“You did away with the man who wielded the blade.”
“That’s not enough.” It would never be enough. Clive Newton might have done the killing, but he’d been guided to do so by someone else. “I won’t find peace until I discover who orchestrated her death and destroy them.”
Samantha’s fingers tightened around his. “Wrengate remains an option, I suppose. Even though he helped you when I needed rescuing, I still don’t trust that he wasn’t involved.”
“Is that what you truly believe or is your personal dislike of him starting to influence you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. The attempt we made at linking him to Evie’s death was inconclusive.”
“True, but that doesn’t mean he had anything to do with it.” Adrian sighed. “We cannot afford to chase false clues, so let’s focus on what we know. Wrengate came to our aid, despite the fact that he knows it was you who snuck into his house and that it was also you who killed the thugs he sent after Wycliff.”
“He knows nothing for certain. He only suspects.”
“True.” He glanced at her and noted the way her brow creased in thought. The damage done to her face by O’Leary had mostly healed. Only a small scar on her lip remained — enough to make fresh anger simmer in Adrian’s veins whenever he saw it. “I hope you’re not trying to plot a way through this. You’ve too much at stake with the baby on the way.”
“Don’t worry.” Her voice was hoarse. “I meant what I said when I told you about the pregnancy. As far as I am concerned, Wrengate is a problem I’d like to put behind me. But I also maintain the fact that you should dig deeper.”
“When I met him at the theatre last year and suggested to him that he’d been involved in Evie’s death, he told me he wasn’t.”
“And you believe him?”
Adrian wasn’t sure. What he did know was that the man would be on his guard now. Besides which, he was a duke. Not exactly the sort of person one went after unless one was certain that undeniable proof existed.
Upon reflection, however, Adrian had begun to wonder if he’d been seeking the impossible. Could it be that his dislike of Wrengate in general had clouded his judgement?
“What I said to him then offended him greatly. That much was clear.”
“Very well,” she said. “Let’s suppose for a moment that it wasn’t him. Who else could it be?”
“Any number of people, I suppose. There were over two hundred guests at the ball that was used to ensure Evie’s ruin. All, powerful people.”
He stared into Samantha’s blue eyes, and realized there was someone else he should have considered long before Wrengate. “Maybe it’s Harlowe?”
“What?”
“He’s crafty enough. After all, he did turn you and your foster sisters into his indebted servants. I—”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s the truth, is it not?” When she didn’t respond, he told her, “I’m merely saying that I’d not be surprised if he had a hand in this too.”
“If that were the case, he’d not have worked so hard to destroy you.”
“That order came from Kendrick and his superiors, not from Harlowe himself. There’s a chance he was playing his own game and that everything that has occurred ties into whatever secret agenda he might have. Including the failure to bring me down if his ultimate goal was the opposite.”
“He’s always been very calculated,” she mused, “but this would involve a whole different level of strategy. However, I do have correspondence of his at the house, so we can easily check his writing against the anonymous note you received last year, informing you of a possible connection between the College of Surgeons and the murders we were investigating at the time.”
They had determined that the missive had likely come from the person who’d sent Clive Newton after Evie. The series of events her murder had led to— of Adrian stepping into a role he’d otherwise planned on walking away from, of him ensuring the worst kind of criminals were reckoned with—suggested the ghost they sought wished to keep him in play. As a weapon.
A weight lifted from Adrian’s heart at the prospect of possibly making some headway.
Releasing Samantha’s hand, he dropped to a crouch and placed his palm against the headstone’s cool surface. “You will always be loved, never forgotten.”
He stood, offered Samantha his arm, and escorted her back to their awaiting carriage.
Gabriella followed the dirt path that led back to Deerhaven’s sprawling west lawn. The Crofts had suggested she wait out the legal decisions pertaining to Miss Finch’s death here. Their country estate’s remote location would make her harder to find than if she remained at their city residence. No one knew she was here, besides the Crofts and Kendrick. Not even her family had been provided information about her whereabouts. All they had been told was that she was visiting friends at an undisclosed location.
The woodland on either side of Gabriella began thinning out before opening onto the wide panorama of Mr. Croft’s ancestral home. She stepped off the path and turned right, toward the low stone wall that stood at the edge of the cliffside. The view from there, of the coast and the expanse of water below, was unlike anything else she’d ever seen. She could lose herself in it for hours.
