Page 88 of Deceiving an Earl
“It seems your outlandish theory might be correct,” O’Leary said, as he took his seat in his creaking chair behind his desk.
Oliver leaned forward, waiting expectantly, while Ashland took a more casual pose, but was no less interested in what O’Leary had to say.
“We sent an officer to the house you had indicated. It is owned by a Mr. Durant, an assistant of Needham’s. A rather belligerent fellow, who initially refused to let the officer in. Upon first inspection it appeared there was nothing out of the ordinary. Apparently, the other assistant lives with this Durant in the same house. Including the two wives. The wives were not happy that their home was being searched, and there seemed to be some commotion in a small room off the kitchen. When the officer demanded a look, he found a body buried in a pile of straw.”
“A body?” Oliver asked. “As in adeceasedbody?”
“As in a deceased body.Recentlydeceased. The four claimed they did not know how the body got there. Then one of the wives said that the deceased had arrived one night and had commenced drinking and gambling with them. When everyone woke up that morning, he was dead. Not knowing what to do with him, they buried him in the straw in the kitchen.”
Oliver raised a disbelieving brow. “Because that is what people do upon discovering a dead body in their home? Bury it in straw?”
O’Leary suppressed a grin, but it quickly faded. “The deceased is Blue Posey.”
The men were silent for several moments, letting the information sink in. Blue Posey. Oliver had never met the man, but he knew of him. Everyone knew of Blue Posey.
Ashland muttered a curse.
“Did they admit to being in the employ of Needham?” Oliver asked.
“After a bit of prodding they admitted to everything. Needham pays them seven pounds a body.”
“A small fortune,” Ashland murmured.
Four people could live off seven pounds easily in the East End, especially if they were careful with their funds. With the amount of bodies they were providing—at seven pounds a body—they were beyond rich.
“What of Needham?” Oliver asked.
“We will question him,” O’Leary said. “Although I’m unsure how much he will be implicated in this. He can claim to not have known about any of it.”
“Or he could have masterminded the entire thing,” Oliver said.
“Most likely that is the scenario, but based upon his reputation and the fact that he is a physician to the royal family, this all might be swept under the carpet.”
So where did that leave Oliver?
Should he tell Ellen?
He felt he owed it to her to tell her. She needed to know that the man she was about to marry might be an accessory to many murders.
“And so we have solved another mystery,” Ashland said.
Another mystery solved, but a conundrum created.
After a night of sitting up, drinking expensive port, and thinking deeply, Oliver came to the conclusion that he owed it to his and Ellen’s past relationship and, yes, their past love, to tell her what he’d learned.
What she did with the information would be up to her.
And that’s how he found himself lifting the door knocker to her home.
Would this be the last time he laid eyes on her in private?
Suddenly their last meeting came roaring up from the depths of his memories. The searing kiss that had touched his soul. The desperation he’d put into that kiss. The ardent need to let her know just how much she meant to him and what she was doing to him by marrying that bastard Needham.
He was a fool.
A bloody, bloody fool.
And yet he kept coming back like he did now, waiting for her in her own parlor. He kept allowing her to shred his heart over and over again.
