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Elizabeth turned to Sterling. “It is exactly as I thought, and the earl has kept Thomas’s will here in the safe in his study.”
“To which only I have the key,” the earl announced triumphantly.
“It is a long and tedious journey from Cornwall to London,” Elizabeth said evenly. “Long hours and days when there is little to do except sleep and have the occasional conversation with fellow travelers.”
“I believe you must have completely lost your mind, gel, to be talking of long journeys and conversations at such a time,” Whitlow scorned.
“Not at all.” She looked at him coldly. “During one of those conversations, Peggy told me how you always keep a key on a gold chain about your throat.” Her top lip curled back with disgust. “We are all now familiar with the circumstances under which she came to know that.”
“Gentlemen.” Sterling nodded to the two men standing in the doorway. “If you would care to retrieve the key so we can examine the contents of the earl’s safe?” The mere thought of having to touch such a noxious person as the Earl of Whitlow made Sterling feel ill.
“You have no right—” The earl’s protest fell short, and he visibly blanched when one of the Prince Regent’s men placed his arm about him to hold him still while his companion pulled the chain and key into view. He then wrenched it from about the older man’s neck. “You will pay for having these louts lay their hands upon me,” Whitlow shouted wildly when one of the men continued to hold him.
Elizabeth stepped forward. “To dislike me is one thing, but to kill you own son is beyond understanding.”
The earl snorted. “Then he should not have married a woman of such low social standing completely against my wishes.” His sly gaze moved to Sterling. “And if you think the toplofty Duke of Bristol will ever offer you marriage, then you will wait in vain. A man such as him does not marry a woman like you!”
“You—”
“Do not allow him to rile you, Sterling.” Elizabeth soothed his outburst before her gaze hardened as she once again looked at her erstwhile father-in-law. “Neither I nor anyone else in the room has the least interest in hearing anything else you have to say.” Her nostrils flared. “But I want you to know that only when the hangman places that noose about your throat will I be satisfied you are paying the price of your own life for having murdered Thomas and Mr. Shaeffer.”
Whitlow’s face had turned a sickly gray. “They wouldn’t dare hang me.”
Melborne chuckled. “On the contrary, we are all looking forward to when you piss your pants—excuse my crudeness,Lady Elizabeth—before the rope is even placed about your throat.”
“Fucking bastards, the lot of you—”
“I believe we have heard enough,” Sterling stated. “Take him outside, please, gentlemen.” He nodded as he was handed the chain and key. “We will join you once we have collected Lord Marshall’s will from his father’s safe.”
The earl continued to shout and protest as he was dragged away.
Utterly meaningless protests once Lord Thomas Marshall’s will, dated before his death on the same day ten months ago, was found inside the Earl of Whitlow’s safe. Just as Elizabeth had suspected it might be. It had been legalized and duly signed by Mr. Shaeffer and his clerk.
“You believe my coz to have been murdered?” Granger asked once they were all gathered outside Whitlow House.
“Yes,” Melborne confirmed with his usual bluntness.
The young man nodded. “And is it possible, from some of the strange looks and remarks several of you have given and made to me these past few months, that you suspectImight have had something to do with his murder?”
Sterling inwardly acknowledged that although Granger might look like a fop, he obviously had an astute brain beneath the appearance which implied the contrary.
“As Plymouth’s heir, you were, still are, considered a likely candidate, yes,” Lincoln confirmed.
“Excellent.” Granger’s sarcastic tone implied the opposite, the hardness of his gaze sweeping over all of them. “I would never have killed, or arranged to have killed, a man I admired and loved as much as I did my cousin Spencer. Indeed, until this moment, I had considered you all gentlemen to be admired.” He placed his hat angrily on his head. “I wish you luck in your future endeavors to find the real culprit. In the meantime, I shallbe carrying out my own investigation. Spencer was, after all, a member ofmyfamily not yours.”
“Granger—”
“In future, you will address me as either Plymouth or Your Grace,” the younger man told them coldly before striding off down the street.
“I still think he could have done it,” Melborne broke into the silence that ensued.
“Time will tell,” Lincoln dismissed. “In the meantime, we have the Earl of Whitlow to deliver to the authorities.”
Sterling nodded. “I have to admit, I will not feel easy until he has been safely locked away in a cage for the rest of his short life.”
“That did not feel quite as satisfying as I had thought it would,” Elizabeth admitted dully several hours later once she was again seated in the small family salon in her parents’ home.
“Possibly because even though the earl is now in custody awaiting his trial, Thomas and Mr. Shaeffer are still dead,” Sterling acknowledged gently as he stood across the room near the window looking out onto the street below. “You also suffered ten months of hell at that monster’s hands.”
