And suddenly, it all made sense.
“You’re the caretaker’s sons, aren’t you?” she said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“George ruined ourlives,” Charlie said. He and Rupert sat across from Nate and Bridget in the study, each with a brandy in hand. “But we didn’t kill him.”
Nate folded his arms. “You traveled from Dorset to Yorkshire with the express purpose of finding and befriending Mr. Otis so you could exact revenge, and you expect us to believe youdidn’tkill him?”
Bridget remembered the blank look in Rupert’s eyes, and she shuddered. In that moment, she’d thought him capable of murder.
“That’s right,” Charlie said. It was odd for Rupert to be silent and for Charlie to be speaking when she was used to the opposite. But Rupert seemed to have lost the desire to communicate completely. “We knew he’d been sent to the north because our father told us when he was on his deathbed. He told us to avenge our brother’s murder.”
“So, you went to Knaresborough?” Nate asked.
“That was the plan, but we stopped in York first, and it was by sheer accident that we found him there—at a poetry reading. Of course, he was only playing at being a poet. Nothing he wrote belonged to him. He stole every line from the talented but struggling poets he met. He took their work and passed it along as his own.”
Bridget swallowed. He’d been yet another person who’d gained her trust and then managed to fool her completely.
“All his talk of capturing nature’s beauty and sublimity with his words. It was all a lie.” Charlie snorted. “We knew who he was immediately. At least, Rupert did. He was seven when it happened. Iwas only five.”
“You mean when your infant brother drowned?” Nate said.
“I mean, when George killed him,” Charlie said, his voice bitter.
“And George didn’t recognize you?” Bridget asked, wanting to break the tension.
“No. At least, if he did, he didn’t say so. We used different names, of course. But to be honest, I don’t think he’d bothered to give us a second thought in years. He was selfish, and, despite his persona, he only cared for one person—himself.”
“Then your names aren’t Rupert and Charlie?” Nate said.
Charlie shook his head.
“So, what was your plan? Befriend Otis, gain his trust, and then? How were you planning to extract revenge?” Nate asked.
Charlie opened his mouth to speak, but Rupert’s words cut off his brother’s speech.
“Kill him,” Rupert said.
A chill ran down Bridget’s spine.
“I was planning to kill him, and I would have done so if Groby hadn’t got to him first.”
“Did he? Or did you frame Groby?” Nate asked.
“I saw an opportunity,” Rupert said. “Everyone was talking about Groby’s pretty young wife, who always seemed to be in the company of George or Collins. It was easy to goad him. A man like that—all one needs to do is call him a cuckold in front of a room full of men, especially when he’s far in his cups, and he is bound to threaten murder. A man must defend his pride, after all.”
“And then you went and did the deed,” Nate said.
Rupert shook his head. “That was my plan—to kill George and blame it on Groby. I wanted George dead, but I wasn’t about to hang for murder and leave my brother on his own. I knew Groby’s threat was meaningless. He was too drunk to do anything but stumble home and crawl into bed next to his wife. So, I waited until he left The BlackHorse, and then I went to find George. I knew he’d be with Lady Patterson—his mama. She’d been giving him money and hiding her real identity. But I recognized her immediately. I planned to conceal myself just inside the gates of Villa De Lacey and wait for them to return from their moonlit walk. If I thought I could have managed it, I would have planned to kill them both. But that was too large a task, so I planned to let George walk her to the door, and then I aimed to ambush him on his way out. I must have waited an hour. But they never arrived.”
“Do you expect us to believe that story? You place yourself at the scene of the crime, and you admit that you were there to kill Otis. Not only did you have a motive to kill him, but his mother as well.”
“It’s true. I wanted them both dead, and I went there to kill George. I won’t deny that. But in the end, there was no need for me to get my hands dirty. I was wrong about Groby. His threat wasn’t meaningless. He killed George as promised. And as for Lady Matheson, she died by her own hand. I knew she would take her own life as soon as I told her who I was and that I was going to let the magistrate know she was a madwoman who had escaped captivity. They would have returned her to Cornwall and locked her away in an asylum forever. With George dead and her estate and freedom gone, she had nothing left to live for.”
The malice in Rupert’s voice broke Bridget’s heart. She recognized his anger as masked pain. He had been steeped in that pain for so long that it had turned him into a person ready to kill.
“This is outrageous!” Nate fumed. “I’m calling the magistrate.”
