“They won’t. I’ve spent my life hiding Samuel’s indiscretions. Besides, half the ton are addicted to dipping the wick.” Augusta’s cackle vibrated with triumph. “You’ll be abroad. I’ll keep the house in Mayfair. And everyone will presume the missing clerk killed your father.”
Daphne said nothing.
Her aunt took that as a sign she’d won and went to pour the tea and lay sliced ham and cheese on a plate.
“Mr Hawke knows Uncle Samuel fathered his?—”
“Be quiet!” Augusta spun, her gaze snapping like a whip. “He loaned money to a woman down on her luck. There’s no trace of it. No proof he did anything but act as mediator.”
Dominic had combed the city and come up empty. Evidence remained as elusive as the villain himself. Now he had a name.
Daphne’s sigh was more a weary rasp. “Mother warned me to trust a man’s actions, not his words. The secret family in Norfolk who inherited Uncle Samuel’s estate tells you everything about his intentions.”
Augusta stood, statue still.
“Mother said you wanted children.” Daphne spoke calmly. “It must have hurt deeply to learn he’d fathered them everywhere.”
Augusta’s snort dripped with bitterness. “Yes, like a knife to the gut, twisting when you thought the wound had healed.”
“After all these years, it still pains you.”
“It won’t when you’re gone.”
“Because you mean to punish me for the terrible way he treated my mother? A woman so desperate to free herself she turned to Mr Moseley.”
“Your mother knew what she was doing. They all did. A weak man doesn’t take much tempting. Unless it’s to bed his own wife.”
It took all his strength not to lunge at the woman. He’d dare her to stand at his mother’s grave and call her the perpetrator.
“You blamed them for—” The words died in Daphne’s throat. “Good Lord. My mother didn’t die of dysentery. You poisoned her.” Her shallow gasp cut through him. “You killed her because you couldn’t stand to see?—”
“What did you expect me to do? Eat supper with a woman who bore my husband’s child?”
Daphne’s breath stuttered, but she pressed on. “And Mrs Hawke? You poisoned her too.”
The thud of a door below snapped Augusta’s attention to the landing. “Mr Irving has returned. He’ll be cross if you’ve not eaten. You’ve a long voyage ahead.”
Daphne shifted her legs, fighting against her bindings. “We won’t see each other again after tonight. You may as well admit to killing her. Though now I think on it, perhaps you didn’t. How would you have entered Shadowmere?”
The stairs groaned under a heavy tread, accompanied by humming so tuneless it set Dominic’s teeth on edge.
Augusta crowed with delight at Irving’s arrival. “You’re right. I didn’t kill Mrs Hawke. Your uncle did. He just didn’t know I’d poisoned the sleeping draught he gave her.”
Behind the cabinet, his hands balled into fists. For the first time in his life, he understood what it meant to want a woman dead.
“It may have served you better to kill Uncle Samuel.”
Augusta tutted. “One always hopes they’ll change.”
Irving appeared in the doorway. He removed his hat andbrushed wisps of hair across his pate. “Good. Good. You’ve brought supper. I don’t suppose there’s any spare?”
Dominic heard the faint cluck of Augusta’s tongue.
“I’ve bread and cheese in the manager’s office, but where’s the clerk? You said you’d return with her. You said I’d be paid once they were safely aboard.”
“I sent my man to collect her from the Waterman’s Arms. He should be here within the hour.”
Dominic smiled to himself. Saint-Clair would welcome the chance to bloody someone.
