“But you are,” Lucas countered. “To Geoffrey, you are the only thing standing between him and his inheritance.”
“Really?” Nathan asked. “I would think that was Lord Dunnamore.” Then he answered his own question. “But if she is handling the purse, then that would stand to reason.”
There was a moment’s silence when the two brothers exchanged a significant look. Diana didn’t understand it at first. She was still grappling with the shock of it all. But she was steadier now, and it only took a few more breaths before she realized what they were thinking.
“So you think Geoffrey…” She still couldn’t say it.
“I believe he hired those men, yes,” Lucas said.
Not a surprise. He’d said as much. But the next step, the very horrid next thought, was that if Geoffrey had turned evil enough to attack her, then what would he do to Oscar? After all, she merely held up his quarterly income. As long as Oscar lived, Geoffrey could not inherit.
She straightened with dawning horror. “We must get home immediately.”
“We’re nearly there,” Lucas soothed.
“I must see to my husband. He is bedridden. If someone were to—” Her words choked off, the memory of that hand over her mouth suffocating her. If someone were to do that to Oscar, he would have no strength to defend himself.
“We’re nearly there,” Lucas repeated.
She looked out the window and saw the truth. A few more streets and they should arrive. “It cannot be possible,” she said. “Geoffrey is spoiled. He’s not murderous.”
Neither men responded, and she knew with a sick kind of dread that it was possible. In the past two years, she’d dealt with a tenant who was violent toward his family when drunk. Another who had gone into a jealous rage at his wife and her lover. But both of those men were violent when their passions overcame them. What Lucas suggested spoke to cold-blooded premeditation. That was a thing for lurid gothic novels, not real life.
And yet, she couldn’t stop the cold dread in the pit of her stomach. Why couldn’t the horses go faster?
She sat in tense silence while staring out the window. She noted every passing house, every inch that brought her closer to home. And when the carriage stopped, she threw open the door. She would have run up the steps if Lucas hadn’t prevented her.
“Steady, Diana. Let me be sure that no one waits in the dark here.”
“What? Here?” She had put the danger in Vauxhall, not her front steps. Or upstairs with Oscar, not out here where everyone could see.
“With me,” he said sternly, and his gaze brooked no argument.
“I’ll lead,” Nathan said. Then he hopped out and scanned the shadows as he moved. Lucas went next, his gaze about him as he drew her tight to his side. Then all three of them rushed forward to the steps.
Fortunately, her butler Simpson was just then throwing open the door. Safety beckoned from the bright lights within. But one look at the man’s face told her that something horrible had already happened inside.
Chapter Eleven
“What has happened?”Diana demanded as she crossed the threshold. Simpson barely had time to grab her cloak before she was heading toward the stairs. “Is it his breathing?” Oscar had been coughing lately. Weak rasps in his dry throat that made her wince every time it happened.
“No, my lady,” Simpson answered. “His lordship is resting peacefully.”
She exhaled in relief, stopping her forward movement with one foot on the stair. “Then what has happened?” she asked.
Simpson didn’t answer beyond a gesture to the front parlor. Diana looked there, only now seeing that a burly footman stood at the door to the parlor, and both Lucas and Nathan were turning with grim expressions to what or who was inside.
Diana took a step closer and grimaced.
Geoffrey lounged against the fireplace with an arrogant smirk. “Home at last?”
The bastard!Three words, but his attitude implied that she spent all her time at parties and masquerades while her husband lay dying. It wasn’t true, and he knew it. But she’d long since learned not to rise to taunts of any kind.
“It’s late, Geoffrey. What are you doing here?”
“I came to visit my father at a time when I knew you wouldn’t be here.”
“Because she’d be lying dead in a ditch?” Lucas asked, his voice low with threat. “Sorry to disappoint.”
