Lady Whitcombe’s eyes widened, and for the first time, fear crept into her expression.
“You cannot prove it,” she snapped, but the confidence had thinned.
James met her gaze. “You just confessed.”
Lady Whitcombe’s mouth tightened. “To what? To a mistake? To a drunken night? That is not murder.”
James’s voice was cold. “You hired a man to threaten the late Duke. You threatened to ruin him. You set violence in motion and pretended you could control it. You do not get to call that anything, but what it is.”
The constables stepped forward.
Lady Whitcombe backed up a fraction, then forced herself still, lifting her chin as if dignity could protect her from iron shackles.
Eleanor did not look away.
The constable reached for Lady Whitcombe’s arm. “Ma’am, come with us.”
Lady Whitcombe’s gaze flicked to James, then Eleanor, hatred sharp enough to cut.
“You think you have won,” she hissed.
James’s expression did not change. “I think you will face the consequences you avoided for too long.”
Lady Whitcombe’s lips curled. “Men always think themselves righteous when they finally do what women have been forced to do in silence.”
James stepped closer, voice quiet and final. “Do not mistake punishment for righteousness. This is justice. And you will not escape it.”
Lady Whitcombe was taken, her wrists bound, the constables moving her toward their horses.
Mud splashed at her hem. She flinched.
Eleanor’s shoulders loosened slightly, but James saw the tension still in her hands, the grip she kept on the reins as if she were holding herself together by sheer discipline.
James turned toward her, his voice low enough that only she could hear.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Eleanor looked at him, eyes bright with unshed tears and fierce relief. “Ask me tomorrow.”
James nodded once, understanding.
He reached up and briefly touched her boot, a small gesture of grounding. “You were brave.”
Eleanor swallowed. “So were you.”
James held her gaze for a moment longer than he should have in front of others.
Lady Whitcombe was finally moving away from them, finally leaving their lives.
But James knew the story was not finished yet.
Because justice was not only arresting the mastermind.
It was also finding the man she had paid inside his own household.
“We must away back to Blackmere,” he said roughly.
“Yes,” she said with certainty, and they both mounted their horses and rode back to their home.
