Knowing the time for secrecy had come and gone, he sighed in defeat. The whole of it would be out, and she’d surely give him a lecture with the sharp edge of her tongue for keeping it from her, but he had no regrets over his actions. He’d do it all again to keep her safe.
Since there were still a half dozen servants milling about as they cleared away the damage from the fire, he pulled away and turned to his wardrobe for a shirt. That was the one detail he couldn’t understand. How had the arsonist gotten into his rooms? How had the servants? “I will explain, but tell me first, how did the servants get in here? The door was locked.”
Hero shook her head in confusion. “What do you mean? They came in through the service entrance, of course.” Seeing his puzzled reaction, she sighed. “Did Jennings tell you nothing at all? How do you think Dickson gets in here without you seeing him?”
Ian followed her to the far outside corner of his wardrobe and watched with surprise as she depressed a hidden panel and it swung outward, much as the tiny door of her mantel safe had. She pulled the door open and he looked inside to find a narrow, spiraled staircase within nestled into the thick castle walls. It was free of dust, well lit, and obviously frequently used. Bloody hell. All his precautions with locking doors had been for naught.
Running a hand through his hair and over his face, he groaned in the face of his own idiocy. The home of his childhood had been much smaller, and it never occurred to him that a larger, older castle would have hidden passages built into the walls. He’d assumed that the two sets of servants’ stairs outside the servants’ hall on the opposite side of the castle near the kitchens and the ones just adjacent to his chambers were their main corridors. Never had he imagined anything like this. “How many of these are there?”
“They’re only in the original parts of the castle. There’s yours, and I have one as well. There’s another to the State Room, and then at the two eastern corners of the castle, the Library up to the Blue Drawing Room and the Dining Room up to the Long Drawing Room.”
“And everyone knows of these?” he asked, thinking of the futility of his every action. He might easily have been killed in his sleep. “Everyone but me, that is? How could I be so stupid?”
“Goodness, Ian. It’s not your fault,” she said in practical tones. “Jennings is to blame for not giving you a proper introduction to your new home.”
It struck Ian then. Aye, that was how the intruders had slipped past the guards. There weren’t merely hired thugs at work; there was someone in his household assisting them. When Daphne had been in residence, he’d assumed she was the one, but there had to be another in her employ as well.
Someone like Jennings. Jennings would’ve known that Ian was unaware of the passages. Perhaps he aided Daphne in her efforts to expunge him from Cuilean. Boyle had said that his steward had supported Daphne’s claim to the title. Perhaps she’d promised the man much more than Hero had insinuated in exchange for his help.
It might even be that the mysterious man the arsonist and Cravet had been hired by had been Jennings himself. It would explain the apparent foreknowledge of the attackers and how they seemed to know where he was and what he was doing. It would also explain why no alarms had been raised against strangers lurking about the castle until tonight.
A killer in their own ranks.
Ian bristled at the thought. Betrayed by one of his own. By someone he trusted.
He’d put Jennings and tonight’s intruder face-to-face and see whether Jennings was identified. Perhaps, all this could finally, truly end tonight. With a determined nod, Ian took a step into the staircase, only to have Hero pull him back.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to—”
Ian’s brows rose at the look on her face. The look his old nanny had once used on him that froze him in his tracks. Hero’s was just as effective. Surprisingly daunting, and unexpected enough to lift away some of his frustration with a trace of humor. “I suppose you would like your explanation first.”
“Indeed, I would.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“So these accidents haven’t been inadvertent at all?” she asked sometime later, after he’d reviewed the long list of events that had occurred over the last week. The very thought that someone was targeting Ian sent a shudder of foreboding through her. He’d eluded Death’s grasp again and again! Hero sank down on a chair near the small fireplace in astonishment. She could have lost him in a half dozen different ways and would never have known it was the result of deliberate malice. “Now I am the one who feels the fool. Why? Why would anyone want to harm you?”
“What else do I have but a title?”
“You think Daphne did this? Is that why you sent her away? Because you thought she was trying to hurt us? You?Ah, I see, you think she’s the one trying to kill you.”
“Don’t you?” He gestured to the bedchamber beyond the wardrobe door. “She essentially admitted that she’d had you run down in Glasgow.”
Hero slowly shook her head. “I can’t see it. You know I have little affection for her, but I can’t see Daphne doing anything so…well, messy.”
“Her methods might have left her with little blood on her hands,” he pointed out. “Taking you out as well would’ve left her with few people to point the finger at her. Besides, who else would benefit?”
He had a point there. With Daphne’s mother’s passing, she was the next in line for the title. Hero could think of no one else who would directly profit by his death. She thought again of Daphne’s reading ofVillette. She’d been passionate about the story and vocally declared to her brother that she was taking control of her future.
That she was making things happen.
Is this what she had meant? Hero had thought Daphne spoke of her pursuit of Ian’s person. She’d planned to marry him to take the title, but with that option taken from her, would she truly resort to murder to get what she wanted?
Then Hero recalled the glint in Daphne’s eyes when she looked at her. The jealousy. The hate. Hero wanted to deny it all but could see few flaws in Ian’s deduction. While she still didn’t think that Daphne was the sort to take a hands-on approach in enacting such a drastic solution, she could see that the detachment of hiring someone to do it for her might allow Daphne the buffer she needed to have it done. That sort of disassociation might allow her to think that her fate truly was to become the Marchioness of Ayr.
“Why not go to the magistrate?”
