“Or…he could be your brother’s.” Frederick locked his dark eyes on Nate’s.
Nate almost choked on his brandy. He extracted his handkerchief from his pocket and coughed into it.
“I’m sorry,” Frederick said. “I thought you knew.”
“Knewwhat?” Nate said through gritted teeth.
“I thought Helen was the reason for your acrimonious relationship with Edward.”
“No. Our relationship is acrimonious because Edward is a pompous prig. Helen would never—not Edward—what would be the point? He was already married. She wanted a title and the money and power that comes with it.”
“You’ve always been blind when it comes to Helen.” Frederick put his cigar to his lips and inhaled. “She puts Narcissus to shame. The woman wants power over every man she encounters, and she thought that your brother would become as besotted with her as you. Thatmeant he’d ply her with money and whatever else she wanted. And she wouldn’t have stopped at him either. Had you married her, you would have been a cuckold more times than you could count.”
“Stop,” Nate warned. “I don’t want to hear about it. I know that I have always been a fool when it concerns Helen. Still, I never imagined Edward would stoop that low. My own brother! Do you imagine that if I knew”—Nate shook his head—“that he’d still be alive? I’d have challenged him to a duel—brother or no brother.”
“I think in his mind, he believed he was saving you,” Frederick said. “She knew he held the purse strings, and he knew she could be bought. It’s not that he wanted her for himself. It was more that he didn’t want her for you, so he set a trap for her, and once she fell into it, he had complete control of her reputation.”
“Don’t you dare defend him,” Nate snarled.
“Edward could have ruined her chances of marrying anyone. Instead, he arranged for her to marry Lord Luxton. Perhaps, because he knew she was with child and cared enough to secure the lad a good future.”
“I said, don’t defend him.” Nate clenched his fists. “Whatever Edward thinks, that child cannot belong to my pale-as-a-lily brother,” Nate spat.
“I tend to agree. He is the image of you.”
“But I will never know for certain.” Nate gulped his brandy. Perhaps Edward had done him a favor. He’d been blind to Helen’s duplicity, and life with her would have been miserable. Still, it had been unintentional. Edward didn’t care about his happiness. He’d interfered in his marriage to control him. He was the despot of his own little kingdom.
Nate swallowed more brandy. He hated that Edward controlled his inheritance, dolling it out to him as an allowance each month, and withholding the money at his will. It was time to sever his dependenceon that bastard. He had to make Villa De Lacey work for him, and that meant discovering who the killer was before anyone else ended up dead.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Bridget approached therose garden cautiously, causing an impatient Bijou to scamper ahead of her. The horror of seeing Abigail’s body floating in the fountain that morning replayed in her mind with each step. She stopped at the fountain’s edge and inhaled, shaking away the image, before straightening her shoulders and forcing herself to look at the water.
She searched for missed clues, but there was nothing except a few floating leaves on the surface of the fountain. She circled the area slowly, her eyes scanning the ground, but again she found nothing. The rose garden was the most-cared-for part of the garden, and Thomas kept it flourishing and manicured. And it seemed that he’d already cleaned any mess that would have evidenced Abigail’s suffering and murder.
Bridget sat on the fountain’s rim and listened to the soft trickling of the water. It had always been the most tranquil area of the garden. She glanced up and studied Venus’s perfectly sculptured face. Her stone eyes were serene and all-knowing.What did you see? If only you could speak.
Whoever killed Abigail had shown her no mercy. But what drove a person to act in such a way? High emotions had to be at play. She thought of the pain and fear that had engulfed her upon learning of her father’s death. Though it was self-inflicted, she’d wanted to blame someone else. Had she come face to face with Nate’s brother in those early, agonizing weeks, or the ignorant men who’d probably desecratedher father’s body before they’d buried it at a crossroads, she might have wanted to lash out at them. Even now, she could feel the anger rise in her chest. The truth was, one could love so strongly that it turned into hatred. Had that been the case for Madam Eamont? If so, it followed that jealousy—or, rather, humiliation—fit as motivation in her case. And if Abigail had witnessed her push Madam Bouffant, she’d need to silence her. As to the vicious nature of the crime, her own two daughters had testified to the woman’s propensity for cruelty. But how to prove such a thing short of a confession from the woman? If only there was something…
Bridget stood and turned to the carefully tended bushes of red, pink, and white roses. They were arranged in clusters of color next to the fountain. The little rose garden had been her mother’s favorite area and because of that, it became a sanctuary for her father. He often tended to the flowers himself, getting on his knees beside Thomas to prune them.
A stab of guilt almost took Bridget’s breath away. She had not been to visit her father’s memorial for several weeks, not because she didn’t think about her papa constantly, but because visiting his grave had become too painful since Madam Bouffant’s murder. The horror of seeing the woman’s battered corpse had killed her fantasy of her papa resting peacefully in his grave. She had been forced to face the truth: her papa’s mangled body, destroyed by his own hand, lay at some unknown crossroads amongst thieves and murderers.
All she could do was pray that his soul had found its way home, to her and Aunt Marianne. She had to believe that, or she’d go mad with grief.
Bridget leaned forward to smell a bush of white roses. Her father had loved the white ones the most. They were pure and innocent like her mama—that’s what he’d always said. She evaluated the flowers, looking for the most beautiful white rose on the bush to pluck for her father’s makeshift grave. It was time she swallowed her pain and paidher respects again. The grave might only contain a lock of his hair, but it was all she had left.
*
Grief’s heavy weightbore down on Bridget as she drew near her papa’s gravestone.
Then she saw something that made her freeze: an arrangement of red roses lay on her papa’s grave. Her heart shattered in her chest.
“Oh, Aunt Marianne,” she cried and strode forward. Bijou picked up his pace and followed, staying close to her side. “Oh, my poor dear aunt!” She sank onto the ground beside the grave and Bijou settled by her side, wagging his tail. “You’ve been coming to pay your respects all alone.”
Aunt Marianne had suffered terribly upon learning that her brother’s body would not be returning to Villa De Lacey, and Bridget had hoped the little grave would give them both comfort. Instead, it had proved to be a painful reminder that he’d been denied a Christian burial and that his family had been denied his remains. For this reason, Aunt Marianne had started avoiding the site, but now it seemed that she had taken some comfort in the little spot, just as Bridget had hoped she would.
She lay the white rose next to the arrangement of red roses. The flowers, she saw, were fresh. When had Aunt Marianne come? Surely, she had not picked these roses today. Mayhap yesterday?
