She blinked garishly painted eyelids. “We are?”
He nodded glumly. “Heatherbrook had been giving me an allowance ever since he assumed the title, and just this month he cut it off. Permanently, he said.” Benedict coughed into the crook of his elbow. “Our estate didn’t turn a profit this year. We needed that money. He refused. Just that morning, he—he laughed when I asked him again for the money. Shook his head, and laughed. At me. His brother.”
Evangeline stared at him across the table. “Then why visit him again at night? What would be any different?”
“Iwould be different. I—I’m not proud of it, but I planned to force his hand.”
Francine’s eyes widened. “How?”
Benedict grimaced. “I took a pistol with me. I wasn’t going to kill him! The thing wasn’t even loaded. I just wanted to show him I was serious. That now was not the time to be high-handed and miserly. And when I saw him there, I…I didn’t know what to do. I froze for a moment, and then I ran. I couldn’t call for help while standing there with a pistol in my hand. Who would’ve believed I hadn’t harmed him?”
Edmund swirled his wineglass. “I’m not sure I do now. After all, you inherited.”
“I didn’t kill him,” Benedict insisted. “Would I have just confessed the truth of that night if I’d killed him?”
“We do believe you.” Francine placed her hand atop his. “You may have been desperate, but you will always be a man of honor.”
“If he was alive when he left Mr. Lioncroft’s office and dead in his chamber when you arrived,” Evangeline reasoned, “someone else wanted him dead. Someone else visited his chamber and suffocated him with a pillow.”
“Perhaps Lioncroft came by to continue their argument,” Francine suggested. “He’s always had an unpredictable temper.”
“No.” Evangeline shook her head. “Someone else.”
Edmund gulped at his wine. “The French tutor?” he suggested. “Surely that chap was less than happy to have the object of his affection betrothed to another.”
Evangeline considered that idea for a moment. “While I agree that prospect—and being sacked—might have given Monsieur Lefebvre a strong motive, he’s not even here. He would’ve had to journey a full day’s ride, sneak unnoticed inside Blackberry Manor, determine the precise location of Lord Heatherbrook’s bedchamber…It makes no sense.”
“Might he have bribed a servant?” Francine asked. “After all, he was something of a servant himself. He might have befriended someone.”
“It’s possible.” Evangeline didn’t find the idea particularly likely, but she was willing to support any theory that saved Mr. Lioncroft from the gallows. If her dinner companions were at last willing to entertain alternate explanations, surely that meant they could be convinced of his innocence.
Francine rose to her feet. “I think I need to lie down.”
Benedict stood as well and placed her hand on his arm. “You hardly ate a thing. Are you unwell?”
Evangeline smiled as she watched them leave and wondered for the hundredth time when Francine would share the good news with her husband. No doubt he’d be thrilled to be a father. She kept her thoughts to herself, of course, as the only reason she had any clue of the happy tidings was due to the onslaught of visions she’d suffered during the country dances that first night.
Her smile faded as she caught sight of Edmund leering drunkenly at her over his wineglass. Based on the soft snores still emanating from the direction of Mr. Teasdale, she and Edmund were virtually unchaperoned.
She leapt to her feet.
Edmund’s blatantly appreciative gaze followed her every move. “Where are you going?”
Evangeline mentioned the first place that sprang to mind. “The nursery.”
He gestured to the seat next to him. “Why don’t you stay here with me?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Me neither.” His lips curved in a smirk.
“I told the girls I’d visit them,” Evangeline said quickly, and quit the room before he had a chance to lumber to his feet and follow her.
She had in fact told the girls she’d visit them. She’d said “sometime,” andnowseemed a very good time to make good on her promise.
On her way to the nursery, she kept thinking about Francine’s idea of Monsieur Lefebvre bribing a servant. Mr. Lioncroft had suggested a servant, as well. He’d wondered if Ginny had acted on her own, out of revenge for herself or her mistress.
Could the two be connected? After all, Monsieur Lefebvre wasn’t the only one whose plans had been upset by the loss of both his position and his would-be paramour. Nancy Heatherbrook had been equally distraught. And had instructed her sisters to claim both she and her mother had been with them in the nursery all night.
