“I don’t know. And maybe that wasn’t it at all,” Thomas said. “Maybe he was simply angry. In the past, Lady Valeria has always been chilly toward the both of us. I know now that it was because she was afraid of letting anyone get too close. But you know all too well how unaccustomed Henry is to being told no. Maybe her rejection angered him. Maybe he took his revenge on her brother, knowing that the aftermath of what he had done would harm her, too.”
“But that doesn’t sound like Henry,” Duncan protested. “He’s always been so… solikable. He’s never been the sort to do anything deliberately unkind.”
“I know that,” Thomas said. “But I think we need to accept the possibility that we’ve never known the real Henry. That there’s always been a side to him that we haven’t been able to see.”
Duncan shook his head. “I don’t know what to think,” he admitted. “If you had asked me to describe who Henry was to a stranger, the first thing I would have told you was how charming he always was.”
“Well, precisely,” Thomas said. “He was a charmer. And he was accustomed to his charm working in his favor, opening doors for him, granting him anything he wanted. When Lady Valeria wasn’t charmed by him, it must have felt to Henry like a slap in the face.”
“So you think he did all this to try to take revenge onher?” Duncan said, sounding absolutely astounded.
“It’s the only way I can make sense of him going after both Richard and myself,” Thomas said. “Can you think of any other reason he might have done it?”
“I can’t,” Duncan admitted.
Thomas turned to Crowle. “You’re confident that the two notes came from the same person?”
“I am,” Crowle said. “Don’t turn me over to the constables, I beg you.”
Thomas’s mind was racing as he tried to decide what to do.
“All right,” he said at last. “We’ll tell the constables everything you’ve told us—but we won’t tell them we trapped you here. We’ll tell them you came to us and told us of your own accord, that you asked us for help getting out from under Henry’s thumb. You won’t be hanged for that. They’ll treat you with mercy. But they’ll also make sure you never victimize anyone else the way you did me and Richard. I can’t allow that to happen to anyone ever again.”
Chapter 37
“Good riddance to him,” Duncan said, watching from the window as Simon Crowle was taken away by two constables. “I certainly hope we never see him again.”
Thomas was too overwhelmed to speak. He sat and stared into the fire, pondering everything he had just learned. To think that Henry—one of his oldest and most trusted friends—could have been responsible for sending Crowle after him! It was almost too much to fathom.
Yet it was unquestionably true. There was no other reason for Henry to have run away. Thomas couldn’t doubt that he was to blame.
He looked up, feeling as though a hot coal was smoldering inside him. “We’re going to have to go after him,” he said.
“Crowle?” Duncan looked startled. “Whatever for?”
“Not Crowle. Henry. We’re going to have to find him and force him to account for himself.”
“Surely we can leave him to the constables,” Duncan protested. “We told them what he had done. They said they would pursue him. Must we really involve ourselves?”
“It’s your cousin he’s been doing harm to,” Thomas said. “Don’t you want to defend her? As long as he’s out there, there’s every chance he’ll find another way to hurt Lady Valeria.”
“Do you really think he would?” Duncan asked.
“I didn’t think he would do any of the things he’s done,” Thomas said. “But he has done them. And that shows me I was wrong ever to trust him. Now the only thing we can do is to find him and bring him to justice.”
“You’re right, I suppose,” Duncan said. “But there’s something we need to do first.”
Thomas nodded. He suspected he and Duncan were thinking the same thing. “Return to Earlington Manor?”
“That’s right,” Duncan said. “We need to make sure they don’t let Henry in, because he can’t be trusted, and he must be kept away from Valeria at all costs.”
“I agree,” Thomas said. “I don’t want him anywhere near her. We should make sure your mother and Lady Valeria know what’s happened as quickly as possible.”
* * *
“I can’t believe this,” Lady Earlington breathed. “Lord Harlston always seemed like such a nice young gentleman. I always welcomed him into my home. I liked having him here. And all this time—it was an act?”
“I don’t know,” Thomas said. “It couldn’t have been entirely an act, could it? He couldn’t have been pretending all the time. No one is that good an actor.”