A Valentine from Harlequin

generous and give you forty-eight hours to complete the task.”
    The riot of emotions scrambling Charlotte’s brain instantly gave way to calm determination at his words. He had Alistair and beyond that, nothing else mattered. There was no alternative. She would go with John and figure out a way to save both the only man she’d ever loved and her invention, or she would die trying. The whys or hows didn’t matter.
    “I’ll need more time than that. I don’t have my notes, they were burned—”
    “In the fire? No, darling. I have them.”
    She barely restrained a snarl. “And if we still cannot manage it?”
    He shrugged nonchalantly. “Then I will kill you both.”
    Well that was certainly clear enough.
    “Then we’d better move along,” she said, bustling over to the doors and eyeing him expectantly.
    Confusion furrowed his brow. “That’s all you would say to me? Aren’t you ashamed I deceived you—the brilliant Charlotte Phillips—so easily?”
    It was a real kick in the bloomers, to be certain, but she’d never admit it to him. John’s signet ring and some charred bits of bone had been the only indications that he’d been in the lab during the fire. She hadn’t even considered why the brass goggles had succumbed to the flames so completely when his gold ring had remained fully intact. The inspector had ruled that she must have left a burner on, accidentally causing the inferno and John’s death. She’d been so overcome with guilt that she hadn’t thought it through. Or noted the fact that in fifteen years of experimenting, she’d never once left a burner on. Now the ruse seemed as plain as day.
    She poked around for some heartache over her fiancé’s betrayal, but all she found was anger. In any case, it wasn’t as if she’d ever loved him or expected his love in return. She wanted a family, more than anything, and that meant marriage. He had the title, she had the money, and they got on well. Alistair hadn’t wanted her, so what did it matter who she married?
    John slipped the weapon into his pocket and tried to move her toward the door, jostling her with the cloth-covered revolver. She made a silent vow to work on her instincts.
    She looked down her nose at him. “I would appreciate if you would not do that again.”
    “You and that haughty stare. As if you’re so much smarter than the rest of us,” he spat.
    “Not the rest, John. Just you.”
    He was quick as a viper, rapping the butt of the pistol smartly against the side of her already pounding head. Pain exploded at her temple and she gasped.
    “I’ve always wanted to do that, silence that sharp tongue for a change. I should have married you and killed you off after the wedding. That was my mistake. Emily didn’t like the idea of blood on my hands. Last time I listen to a woman, mark me.”
    Angering the lunatic with a pistol was not one of her better ideas and she vowed to bite her tongue moving forward. So long as they kept their heads, surely she and Alistair could outwit John Rotham before the two days were up. They had no choice.

Chapter Two
    A door slammed shut overhead and footsteps sounded on the stairs. Alistair sat up on the stool as best he could and pasted a bored expression on his face. No sense in giving Rotham the satisfaction of knowing just how painful the manacles around his wrists had become. The bastard was pleased enough with himself for capturing Alistair in the first place.
    If he hadn’t been so distracted, it would never have happened. He had suspected Charlotte’s fiancé was alive for a few weeks now. Some of the gossipy chaps at The Wakefield Gentlemen’s Club had begun whispering about Rotham’s disgruntled creditors. While John and Charlotte weren’t yet man and wife, news of their betrothal had rocked London, and the money grubbers hoped to capitalize on her guilt and extreme wealth by asking her to honor Rotham’s debts. Strange when a man, deep in arrears, dies in a tragic accident at the same time that a priceless invention is also lost. Once Alistair had realized the purviewers were destroyed and there was so little found of Rotham’s remains, his suspicions had grown. He’d already begun looking into the “accident” and had just hired an investigator to handle the legwork when Rotham had accosted him from behind and coshed him on the head.
    The door to the makeshift laboratory swung open, and his heart stuttered as Charlotte stepped in, resplendent in a stunning red gown.