Page 70 of The Villain's Fatal Plot
Arnaud returned bearing an easel and a portfolio. He took out Miss Edgerton’s painting and set it up. “Is this the painting you were sent for?”
The prisoners stared at the dark portrait of evil. Their mouths dropped open. Clement, in particular, grew deathly pale.Admittedly, the watercolor presented a shocking image. Tears rolled down Verity’s cheeks as she finally accepted what Rafe had been telling her.
“That’s my uncle’s carriage, isn’t it?” she whispered. “It just isn’t painted like that anymore.”
Cursing and weeping, Clement crumpled to the floor.
“Why?” Verity whispered, taking the handkerchief Minerva handed her.
“Clem didn’t mean to do that!” Mrs. Clement cried. “It were an accident! Clem didn’t know the old bastard pushed him. It was all of a sudden like. He been holding that over my poor man’s head all these years, and it was him that did it! He needs to hang.”
Verity concurred, but she didn’t know how it would be done and she still didn’t fully understand why. Her father’s business had failed. The house in its undesirable part of town couldn’t possibly be worth killing for. What had her uncle gained?
“Stand up and tell us what happened,” Hunt ordered, nodding at Rafe to yank the prisoner back to his feet.
Visibly shaken, Clement shook his head in denial. “It were an accident! They was fighting all the way home. They got out. I was told to go around the block, keep the horses moving. It wasn’t a street for fancy carriages. Mebbe I returned a little too fast?—”
“You were drunk as usual, you old fool! The gin will be the death of you.” Mrs. Clement wept the words.
“I couldn’t of stopped!” he cried. “Nobody coulda stopped. He just stumbled right in front of the horses. It all happened so sudden.”
“And then you left him there,” Verity whispered in horror. “You drove off and left him there. He might have been saved!”
Standing with the aid of her cane, she slapped the weeping coachman as hard as she possibly could. It felt good.
FORTY: RAFE
“Verity’s uncleis still out there,” Rafe warned as Clement was led away, followed by his weeping wife. They’d not been able to pry any confession from her, only imprecations and curses fitting any Gypsy witch.
They’d had to let Luther go back to polishing the carriage. At least Rafe knew the coachman hadn’t been around when Verity was pushed. Establishing anyone’s whereabouts for Miss Edgerton’s death was a knot twister.
He sipped his brandy and paced, trying to think, but he only saw Verity’s stricken face as she finally accepted that her uncle had killed her father. Tears streaked her cheeks, but she refused to leave the discussion.
“You don’t think Mrs. Clement pushed Verity?” Hunt asked, pouring the brandy into glasses and letting everyone help themselves.
The ladies declined the liquor but sent for more tea.
“She seems more than capable of killing Miss Edgertonandpushing Verity,” the librarian said, stirring sugar into her cup.
“She apparently has knowledge of herbs.” Verity clenched and unclenched her fists instead of drinking tea. “But if that was myuncle pushing my father into the path of horses andpushingworked once...”
Excellent point. Did killers use the same means every time? That would mean the uncle hadn’t killed Miss Edgerton. Rafe wanted to pin it all on her scoundrel uncle. But if Mrs. Clement had knowledge of herbs...
Rafe feared Verity might take flight at any moment, but he couldn’t deduce her thoughts. The quiet, demure schoolteacher was inwardly raging. Her cheeks had flushed with pink and her normally brown eyes had turned molten gold in fury. If he could paint, he’d portray her as a vengeful goddess—a bit scary but fascinating.
“If he knew your governess had that painting, why would your uncle wait until now to look for it?” Henri asked, sipping Hunt’s brandy. “When you think about it, why bother at all? It might serve as a warning, but if everyone thought her student dead... I can’t imagine officialdom accepting a painting as evidence, ten years after the fact.”
Walker cleared his throat and offered a letter from one of his portfolios. “I believe this might offer some explanations. Not all, of course. We need to find Mr. Palmer first. But those burned scraps may be more important than the painting.”
Halfway between the steward and the captain, Rafe took the letter. Frowning, he scanned the contents before handing it to Hunt, who produced his monocle to read it. It pretty much confirmed what Rafe had feared all along. He might not be a general, but he’d learned the enemy was wily.
Upset, Verity watched their every move. The instant Hunt set the letter down, she snatched it from the desk.
She gasped at the contents at the same time as Hunt explained to their audience. “Our solicitor located the Palmer family’s solicitors and queried them. They are in the process of transferring the late Faith Palmer’s trust funds to her uncle, her only surviving relation.”
Verity’s hands shook as she held the eye-opening letter. “Theyare calling my uncle my father’sexecutor? Not his heir? He stood nothing to gain by my father’s death?”
“The partial burned letters we found,” Rafe reminded her. “One appeared to be an amendment to a will. The other mentions fraud and embezzlement. Had your father not died, your uncle may have been removed as executor as well, which would have ruined him completely.”
