"Ah, but with Elizabeth it was different. Not only was I married, I was about to become a father. It is then that I think our culprit became serious about what he was doing. He killed Elizabeth and my child, in one blow, eliminating any heirs." Tony looked off, his jaw hard. "I'm certain that it was then, too, that our unnamed villain began to take the long view, to realize that if he were patient, that if he waited and kept me unmarried, that there was an even greater prize to be had. He must have felt fairly safe, because with two disastrous marriages behind me, it was unlikely that I would consider taking such a risk again."
Tony smiled grimly. "He hadn't counted on me falling in love with Arabella—or she with me. But once our engagement was announced, he made plans to destroy our engagement." He glanced back at Patrick. "Don't you see? I haven't had bad luck—someone has merely made it seem so."
Patrick made a face. "You make a strong argument, and on the surface it does look rather damning. But, if I agree with your conclusions, and I'm not saying that I do, what would be the point of it all?"
"You know, the answer to that question has eluded me. I never really put it all together before, but this afternoon, as I was considering revising my will to provide for Arabella and the babe, a bolt of insight came to me." He smiled mirthlessly, and asked, "Tell me, my friend, if I were to die, unmarried and with no legal heirs of my body, whom would it benefit?"
"Obviously your uncle and your cousins," Patrick said dryly. "Everyone knows that Albert has hungered for Sweet Acres and the rest of the Daggett fortune for years. But if it was your fortune they were after, why didn't one of them just murder you years ago and have done with it? Why go to all the trouble to keep you unmarried and childless—and alive?"
Tony nodded, looking pleased. "You have put your finger on the very obstacle that I faced, until I remembered one little fact."
"Do not, I beg you," Patrick drawled, "keep me in suspense any longer. What fact?"
Still looking very pleased, Tony sat back in his chair. "Did I ever tell you about my mother's father—Baron Westbrook?"
"You forget—I knew the man. Remember, you and I stayed at Brookhaven several times in our youth. I liked your English grandparents a great deal." Patrick glanced down at his whiskey. "You may never have known your parents, but you were bloody lucky in both sets of your grandparents—even if they damned near ruined you by allowing you to think the world was yours for the asking."
Tony smiled ruefully. "You're right, of course. But before he died, Grandfather Westbrook realized what he had done, and he was determined that I not be allowed to play ducks and drakes with his fortune when I eventually inherited it. He tied up the bulk of the Westbrook fortune in a trust that placed it beyond my reach. But he also created some opportunities for me to, uh, redeem myself, should I continue down the path that you and I were treading at that time."
Patrick grinned at him. "You mean our wild, misspent youth? We were rather wild and dangerous fellows, weren't we?"
"Indeed we were," Tony admitted wryly. "It makes me shudder now to think of the way we racketed about and gave nary a care to tomorrow. But back to Grandfather Westbrook." Tony sighed. "I was twenty-five and Elizabeth had not been dead a week when he died. It was several months before I learned the terms of his will, and I'll admit that they came as something of a shock to me. I had already inherited the Daggett fortune and had just assumed that the Westbrook money would fall into my hands like ripe fruit from a tree."
"Never tell me, he left you a mere pittance?" Patrick exclaimed, startled. "You were his only child's only child. Who else would he leave that vast fortune to?"
"Oh, he left the fortune to me, all right—he merely made certain that I would not get my hands on the majority of it for years."
"What do you mean?"
"Simply that while I've had the free use of all of his various houses and the trust he set up has paid for the staff and upkeep, very little of that, ah, vast fortune has come into my hands. Everything, including the lands, the houses, and the money, has been held in trust—for me, to be sure, but with the provision that should I die, the fortune is to go to any legitimate child I might have had at the time. If I were to die without issue—then it is all to go to a distant cousin in England, Thomas Avery." He smiled faintly. "You met Avery once and thought him an arrogant fool."
"I still do. The man is a congenital idiot," Patrick said bluntly.
Tony shrugged. "I agree, but under the terms of Grandfather Westbrook's will, if I die without issue, Avery inherits." He looked pensive. "Grandfather worried that the way I was gambling and drinking in those days, if I didn't get myself killed in some silly duel or prank, I would quickly go through the Daggett fortune.
"He didn't want me to do the same with his fortune when it became mine. And so he arranged for me to be able to live at Brookhaven or the London town house, but very little actual money crossed my palm." His eyes met Patrick's. "The trust ends on my fortieth birthday. On that date, I shall come into that vast fortune you mentioned earlier. Everything will be mine—the lands and the money. If I were to die before that date, however, without issue, Avery would inherit it all."
