Along Came a Rogue by Anna Harrington

deceit—you will tell me the truth, Emily. Now. ”
    “I can’t!” she cried.
    He jerked her toward him until she nearly fell into the space between the benches at his feet. Fury blazed through him. “For Christ’s sake! Someone just tried to burn you alive!”
    Instead of bursting into sobs, an inscrutable mask came down over her face. She didn’t look away, her eyes unwavering from his in the dark shadows as she bravely but silently held his gaze and refused to give up her secrets.
    He stared at her, stunned. Good God. What must she have been through in her life if she could react so calmly, so stoically, after everything that had happened tonight? He would have given her credit for that if he didn’t want to throttle her so badly. If it didn’t seem to him that she had…expected it.
    A sickening dread rose in his gut. She had been expecting it.
    “What are you keeping from me?” he demanded, his teeth clenching so hard in his frustration with her that the muscles in his neck worked. “Why is someone trying to kill you?”
    She inhaled sharply. In that heartbeat’s hesitation, he saw indecision flash in her eyes.
    “Emily,” he pleaded as he leaned toward her, his anger replaced by core-wrenching concern as he desperately tried to get her to trust him. “Tell me, please, so I can protect you.”
    A soft, anguished sound tore from her throat, and she shuddered, her eyes squeezing shut. “Andrew.”
    “What about him?” he demanded. He didn’t give a damn about her husband.
    “His death wasn’t an accident,” she admitted in a whisper so low he barely heard it.
    “What do you mean?” Confusion pulsed through him.
    She opened her eyes and stared at him. The raw fear he saw in her was so intense, so monstrous that it ripped his breath away—
    “He was murdered.”
    Christ. He remained perfectly still, not letting his expression register his shock. He stared at her closely, gauging the emotions on her face, remembering the fear he’d seen in her eyes and the loaded pistols she apparently kept in every room of the house.
    For once, she wasn’t lying.
    “How?” he asked as gently as possible.
    “He went out riding, and when he didn’t come back, the grooms went after him. They found him in a field. His skull…” She shook her head, unable to offer more.
    His heart tore for her, knowing the pain she suffered but also knowing he had to uncover more in order to help her. “Riding accidents are common.” He loosened his hold on her hands, just enough that she could sit back, but he didn’t let go. If he gave in now to those soft pleadings of hers, he might never learn the truth. “What makes you think it anything more?”
    “Andrew was a solid rider,” she explained. “Not as good as you and Thomas, but he never would have fallen off like that. If the horse rolled over on him or broke its leg…but to just fall off an unharmed horse in the middle of a flat field—never.”
    He squeezed her fingers. Sorrow swelled inside him that she’d lost her husband, that she was so desperate to find a reason for her loss that she clung to the possibility of murder. “It happens sometimes, even to the best riders.”
    She gave a faint shake of her head, as if she’d pondered that very thing every day since he died. “How does a man fall from a horse hard enough to crush his skull but not get a smudge of dirt on his clothes?”
    His heart skipped. He didn’t have an answer for that.
    “Whoever killed him didn’t chase him down, didn’t attack him,” she continued, her fingers tightening around his. “Whoever it was talked him down from the horse, I’m certain of it. Andrew knew and trusted him. Which means I most likely know and trust him.” Then she whispered, so softly he could barely hear her, “Which means I can’t trust anyone.”
    When she raised her eyes to his, the fear was gone, replaced by a deep fatigue and firm resolve, an expression that was almost emotionless now that she’d