“I could not help myself. Mr. Kensley has been calling most every other day since you left, and I could not bear the suspense a moment longer.” She clasped her hands. “I never imagined he was plotting such a wicked lie against us.”
“Wicked lie.”
“Father?”
He turned back to the window. Pulled both hands down his face.
“It was a lie … was it not?”
“Of course it was.”
“Then we cannot allow him to do this. Such falsehoods would bring unbearable shame upon Sharottewood and all our friends and—”
“Yes, yes, I am aware, my dear. I am quite aware.” A sigh shuddered the large shoulders. “Please … I am fatigued after my journey. Leave me to myself now.”
“But what are we going to do?”
“I do not know.”
“We must do something!”
“We shall, but the man will not accept money. I hardly know what he wants, and I hardly know what to do.” When he commanded she leave for the second time, she departed the study with a knot growing in her throat.
How dare Mr. Kensley waltz in, accept her hospitality, befriend her, then knife her in the back with such a dangerous, treacherous lie. She would not stand for it.
Father may not know what to do.
But she did.
William paced back and forth in his tiny, white-painted chamber. Tomorrow, he must leave London. Coming here had accomplished nothing.
Except causing him to get hurt yet again.
A part of him shriveled as all the hostile words Lord Gresham had spoken to him returned and echoed within the chamber. Why had Shelton sent him here? What purpose was there in this?
None. William was no closer to knowing who wanted him dead or why.
Unless he knew already.
His aunt’s face loomed in his vision, with her deep wrinkles and pallid skin and accusing eyes. Yes, she hated him. She had only ever cared for him for five thousand pounds a year. Most of all, she begrudged him Rosenleigh. But enough to kill him? She—who had watched him grow up, raised him along with her own child, blood of her blood? Why could he not accept the thought?
And Shelton.
She would not have permitted the murder of such a faithful gardener, a servant who had been with her so many years. Would she?
How much easier to pretend some unknown father wished him dead. Or an elusive, secret enemy. Anyone but … but the aunt and cousin he’d always longed to have love him.
William rubbed his hands over his face and trapped a groan before it escaped. Now what? Go back and confront his aunt, ask if she wanted him dead so that her own son might inherit? Or continue in what Shelton had sent him to do?
Someone rapped on the door.
“Who is it?”
“King George III. Who’d you think?”
William opened the door to his landlady, a squat old woman with a fluffy mob cap and a chin that dripped three layers of fat.
“You gets another caller this late at night and yous can be looking for other lodgings right fast, you can. Now come along before I gets peeved and throws you out now.”
