“How did father steal it if he was the one who found it?” Cleo demanded, wishing to defend her father’s honor.
“I am getting to that,” Dustshore snapped, glaring at her interruption. “Henry started acting strangely and arguing with my father about everything. When my father brought in an expert to take a look at the gold and jewels within the hairpin to get an estimate of its value, your father stormed in and accused my father of being a propheteering pirate. He said that my father’s purpose had become quite clear to him and that he was not going to let him do it. That he was leaving for London immediately upon the morn to tell them of his discovery.”
“And did he?” Cleo was breathless, with fear for her father, even though she already knew how it had ended for him.
“Yes, he did, but while he was away, the hairpin went missing. Henry accused my father of selling it for profit. My father denied any such accusations and accused Henry of taking it. Henry denied having done so, but my father knew that he was lying. However, when a thorough search of your father’s limited possessions produced no such evidence, my father began to doubt himself. Perhaps it had been stolen by someone else, a competitor perhaps. He spent the remainder of his life and our family’s fortunes looking for it.”
“What do ye mean yer fortunes? Ye throw money around as if it is nothing.”
“That is because I was smarter than my father and invested my own money. The Dustshore fortunes are my own, not my father’s legacy.”
“I never knew,” Cleo shook her head. “I never knew any of this.”
“I am aware,” Dustshore answered. “When I assumed the title upon my father’s passing, I promised him on his deathbed that I would find the hairpin and fulfill what he referred to as his failed destiny. However, unlike my father, I never believed Henry Wallace’s story that he was innocent. It was to this end that I visited the professor in his office after his last class on the day of your twenty-first birthday as it happens and demanded to know where the hairpin was hidden.”
“But he did not tell you,” Cleo murmured bitterly, “so you killed him.”
“The professor denied knowing anything. He maintained that the hairpin had been stolen. What else was I to do but to torture it out of him?”
“There were nae signs o’ torture upon the body,” Arthur argued.
“That is because I discovered a better way. You see, a man will tell you anything that you wish to know, if you threaten his daughter.”
“But if you knew that I had it all of this time, why did you not just take it from me?”
“He did not tell me the whereabouts of the hairpin, he only said that if I hurt you that I would never find what I sought, that it would be lost to me forever. I knew that meant that you had it, or at least had a way of finding it, and if I killed you, the hairpin would be lost forever; however, I no longer had any reason to keep the professor alive with you to guide me to the hidden treasure, so I killed him and made it to look like suicide.”
“Why? Why would you do such a thing?!”
“To avenge my father of course. By the time that my father died he had lost everything, including his reputation among his peers. I wanted your father to suffer the same fate. The funeral was an excellent opportunity to ingratiate myself into the family. If I convinced you to marry me, I would be able to do as I wished in order to discover the jewel’s whereabouts, but I had competition with Irondale coming on the scene so unexpectedly.”
“Ye are a right bassard, Brandon Chapman,” Arthur growled, being sure to keep Cleo behind him as much as he possibly could.
“Then, when I learned that your Aunt Caroline was one of my father’s old friends, I knew that I would use that family connection to force your hand to wed me, but instead, you ran off to Gretna Green and married Irondale, King Arthur personified.” Dustshore shook his head in disgust. “An Anglo-Scottish half breed, not worthy of the title. You were little more than an animal when we met in school, now look at you, still growling like a beast.”
Both Cleo and Arthur stood there staring at him in shock, unable to believe what they are hearing. “Ye are mad, Brandon, mad.”
“Possibly, but sadly you will not be around to tell anyone.” Dustshore leveled the gun squarely at Arthur’s chest, the barrel no longer wavering from person to person. It was clear that explanations were over.
“Wait!” Cleo cried out. “I will give you the hairpin if you promise not to hurt Arthur. She placed her body between Arthur and the gun.
“Nae, lass! Get behind me,” Arthur demanded attempting to push her back out of the way.
Cleo reached behind her back squeezed her husband’s hand in reassurance. She turned to look up into his face and mouthed the words. “I know what I am doing. Please, do not stop me.”
Arthur frown and shook his head. “Nae, I will nae let ye go.”
“Arthur, it is the only way.” Removing her hand from his, Cleo turned back toward Dustshore.
“I am glad to see that you have come to your senses, Miss Wallace. If only you had had the wisdom to marry me, we could have avoided this entire ordeal.”
Cleo held the hairpin firmly in her hand to the point where it very nearly drew blood. It took every bit of her strength not to lunge forward and jab the pin into Dustshore’s eye. Moving forward, she took easy slow steps towards the Earl, so as not to give him any reason to shoot her prematurely. “Do you promise not to kill us?” she asked, in an effort to keep his attention on her face and not her hands.
“I am afraid that I can make no such promises, Miss Wallace, as you see that I have a life to live once this over. I will not have my reputation tarnished as my father’s was. I am afraid that you must both die.”
“Nae!” Arthur growled. “If ye lay a single hand on my wife, I will rip yer skin from yer body with my bare hands and nail it to the side o’ the manor house as a warning tae any man who would think o’ harming her.”
Dustshore’s face went first white with fear and then red with rage. The graphic threat had been just enough to cause him to falter and Cleo took full advantage of it. Grabbing the hand that held the pistol, Cleo jammed the hair pin deep into it causing him to drop the pistol.
