Page 47 of Who’s That Earl

Prostitute.

That was the word that had been cut from the page. As in the threatening letter’s shocking claim: For the prostitute reader, you are the vile procurer.

Without flipping to the title page, she also recognized the book from which it had been removed. Why hadn’t she made the connection last night? Though forty years old, the ideas expressed in Reverend Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women still had their adherents—Mr. Donaldson evidently among them.

When she looked up, he was on the path from the church. No time to flee, no time even to slip back into the sitting room and pretend she had not seen what she had seen. So she turned to face the door, her hands gripping the table’s edge behind her back as an hour ago they had gripped the pew, and waited. Waited while he stamped his muddy feed just inside the entryway and rubbed his bare palms together to warm them. Waited while he stepped into the sitting room and did not find her where she ought to have been. Waited as his footsteps sounded their way toward the study and he appeared in the doorway.

“Ah, Mrs. Higginbotham. There you are.” He sounded remarkably pleased to see her.

“Where are the others?”

“The others?” He took three steps toward the desk, squared the book she had knocked to the floor, as if he could not bear the sight of such disorder. As she watched him tidy up, a hysterical laugh rose in her throat, but she swallowed it back. “Oh, you mean the ladies. I decided the meeting would be better put off to another time. When I’m sure their efforts would not go to waste.”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“With a wolf like Robin Ratliff at Dunnock, my flock is in constant danger, I’m afraid. Before the innocent lambs can be allowed to gambol, it is the shepherd’s duty first to hunt down the predator.” The man had never shied away from a strained metaphor.

“You wrote the letters.”

“Letters?” His eyebrows lifted in mild surprise. For a moment, she thought he meant to claim ignorance. Then he gave a satisfied nod, and her heart sank in her chest. He would not confess so readily if he intended to let her tell anyone else.

“I am pleased to hear both of them reached their intended recipient,” he went on. “I cherished little hope he would see the first. Having no other direction, I could only send it by way of his publisher in London. I had my doubts it would be passed along.” As he spoke, he swept his bony fingers over the materials littering his desk, occasionally straightening or stacking. “I’m sorry you had to see them, Mrs. Higginbotham. I suppose I should have realized that Ratliff’s post would be opened by his secretary.”

“Amanuensis.”

She almost smiled as she said it. Would she ever be able to speak the word without recalling how Thomas had jokingly blessed her as if she’d sneezed? Would everything she said or did from this point forward somehow carry with it the memory of him?

Donaldson’s eyes flashed. Clearly he did not like to be corrected, especially not by a woman.

More’s the pity. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him the truth and hope it shocked him to death. “Yes, that’s right,” she said, matching his steely-eyed glare. “I have written out every one of Robin Ratliff’s books.”

“I would not have imagined a lady could be so intimately involved in the process of producing these execrable novels.” As he spat out the words, he snatched the book from his desk and slapped it against the palm of his hand before tossing it toward the empty hearth.

“You—did you come to Balisaig on purpose, to find Robin Ratliff?”

“Heavens, no. In Edinburgh, I happened to make the acquaintance of a Mr. Matthew Watson, land agent to the Earl of Magnus. When Watson received your note about poor Mr. Parkham”—he clucked softly, though she struggled to believe that the sound reflected genuine sorrow—“he was kind enough to think of me. I found the situation here quite desperate. Obviously, Mr. Parkham had been unable to tend to his flock properly for some time. Sin was allowed to flourish right under his nose. That dreadful pub, for instance.” He shuddered. “Though I did not know the worst of it then.”

“The worst of it?”

“It was Mrs. Abernathy who happened to reveal that Ratliff was holed up at Dunnock Castle, like one of his own villains. Mentioned it just a few days ago, when she kindly brought me the post. I wonder no one had thought to warn me before.”

Dear, sweet Mrs. Abernathy. She could never have suspected what Donaldson would do with a harmless bit of village gossip.

He sighed and shook his head. “And to think, you might have put a stop to it yourself.”

“A stop to what?”

“Those vile books. You might simply have tossed the manuscripts into the fire.”

An image flashed onto her brain, ink-covered paper curling in the flames. What had been fear became fury.

“Never.”

At last, he looked up at her, his eyes cold and nearly black. “I wish I could say I was surprised. It sometimes happens that the she-wolf is just as dangerous to the flock as the male of the species. That being the case, I’m afraid you leave me little choice.”

“Choice, sir?” She’d fought too hard for the freedom to make her own choices. No one was going to take that from her.

Nevertheless, Mr. Donaldson blocked the single path through the crowded room, between her and the door. Thomas had no idea where she was. She couldn’t count on him to save her. But she saw no way to save herself. Unless...