Page 90 of In Compromise with the Earl
Flailing, he tumbled out the door and landed in the hallway, rolling down to where an alcove with a window curved the hallway. He scrambled up while Leo grabbed Oswald by the neck. “Stop making this difficult,” Leo snarled. “Give in.”
“Never,” Oswald spat.
Grabbing Leo by the belly, Oswald heaved the man over his shoulder and up and threw him through the windows, the deafening crack and splinter of glass loud while Leo was airborne.
The last thing he saw was his treacherous cousin’s outstretched arm and bloodless face. Aphrodite rushed to his side just as the sickening thud and crunch of broken bones filled the air.
She grabbed him. “Oswald! Oswald you’re bleeding even worse than before. You need to sit and let me bandage your arm before you faint.”
Clenching his fist, Oswald felt the battered knuckles sting as he clenched his fist. Turning to her, he swallowed over the bitterness in his throat.
“I know,” he said. “And when this is over, I have a few things I need to tell you. Things I should have said that would not have let things get so bad.”
Clasping his hand, she tipped on her toes and kissed him. “It can wait, all of it can wait.”
Glancing at the shattered window, Oswald said, “It’s over now, isn’t it?”
“No,” Aphrodite replied as she faced the same way, and held on to his hand. “It’s just beginning.”
Epilogue
It was nearly daybreak when the Constables, the same Davis and Toole who gone to the church to confront Leo, took the man’s broken body off the lawn of the Tennesley Hall to the morgue. The mystery of who killed Claire had finally been solved and while things were still troubling, a load of worry had been lifted.
Oswald’s physician had been called and while he attend to the man, Aphrodite was sitting close to her husband, and heard the man say, “It’s the second time I’m stitching you up in less than two days. Try not to let this one split My Lord, your skin is tender.”
She rested a hand on his thigh. “I suppose this is what you mean by having things to tell me.”
His free hand grasped hers and held it tightly. “I do.”
The physician packed up his materials. “I’ll will check on you in a few days, My Lord. Remember, no strenuous activities that might rip the stitches and cleanse it with warm water and gentle soap.”
When the man left, Oswald poured out a glass of whisky. “I’m too keyed up to sleep and I must tell you what happened in the last two days.”
As they were in his study, he went to his desk and pulled out two notes, and handed them to Aphrodite.
I know your dirty little secret.
You’re wasting your time. I am not a part of the despicable whorehouse, but I still know your secret. How will your lovely wife feel about you laying with filth?
“A few days ago, I got those in the mail and I knew that the blackmailer meant the time I had gone to the bawdy house to, I suppose, escape my reality. I only started after Claire had been killed and it was my getaway for many months. I must admit, the things I did then, they are salacious and made me ashamed.”
She reached out and held his hand. “You should have told me. I would have understood.”
“I know, Sweetling and I told myself that if I did not find out who the blackmailer was I would tell you,” Oswald said. “Sadly I didn’t get the chance to do so. The very night I came to tell you, I was attacked.”
Succinctly, he told her about going to the club to get the Madam to search for any spy she had in her ranks and then when he went off to follow Duke Strathmore and ask him if he had been behind it.
“The comment he made at the theater concerned me,” he said. “But it was not him and as I left that night to come home to you, men, assassins attacked me. They killed my driver, I got shot in the arm and I fell unconscious on the side of the street.”
“Oh, no,” she whispered.
Patting her hand, he said, “I came back to myself and managed to get to the square where I paid a hackney to carry me to Leo, not knowing that he was the cause of all my problems.”
“And I didn’t make it better,” Aphrodite sighed. “When your mother and I got that box of your…activities, I ran to Leo to get some help, I suppose. I saw the dagger there, Oswald, and I went directly to the Constables to tell them about it. As I left Bow Street, they went to the church, but I supposed Leo reasoned that I had seen through his façade and came here to get ahead of me.”
“It’s all for the best, I suppose,” he said while sipping the whisky. “Now, Claire’s spirit can rest in peace.”
“And so can we,” Aphrodite replied. “We can move on from this.”
