AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jonathan nodded shakily. “That is correct.”
“So the journal was a fake.”
Jonathan shook his head. “Quite the contrary. Montague figured you would be able to recognize your father’s handwriting. The journal is real.”
A line from his father’s journal slammed back into Thomas’s memory.
Montague pointed out that this was the second time that I have felt unwell after attending a dinner with him and suggested I keep a written record of any odd symptoms I experience after our visits, if only to track if I am perhaps sensitive to one of the more exotic ingredients his chef uses.
“Montague suggested that my father keep the journal. So that when he did die, there was a clear trail of breadcrumbs leading to the Polk estate.”
“My God!” The viscount threw his hand over his mouth.
Thomas looked over at his trembling cousin. His temples were throbbing, and his arms so sore he could barely stand it. “But there is one thing I don’t understand, Jonathan. Montague had no motive. You did. With my father and me gone, the earldom would be yours.”
Jonathan opened his mouth to protest, but no sound came out. Endless minutes passed before he finally gathered himself and spoke.
“You’re right. I did have a motive. But I swear to you, your father’s death had nothing to do with me.”
“That’s easy enough for you to say now,” Polk interjected, his voice shaking with a mixture of anger and disbelief. “Who’s to say you didn’t plan all this from the start? That you didn’t orchestrate everything?”
“Enough!” Jonathan shouted, slamming his hand on the table. “I did not kill your father, Thomas! We have established quite clearly that Montague did that.”
Polk leaned back, his face pale beneath the candlelight. Thomas rubbed his temples, attempting to make sense of the words being thrown around.
“Even if it wasn’t you,” Thomas began slowly. “You knew about it and you did nothing.”
Jonathan’s eyes widened, and he took a step back, reeling from the accusation. “I… I didn’t know until it was too late,” he stammered. “By the time I figured out what Montague had done, your father was already…”
“Dead.” Thomas finished Jonathan’s sentence with a finality that echoed in the spacious room.
Polk shifted uncomfortably in his chair, absorbing the weight of Jonathan’s confession.
In the silence that followed, Jonathan dropped his gaze to his hands, his fingers working nervously at the buttons of his waistcoat. When he finally spoke, his words were barely audible. “I am not proud of what I did next.”
Thomas took a step towards his cousin, his hands curled into fists. “What?”
Jonathan closed his eyes and took a deep breath in. “I figured out that Montague was responsible for your father’s death, Thomas. I found the letters, and they were damning. I should have turned those over to the authorities, but I…” He buried his face in his hands.
“I swear to God, Jameson, if you don’t tell me right now?—”
Jonathan held up a hand. “As you know, the gemstone mines my father and I invested in turned out to be worthless. I needed money, and I suddenly had this information against Montague…”
“You used it against him.” Thomas grabbed Jonathan’s face—his left hand throbbing, but he didn’t care—and forced his cousin to look him in the eye. “Rather than swallow your pride and admit that you were penniless, you blackmailed Montague into helping you get me out of the way so you could inherit the earldom.”
“I didn’t think he was going to try to kill you, Thomas! I knew that he knew everything about you. He’d watched you grow up. I figured he would be able to talk you into relinquishing your title in my favor. I guess he thought that would be a fruitless effort, so he settled on”—all the color drained from Jonathan’s face—“a different way of relieving you of your duty.”
Thomas let go of Jonathan’s face and crossed his arms over his chest, leveling a stony gaze at him. “And yet you didn’t think to tell me? To warn me of what Montague might do to me?”
“I was afraid,” Jonathan admitted. “Afraid of what Montague would do if he found out I’d betrayed him, afraid of what you would think of me for getting entangled in such a nefarious plot.”
“But you knew that there was at least a possibility that Montague might try to kill me.”
Jonathan’s face tightened. “I really didn’t think he would go there. I swear it!” He burst into tears. “Oh, cousin. I beg your forgiveness.”
Thomas regarded his cousin coldly. “It’s not my forgiveness you should be after, Jonathan. It’s God’s.” He turned his back on his weeping cousin.
Polk’s gaze darted between the two men, his face a silent reflection of the tension hanging in the room. “But there is one thing I still don’t understand. Why did Montague want Thomas’s father dead? It’s not as if the earldom would pass to him.”
