A Dangerous Disguise by Barbara Cartland Page A

yourself here," he raged. "Did you really imagine you could put on such a performance and nobody would be surprised?
    "You came right to the doors of Buckingham Palace, a place where details of every royal family in the world are kept. You walked in and challenged us all to spot you as an impostor. I was suspicious from the first moment." "So you 'kept me under observation'?"
     
    "Yes," he snapped.
    "That was all you were doing? All those things you said – "
    "Let us not speak of them," he said roughly. "I did my duty."
    "Your duty? It was your duty to kiss me and say that you loved me? It was your duty to - ?"
    "That's enough. It's not for you to demand explanations of me. You came here to deceive."
    "And I failed. But your deception was very successful, wasn't it? Right up to the moment when you told that man I was behaving suspiciously."
    "Which you were. You didn't want to get close to the Queen, but you wanted to see her from a distance. With a gun, according to Danson."
    "You can't believe that."
    "Why not? You told me you were a crack shot – until you checked yourself and took it back."
    "But that – I just thought it wasn't ladylike."
    She had wanted him to love her, but she could not say that now. Looking into his grim face, she saw no yielding.
    "Is that the best explanation you can offer?" he demanded coldly.
    "Yes, it's the best explanation I can offer. It's the truth. I've been stupid, but nothing more. And the stupidest thing of all – " she broke off as her voice wobbled.
    How could she tell this iron man that the stupidest thing of all was to have believed his honeyed words and given him her heart, given it so completely that it was still his, even though part of her was close to hating him.
    How he would laugh at that!
    "Yes?" he demanded. "What is the stupidest thing of all?"
    Suddenly she was too weary to go on.
    "It doesn't matter," she said. "You wouldn't believe me. After this you would never believe anything that I said, any more than I could believe you."
    In the cold stone cell, they faced each other in silence.
    The Duke walked over to the window and looked out as far as he could. The bleakness of the surroundings suffocated him. He ought to go. There was no more to say. Yet he could not bear to leave her.
    "I think you do me an injustice," he said curtly. "Was it I who created this situation?"
    "No, I began it by coming to London in a disguise. But when I look back on some of the talks we've had, I can see that the things I said, which you have used to accuse me – "
    "Well?" he snapped.
    "You invited me to say those things, John. You laid traps for me – "
    "Because I knew you to be a deceiver," he raged, infuriated by this injustice. "I merely wanted to know how much of a deceiver."
    "And then you went to Sir Bernard Danson and told him what you had discovered."
    He was silent, gazing at her with burning eyes.
    "Tell me," she went on, "was he one of the 'friends' who warned you off helping me?"
    "Yes. He thinks you were going to kill the Queen, then kill me? Is that true?"
    Suddenly her temper flared. It might be unwise to antagonise him, but she was beyond thinking of that. The bitter, searing anger that had been consuming her from the start flamed out into the open.
    "Would I admit it, if it were true?" she flung at him.
    He took two strides towards her, seized her shoulders and gave them a shake.
    "Tell me the truth," he shouted. "Has it all been lies? Every smile, every kiss – all a pretence, leading to murder?"
    "Whose life do you care about, John?" she asked recklessly. "The Queen's or your own?"
    "The Queen's. Only hers, because if you are false to me, I'll put the gun in your hand myself and invite you to shoot me. What would I care for life then?"
    He closed his eyes in horror as it came back to him forcefully that it was not his life under threat, but hers. By this time next week she might be dead, and his life a blasted wasteland.
    Opening his eyes he saw her face turned up to