Her cool reserve back in place, she studied his face before saying, "Very well. We can go out on the patio."
Feeling her resistance, he focused his will and issued the silent command, Come with me. Aloud, he said, "The library would be better. What I must say should not be overheard by others."
Sara had sworn not to be alone with the prince again, but his green eyes and deep voice were compelling. And she was also curious, wondering what he could have to say that required such secrecy. As she wavered, Peregrine took her elbow.
She almost jerked away at the intensity of her reaction, for even his light, passionless touch aroused her, reminding her why she had decided to keep her distance. But there was nothing of the seducer about him—heavens, what could he do during a ball in her cousin's house?—so she allowed herself to be guided from the room.
The library was on the opposite side of the house, and the sounds of music and voices vanished when Peregrine closed the door. Faint illumination came from two lamps, and he turned up the flames before facing her. "Perhaps you should sit down," he suggested. "What I am going to say will come as a shock."
She sat at one end of the long leather-covered sofa, her hands clasped in her lap. Her primness was a direct reaction to the Kafir's dark, dangerous allure. He stood a dozen feet away, balanced lightly on the balls of his feet like a fencer. Sara felt no physical threat, but something in the atmosphere made her uneasy, like storm clouds rolling across a dusky sky. "What is this vital issue you must speak of, Your Highness? I should not absent myself too long from a ball that is in my honor."
The silence stretched as he regarded her with brooding eyes. Abruptly he said, "This will not be easy for you to believe, but try to listen with an open mind. Lady Sara, you are betrothed to a man who is evil, corrupt in ways beyond anything you can imagine. You must not marry Charles Weldon."
Sara was so surprised that her mouth fell open. She did not know what she had expected, but it was not this. "Ridiculous!" she exclaimed. "Do you really expect me to believe that?"
"You should." There was a raw power in him that she had not seen before, and she realized that he had discarded the veneer of civilization to reveal the fierce mountain warrior. "Do you know how his first wife died?"
"Jane Weldon tripped and fell down the stairs, I believe," she said slowly. "A tragedy, but I fail to see the relevance."
"She told her husband that she was leaving him, taking Eliza, and going back to her family. The next day, she died—at her husband's hands."
Sara stared at him, feeling a stirring of anger. "This is utter rubbish. There was never talk of a rift between Charles and his wife, nor was there any suggestion that her death was anything but an accident. I will not sit and listen to your absurd accusations." She got to her feet. "I would advise you not to say such things to anyone else, or you run the risk of being charged with slander.''
"Don't go yet, Lady Sara." He raised one hand commandingly. "I have just begun."
Reluctantly Sara sat down again, her hands clenched around her folded fan. There couldn't possibly be any truth in Peregrine's charges, but having agreed to listen, she supposed she should hear him out. If she could show him how wrong he was about Charles, it could prevent trouble for her betrothed.
"A housemaid heard Weldon and his wife shouting on the landing moments before the accident. Then there was a scream, and the sound of a falling body," Peregrine said. "The maid was the first one on the scene, but Weldon was gone, and his wife was already dead of a broken neck. Weldon came home an hour later, claiming he had been at his office."
Sara felt a faint, chilling finger at her nape. Could Charles possibly have been so angry that he had given in to a brief, violent impulse? Feeling disloyal for even thinking it, she asked, "If a crime was committed, why didn't the girl report it to a magistrate?"
"Because Weldon had her kidnapped and sent to a brothel," Peregrine said harshly. "After several months she died there, but not before she told another girl what had happened. I have an affidavit sworn by the second girl, but it is hearsay evidence and inadmissible in court."
"And since the original housemaid is dead, the story is impossible for Charles to refute." Sara shook her head, utterly unable to reconcile the prince's accusations with the dignified, familiar man she had promised to wed. "That is why hearsay is not evidence—there is no way of determining the truth."
"If that was the only charge against Weldon, perhaps one could give him the benefit of the doubt, but there are dozens of such incidents." He gave a deeply cynical smile. "Isn't there an English expression, no smoke without fire? Weldon is surrounded by the smoke and fire of hell itself, and I'm going to see that he burns."