“That’s only conjecture, old chum, and rather a large leap from here to there, but—”
“But I’d better follow up at once,” Owen interjected.
“Agreed,” George said. “Shall I go with you?”
“I’m going directly to that godawful hole where we found Sophia. Would you go to Lady Adelia’s—you know where, don’t you, 78 Hyde Park Street?—and make sure I’m quite insane? I pray she’s there, getting ready for tonight.”
“Of course. I’ll go there directly and see you later. Everything will be fine.”
Owen didn’t hear him over the thumping of his heart as he ran from the club, hailing his driver as soon as he was out the door.
Chapter Thirty
Mr. Beaumont handedAdelia a handkerchief.
She stared at the unexpected article in her suddenly trembling hand. It was one of Owen’s handkerchiefs—with the gorgeously embroidered, silver-threadedBupon a starched white cloth.
For a moment, terror that Victor Beaumont had harmed Owen and taken the kerchief from him by physical force made her heart want to leap from her chest.
“Where did you get this?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Ah, that was a damn sight more difficult than getting one of your brother’s, and that’s no lie. But practically every servant can be bribed. If you hang around the servants’ entrance long enough, eventually you shall encounter one of the lowest of the low, the laundress!”
“You are mad!” she declared.Why else would he be stealing handkerchiefs and handing them to women he intended to…? Dear God!
“On the contrary, I am clever,” he gloated. “Far too clever, in fact, to manage someone else’s business, which I built with my own two hands.” He raised them in front of his face and looked at them. After a few seconds, he peered at her over the top of his fingers.
“If I’d had the seed money to start my own mining company, I would be far ahead of the Smythesandthe Burnleys. Instead, I’ve been making your family rich since the day your father hired me.”
“You were handsomely paid,” Adelia protested, having had a discussion with her brother on that very fact. Moreover, Smythe Coal had been running successfully for a generation before Victor Beaumont ever darkened its doorstep.
He shrugged. “So says you, with your Mayfair townhouse and your maid and your carriage. Let’s not forget your high society gatherings that I cannot attend for lack of title or lineage.”
“You want to go to a ball?” she asked.
Part of her was actually curious, with the fascination of a storyteller, to understand what was driving this man besides greed. Most of her simply hoped to keep him talking calmly until she could somehow lure him away from the door. Help might not be directly on the other side, nor downstairs in the form of those drunkards and ne’er-do-wells, but out in the street, there might be a hackney passing by. Or she could flee to Constance’s home, which she knew to be close.
Her captor snickered at her question. “No, my lady. I have no burning desire to mingle with theton, except for how I wish to lord it over them in every sense of the word. I want a grand home of my own, well-tailored clothes, a fine horse, and, I suppose, a loving wife. And not a middle-class wife, at that. I want a fine lady.”
She noted how he equated the same fineness to a horse as to his imaginary wife.
“And I will have all that,” he insisted, “when I am the sole owner of Smythe Coal. I will grow it into the premiere mining company in Britain. See if I don’t.”
Then, Mr. Beaumont grimaced wryly. “I suppose you won’t see it, will you? You’ll be quite dead.”
She couldn’t help a frightened gasp escaping her as she scrunched Owen’s handkerchief between her hands like a talisman to ward off this evil man. Without a doubt, his overarching ambition had caused him to murder Sophia. Now her life was about to be snuffed out, too.
“You should have let me take over for your weak-willed brother. But you told Mr. Arnold I was no longer in charge.” Mr. Beaumont shook his head and took a step toward her. “You, as namby-pamby as quince jelly, want to run this company in your brother’s stead?”
She took a step back, wondering if she could manage to get a window open. If there had been even a single chair in the room, she would have used it as a weapon.
“Everything you told me about seeing my brother with Lady Sophia was a lie, was it not?” She tried to remain calm, refusing to believe her life would end there.
“Of course,” he confessed. “I was only watching your brother to make sure he was seen in the East End. Your Lord Burnley stumbling into the pub one night and being a witness was impossibly fortunate. If he hadn’t, I would have found someone else to say your brother frequented the Whitechapel taverns, maybe Constance.”
“Will you tell me why you killed Lady Burnley?” If she escaped this plight, she would at least have an answer for Owen.
He cocked his head, frowning at her question, and shrugged.
