Page 98 of Project Duchess
“Still, I need to speak to you.”
“Anything you wish to say to me can be said in front of Beatrice. And surely you trust Heywood, too.”
Sheridan glanced at Beatrice and sighed. “Very well. It’s about that note summoning Father to the dower house. I’m not entirely certain, but I think it might have been given to Father by a footman who used to work here. He left the day after Father’s death. I’d initially assumed he left because he saw the writing on the wall—that the staff was going to be reduced yet again.”
“But leaving would have been unwise since he wouldn’t have wanted to depart without a reference if he could get one,” Beatrice said.
Sheridan turned to her. “Right. Clever of you to recognize that.”
“My wife is generally clever,” Grey said.
Oh, she liked the sound of that—“wife.” And the “clever” part wasn’t bad, either.
“But now I wonder at the footman’s suspicious timing,” Sheridan went on.
“So do I,” Heywood said. When Grey looked at him oddly, he shrugged. “When I first arrived, Sheridan gave me a summary of his suspicions and what came of them.”
“I didn’t want to get into this today of all days,” Grey said dryly, “but Wolfe said something the day the constable came that started me thinking. He pointed out that if anyone had motive, it was Mother, since she’d had three husbands die, leaving her property, et cetera.”
When his brothers bristled, he said hastily, “Don’t worry, I set him straight on that score, but he had a point. Three husbands dead, two of them so close together that there were barely three years between their deaths? Two relatively young and all in good health? Perhaps this is about someone trying to kill Mother’s husbands. It’s odd, don’t you think?”
He’d talked about this at length with her, but every time he did, a chill swept over her anew at the idea.
Heywood snorted. “That’s absurd. Our father didn’t die until he was a ripe old age, and he and Mother had been married for nearly thirty years.”
“In Prussia,” Grey said. “But only a few months here.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Sheridan asked.
“The first two deaths took place here in England,” Grey said. “But after Mother married Father, they went to Prussia. The few Englishmen there stick out, so murdering Father would have been more difficult to hide. And perhaps the killer couldn’t afford to follow them there. Or he had a family he couldn’t leave or something. But Father came back only after your uncle Armie suffered an accident on horseback. Then Father drowned a few months later in what we’ve already determined wasnotan accident.”
“Yes, butyourfather died of an ague,” Sheridan pointed out.
Grey sipped some punch. “That he supposedly caught from his infant son. Me. Yet I didn’t die of it. Don’t you find that strange?”
“What are you saying?” Heywood asked. “That your father was poisoned?”
“I don’t know. I just think it’s worth looking into.” Grey shot Beatrice a veiled look. “We did suspect at one point that your uncle Armie might have been murdered, too, though we have no evidence to support that theory.”
“Good God,” Sheridan said. “This is . . . I am astonished. A span of thirty years in which someone systematically murdered all of Mother’s husbands and Uncle Armie—that seems incredible. You’ve really thought this out, I see. Though perhaps you’re drawing correspondences where there are none.”
“That may be.” Grey drained his glass. “Anyway, since you brought up Father’s murder, I thought I’d mention it. But we won’t solve the matter this afternoon, and I’m eager to take my wife off somewhere private, as you might guess.”
“Then you’d better run fast,” Sheridan said. “Here comes Joshua. And given that he still resents me, I think I’ll go talk to Vanessa.”
“She’s the pretty one with the black curls, right?” Heywood asked. “I do believe I’ll join you.”
“Holy hell,” Grey muttered, “it’s beginning. Now that Vanessa is free to marry whomever she wishes, the suitors are lining up to court her, especially since she’s an even bigger heiress than before, thanks to me.”
“An heiress?” Heywood said. “Even better.”
He and Sheridan walked off arguing in hushed tones. Beatrice took Grey’s glass and set it on a tray nearby, hoping they could sneak away.
But Joshua didn’t give them the chance, walking up to them just then. “I . . . um . . . wanted to congratulate you both. And Greycourt, I wanted to thank you again for not letting them send me off to hang.”
“Joshua!” she said. “Surely you could put it a bit less bluntly.”
Her brother exchanged a glance with Grey. “See what you’ve done? She’s all hoity-toity now, with her come-out lessons and such.”
