Free The Prisoner by Karyn Monk Page A

move to help him. “Constable Drummond said there was no evidence that there were any other assailants.”
    â€œConstable Drummond is a malicious, loathsome, frustrated man whose personal lack of pleasure and comfort in his life causes him to heap undue infamy upon nearly every individual who crosses his path,” Haydon retaliated darkly. “It is immensely fortunate that he is not a judge, or the entire town of Inveraray would be locked up.”
    Genevieve regarded him in surprise. It was not often that she heard someone beyond the members of her own household articulate similar thoughts on the constable. The fact that Constable Drummond was a malevolent brute did not make the man lying before her innocent. It did, however, remind her that she had not yet heard Lord Redmond’s side of this sordid tale.
    â€œPerhaps you could tell me exactly what happened that night, Lord Redmond,” she suggested, clasping her hands expectantly before her.
    Haydon sighed. He had been through this countless times, and without exception, no one had believed him—not even the expensive lawyer he had sent for all the bloody way from Inverness. Even he was starting to question what exactly had transpired that hellish night.
    Miss MacPhail was watching him from across the room, her back rigid, her expression guarded. It was obvious she didn’t trust him enough to get too close. After caring for him all through the night, after bathing and caressing nearly every inch of him with her gloriously soothing strokes, after filling his senses with singing and soft words and the tangy scent of soap and blossoms, it was somehow unbearable that now she was afraid to even be near him. He scarcely knew her, Haydon reminded himself impatiently.
    Even so, the loss of her gentle trust cut him deeply.
    He closed his eyes, fighting the terrible pounding invading his skull. Was this how his miserable life was to end? he wondered bleakly. As an infamous convicted murderer whose very presence struck fear into the hearts of women and children? Just when he had thought he couldn’t possibly be any more loathsome, he had gone and sunk a knife into someone, adding murder to his litany of sins.
    At that moment he was nearly glad that Emmaline was dead. He did not think his beautiful, troubled daughter would have been able to bear this additional anguish in her already wretched life.
    â€œLord Redmond?”
    There was no way out of it, he realized wearily. He would have to tell Miss MacPhail his rendition of the events that had landed him in prison awaiting his execution.
    And she would either believe him, or have him hauled out of here and sent back to prison.
    â€œI had only just arrived in Inveraray that afternoon,” he began in a flat, resigned voice. “I had come to investigate the possibility of investing in a new whiskey distillery to be built just north of here. Being somewhat tired after my long journey, I decided to take refreshment at one of your local taverns. After I left, I suddenly found myself attacked by four men who knew me by name, although I did not recognize any of them. They seemed to have no interest in robbing me, but merely wanted to cut my heart out. In the course of defending myself, one of them was killed and the others ran off. I was subsequently arrested, charged with murder and convicted, despite the fact that there was no apparent motive for me to walk out and kill a perfect stranger.”
    â€œWere you drunk?” Her mouth was taut with disapproval.
    He found her smug self-righteousness extremely irritating. What right had she to judge him? The prim-faced, gray-gowned spinster before him had no doubt led a placid, sheltered life of chaste, dull comfort. What could she possibly know of the challenges and agonies of life, of the cruelties that could gnaw away at a man’s soul until he felt he couldn’t bear to face another moment without the fortification of