“Of course I will,” Julius answered. “I’ve gotten away with it once before, and you shall be no different.”
“Before? You mean, you’re a murderer?” Matthew called back over his shoulder. Learning that Julius was already a seasoned killer made Matthew’s heartbeat quicken and his breath feel shallow.
“I don’t think of it as murder, more aptly I consider it taking what was rightfully mine,” Julius snarled. “There is no reason why the man who emerges into the world a mere ten months before me should inherit everything, while I am left to flounder in the world like a pauper.”
Matthew was silent, trying to decipher that rantings of a madman. Too soon, he understood Julius’ meaning.
“You killed your own… oh God, you killed Lydia’s father?” he demanded, feeling his blood boiling in his veins. “How could you?”
“As I said, it was a simple matter of inheritance. My brother refused to relinquish a single farthing, let alone half the estate as I’d requested. He made his choice, and therefore, I made mine.” Julius stopped walking and bade Matthew halt. “This should be sufficient. Turn around, that the bullet might not enter from your back and give me away.”
“Give you away?” Matthew repeated, confused. “Do you intend to pass my murder off as wrought by my own hand?”
“Of course. Why else would you be out this far all alone?” Julius said. “It’s not as though I intend to claim responsibility, you simpleton.”
“Does it not bother you in the slightest that Lydia will now be widowed?” Matthew asked, hoping to appeal to Julius’ better nature. He should have known it would be futile, as the man had already confessed to killing his own brother.
“The entire reason you must die is because Lydia got married in the first place. Besides, with you dead, she will marry the man she should have married all along,” the old man said, wheezing slightly from the effort of walking so far in the night air. “If that stupid little brat child had not discovered the fire, this would have been so much easier. Instead, this will suffice.”
The pistol in the Earl’s hand clicked as he pulled back the hammer and leveled it at Matthew’s chest. Matthew closed his eyes and pictured Lydia’s face one last time, whispering of his heartfelt love for her and wishing he’d had the chance to tell her himself.
You had the chance and you squandered it, he thought miserably as the shot rang out in the night.
Matthew felt nothing. It was surprising and somewhat discomforting to realize how little it had hurt. Death was truly an experience void of all sensation, and that discovery was uncomfortable for him somehow.
Matthew opened his eyes and saw the crumpled figure of Julius lying on the ground, motionless. The gun was still in his hand, though his fingers were uncurled and lifeless. Matthew leaned closer, as though expecting Julius to leap to his feet and resume his attack. He prodded the old man with the toe of his boot, but there was no movement.
“Bronson?” Matthew whispered before speaking a little louder. “Julius?”
“He’s dead, you stupid boy,” a voice drawled behind him, causing Matthew to scream in fright as he turned to face the newcomer.
“Mother?” Matthew asked as the figure came close enough for him to see her features. “What have you done?”
“I’ve saved your life, against my wishes and better judgement,” she answered slowly, completely unbothered by what she had just done. She held out a small pistol for Matthew to take and said with a sneer, “Here. It’s your alibi. I saw the whole thing, he was going to shoot you, you had to defend yourself, and so on.”
Matthew took the gun and looked down at it, the delicate metalwork glinting from the light of the half moon. “But I don’t understand.”
“That doesn’t surprise me, you were never very bright,” the Dowager Countess retorted in her usual reflexive way. She paused when Matthew did not answer and said in an infinitesimally kinder voice, “He brought you out here to kill you.”
“Yes, he said as much,” Matthew clarified.
“So that your little wife could marry his friend, the Viscount.”
“Yes, I’ve learned that part this evening as well,” Matthew said slowly. “But how did you know of it, and how did you come to be here? More importantly, why would you save my life when you have hated me for… how many years has it been?”
“Three-and-twenty years,” his mother snapped. “Nearly four-and-twenty if you count the time I had to carry you.”
“Ah, that’s reassuring. It’s good to know you despised a defenseless babe,” Matthew quipped sarcastically.
“As to how I knew of this, I am a very connected person,” the old Countess said. “A great many of us have long suspected Bronson of killing his brother so that he might inherit, and his insistence that his niece marry Lockwood was highly dubious. There were many other men who would have gladly accepted the position of husband, so why—even after your vulgar antics that led to a shameful elopement and sham of a wedding—would he still try to cull favor with the ton and proclaim that Lydia would be marrying Lockwood?”
“For her dowry,” Matthew said, the realization becoming clear. “Vincent said he had already agreed to share it with Bronson instead of laying claim to her entire inheritance. But that still raises the question as to how you knew of it.”
“We have the same solicitor,” his mother said, matter-of-factly. “When I sought advice from my firm as to what I could do about you and my forced removal from Paxton Hall, I pressed the correct clerk and paid the proper sum for the information. Her father’s will never stipulated that Lydia had to marry by the end of her Season.”
“What?” Matthew asked, an increasingly familiar feeling of disbelief washing over him.
“Her uncle lied to her in order to entrap her with marrying Lockwood. If she chose anyone else, there would be no agreement that gave him half her dowry. It had to be Lockwood, so he concocted the part about her having to decide quickly. It was his way of ensuring that Lydia would willingly and gratefully marry the man he threw in front of her.”
