At his order, the constables flanked a wide-eyed Sterling, as he raised his hands and bellowed, “Beaumont! Even after all I’ve done for you!?”
Dorian turned away from his old mentor as the men fixed irons on him. “Now, to find my uncle.”
Dorian lingered at Carrington’s study a little longer after the constables had left, the broken frame of the painting hanging like a shroud on the wall. The safe still gaped open behind it, empty now, as if exorcised of its secrets.
The letter crumpled slightly in his fist, the ink of his uncle’s looping scrawl catching the lamplight.Spitalfields. It would beeasy to go. Easier still to take one of the knives laid neatly in the drawer, hunt Edgar Beaumont down in the shadows, and do what justice had failed to do nearly fifteen years ago.
His blood, once hot with the thrill of vengeance, now simmered low and tired. This chase had stolen too much from him. It had poisoned his nights, soured his friendships, and turned him cold when he should have been kind. He had nearly destroyed his marriage before it had begun, all because he couldn't let go of the past.
The thought of Ellie—her steady eyes, her fierce loyalty, her raw pain—clenched tighter around his chest than any fury ever had.
“Is that him?” Benedict’s voice cut through the silence, quiet but steady.
Dorian glanced over his shoulder. Benedict stood in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes dark with a calm patience that had once been Dorian’s compass. He had lost what could have been a beautiful friendship in his pursuit of vengeance. And for what?
“Yes,” Dorian said simply. “He’s been under my nose the entire time.”
Benedict approached slowly, gaze passing over the gutted room, the constables milling in the hall, and finally the letter in Dorian’s hand. “So what now?” he asked.
Dorian exhaled slowly, then took the letter, walked past Benedict, and handed it to the last constable lingering at the corridor outside Sterling’s study.
“You’ll find him in Spitalfields,” Dorian said, voice even. “Address is there. Name is Edgar Beaumont. This letter details his involvement in the Vauxhall attack and a list of his other crimes. I want him arrested. But I won’t be the one to see it through.”
The constable blinked. “Your Grace, are you certain?”
Dorian nodded once. “If the law is worth anything at all, let it prove itself now.”
And just like that, it was over.
He walked out of Sterling’s study without another glance, the heavy door clicking shut behind him. The storm he’d carried inside him alone for years had quieted. For the first time in a long while, the path ahead didn’t smell of blood or smoke. And this time, he had a good friend standing beside him through it all.
Let the law have the last word. He was done chasing ghosts.
Now, it was time to close the final chapter of his old life.
Two days later, Ellie was having lunch with Harriet at the Eastbrook Manor drawing room when a footman entered with a sealed folio. “Your Grace, this was sent from Duke Wolfthorne’s estate.”
“Dorian?” she questioned while taking the folio.
Moving the plates away, she opened the folio to see two sets of papers. The one to the left was a deed to a horse breeding service. “What in heaven's is this?”
Taking the deed, she looked over and found a long trail of owners. “Stablewood Acres…”
Why did that name sound so familiar?
“Stablewood Acres….Stablewood Acres…” Ellie mulled over it, trying to chase the elusive memory constantly flitting out of reach. Then, like a match in a dark house, it sprang to the forefront. “The StablewoodFramptonAcres. Named after Grandpapa’s house in the highlands. It… it belonged to my father…”
Harriet read aloud the lines on the footer, “Owned by Peregrine Frampton, transferred to Adam Lakewood, Knight Harcourt, purchased by Dorian Beaumont, Duke of Wolfthorne, for current owner, Evelina Beaumont, neé Frampton.”
Ellie fell stunned, “He… He bought my father’s old business for me?”
“Egad,” Harriet gasped. “What is the other paper?”
Pulling that one out quickly, Ellie saw that it was an order for marriage annulment, and at the bottom, it was signed already—and her heart sank. Was he so ready to give up on this marriage?
Another paper was tucked to the side of it, and she read, “Dear Evelina, I have considered our options, and I want to present you with all of them. I have finally fulfilled my last duty to you and the true reason behind our hasty marriage. If you wish to dissolve our marriage, you simply need sign the order and hand it to the archbishop.
If you do not, and if there is any love left for me in your heart... then please read on.
