gave another smile she found difficult to interpret. “You remind me of Mary. She is years older than you are, of course, but there’s the same…vulnerability. And something of the same ambition? Before her marriage, she published a volume of poetry and several Gothic romances, though she has since turned her talents to the composition of paragraphs for her husband’s newspaper.” At this reference to Leach’s Tory agenda, he did not bother to hide his contempt. After a pause he said, “Jeremy tells me you are also a writer?”
    Why did every word out of this man’s mouth seem to carry a double meaning? She replied lightly, “I’ve had occasional work, Mr. Rex. Perhaps one day when my life is more settled I will try to achieve more in that line. You must be very proud of your daughter’s accomplishments.”
    He sighed, melancholy descending again. “We’ve not been on easy terms. She blames me, with good reason, for abandoning her mother when she was a mere child, but I hate to think I drove her into the arms of a man like Leach. She must have thought he offered a kind of safety, a haven from the dangers of holding views at odds with society.” Stretching his arm along the back of the sofa, he assumed a careless pose. “At all events, I am the more ready to come to her assistance in this emergency. I shall help Mary manage the parish authorities and the funeral arrangements when the time comes. She’s had a sad time of it in the past year. She lost her eldest son to a sudden fever and now this business with her husband. We thought it safer, until we know more, to put it out that Leach is ill.”
    â€œHow truly dreadful. Will you employ a Bow Street Runner to investigate the crime?”
    His lip curled. “I have no love for Bow Street.”
    â€œMay I ask why, sir?”
    â€œThe Bow Street banditti once bribed two women to say I had assaulted them. While I stood in the very court, my hat was stolen, my pockets rifled. The magistrate only laughed and refused to prosecute my accusers for perjury. No, I have no use for Bow Street. Magistrates, police, lawyers, the justices in Westminster Hall, the journalists who ruin a man’s reputation for gain…They are all the same. Villains who seek, in one way or another, to gratify a cankered heart.”
    â€œIs the attack on Mr. Leach connected to the recent letters in the papers? If we could only understand—”
    She broke off, nonplussed, to find him smiling again—it seemed she amused him. Horatio Rex was a man who looked for hidden motives in everyone he met. In his battle against a prejudiced English society that viewed him as an outsider and an interloper, even as it fawned over him for his power and wealth, he was justified, she thought. But she had the strangest feeling they played a game only he understood.
    â€œI cannot tell you what role the Collatinus letters played in Leach’s fate, Mrs. Wolfe. A dangerous business from the start. Profit is one thing, but one has to know when