The box pew creaked when Sir Walter shifted.“Myconnection? What have I to do with—”
“Do not lie to me.” Willpower alone kept his fists in his lap. “You lied to Father and you lied to me. I know about Tunbridge Wells.”
“I have not the slightest knowledge what you are rambling of, but I must say, I find it in very bad form. If you are insinuating I had anything to do with your father’s death—”
“You killed Father, and you killed my wife.” With both hands, Simon seized the front of Sir Walter’s tailcoat. He shook. “You were afraid I would find out, so you ordered your turnkey friend to coerce Miss Simpson into smearing my name.”
“You are mad.”
“That did not work, so you threatened my children. The woman in the river…you killed her too. She died in my arms. Ruth died in my arms.”
“Unhand me, Fancourt.”
“Confess.”
“Unhand me now—”
“Confess!” Simon stood, slammed Sir Walter’s back against the edge of the box pew. He landed a fist across his face. Then another. Then another, until blood gushed from Sir Walter’s nose and flowed warm and sticky across Simon’s knuckles.
“Wait.” The barrister slumped to the floor, spectacles askew, panting. “If buffeting me senseless offers you composure, I shall oblige. I daresay, I would have done that and far more for your father.”
“I was blind to believe you were our friend.”
“What we believe is usually true.”
“Father’s letter as much as admitted your involvement.”
“I have no idea what letter you are referring to, but I can assure you, it did not implicate me. You have much to learn, son, about the complications of law and justice. If there is one thing you can be certain of, it is that you can never be certain of anything. Matters are not usually what they appear.” Sir Walter raised his chin, eyes steady on Simon. “But as it seems you no longer hold my words in reverence, and as you require a confession I cannot in moral conscience give, you might as well strike me again. Or kill me, if that shall satisfy you.”
The ache of fury, of injustice, throbbed at Simon’s forehead like a hatchet splintering wood. He trembled because it hurt so much to hold himself back. He needed to punish. He needed to hate Sir Walter. He wanted to hate him.
No.He stumbled back, wiped at his face, backed into the aisle.
Behind the blood-splattered, crooked spectacles, Sir Walter’s gaze pulled at Simon. The look was too familiar. Too moist. Too much like the friend Simon had always trusted him to be.
Simon shook his head and fled the chapel, bewilderment stitching across his chest in a trail of fire.Help me, Lord.
Because, despite everything, he almost wanted to believe Sir Walter told the truth.
A mistake he could not make again.
The door flung open, banging against the drawing-room wall like a clap of thunder. Mr. Oswald swept in and froze. “Miss Whitmore.”
Relief sputtered. Letting out a breath, she lowered the steel fire poker she’d seized for protection. “Someone was here.” Maybe him. Simon would say it was, but she did not have time to determine Mr. Oswald’s innocence or guilt. “I have to find the children.”
He grabbed her arm as she darted past him and swiveled her back. “Just a moment. I wish to know what goes on in my house.”
“I do not have time to—”
“Here only one day and already I am receiving notes.” He pulled a crinkled paper from his waistcoat pocket. “Care to enlighten me on the meaning of such sentiment?”
She ripped it from him, legs weakening.“The game is over. I hope you can live with what you have done.”
“Whoever penned such nonsense, I daresay, does not know me very well at all. I live rather comfortably with all my vices.”
He jested, as if this was some sort of amusement. As if the children had not been stolen from them. As if everything was not falling apart.No, no.She ran, even though it had already been two hours and no one had answered her screams. She raced to every room. She climbed the stairs. She searched the nursery and shouted their names, voice hoarse and ringing and too near a sob.
Simon would die.