"Are you telling me that you think Avery has something to do with your unfortunate luck with women?" Patrick asked incredulously.
"No. If it were Avery, all he had to do was arrange for me to die. He'd get everything then."
Patrick frowned. "Then who?"
Tony smiled thinly. "Who else but one of my fond Daggett relatives? As my only surviving relatives, they would have an irrefutable claim—no matter what the terms of my will. It embarrasses me to admit it, but despite their attitude toward me, I do honor the claim of blood. They are named in my will, since I have—had—no one else to consider. So, which one do you think it is? Albert? Franklin? Or Burgess?"
Chapter 18
Patrick stared at him for a long time, the expression in his gray eyes hard to define. Finally, he took a deep breath, and asked, "You really believe this? That one of your relatives has plotted against you for years, in the hope of one day inheriting not only the Daggett fortune but the Westbrook one as well?"
Tony nodded curtly. "I know it may sound preposterous on the face of it, but blast it, Patrick! It explains so much. It makes more sense to me to believe that one of them is behind what has happened to me in the past decade than to blame it all on fate." His mouth contorted. "It wasn't fate that murdered Elizabeth. And it wasn't fate that arranged for Molly to be at the lodge five years ago—and more recently at the Crocker ball."
"I agree, but it doesn't mean that it is the work of one person either."
"Ah, you don't think so? You find it easier to believe that several different people decided to make my life a tragedy? That someone else murdered Elizabeth? And that another person arranged for Molly's various appearances?" Sarcastically, he asked, "You do agree that it is unlikely that two different people arranged for Molly to play her different parts?"
"I'll concede that one person was probably behind that," Patrick admitted. "I'll even concede that it is more than probable that whoever arranged for Molly's, er, visits, is also the person who murdered her."
"But not Elizabeth and Leyton?"
Patrick scowled. "It's possible that they were killed by the same person, and I'll agree that it is not beyond reason that Leyton, at least, was killed by the same person who murdered Molly." He sighed and looked unhappily at Tony. "But you are really asking for a great leap of faith for me to believe that one of your relatives murdered Elizabeth in order to gain a fortune you wouldn't inherit for nearly fifteen years."
"No, that would be asking too much, I agree. I think Elizabeth was killed simply because she carried my child. My heir. The heir to the Daggett fortune." Tony took another turn around the room, his expression preoccupied. "It is not all clear in my own mind yet, and I do not think that it was clear at first in the mind of the killer. I think the plan, if you will, evolved as time went by. Mercy's death was an accident, but
whether the events surrounding that accident had a little help from someone else remains to be seen. But I think, with Mercy so conveniently dead, that it was then that the idea of one day killing me and inheriting the Daggett fortune was born."
"So tell me, why weren't you murdered shortly thereafter," Patrick muttered.
Tony smiled grimly. "Two reasons, my friend. One, at that time, our villain had not crossed the line of actually dirtying his hands and committing murder himself. Mercy's death was an accident. As for the second reason—don't you remember? Mercy was hardly in the ground when I left for England. Unless he wished to follow me across the ocean, I was temporarily out of his reach. Remember, in the case of Franklin and Burgess, they were constrained by a lack of funds—Uncle Alfred kept them on a tight leash as far as money was concerned, and he is, to this day, a clutch-fisted old bastard. Sometimes I almost feel sorry for my cousins.
"But let us consider the notion that one of them could have followed me to England for the express purpose of murdering me. If I had been murdered or even suffered a mysteriously fatal accident, suspicions might have been aroused. Especially since one of the men who would inherit the Daggett fortune from me would have just happened to be staying in London at the same time. Our villain wasn't, I suspect, willing to take the chance of having suspicion of any kind fall on him."
Tony frowned. "Since the idea of one person being behind my phenomenal run of bad luck first crossed my mind this afternoon, I've been trying to figure out what sort of person he might be. I don't think that he is a brave man, not necessarily a coward, but a cautious man with his eye on the main chance. Considering the life I used to lead, he was willing to sit back, remain safely in Natchez, and hope that I would manage to kill myself in England—something that was not out of the realm of possibility. I don't believe that he had thought out an entire plan. I think it was more of a wait-and-see attitude." He smiled cynically. "And if he got really desperate for some reason, he could always decide to speed up my demise."
"All right. I'll accept that much of your theory," Patrick said grudgingly. He flashed Tony a wry smile. "Damn you! You're beginning to make it all sound so reasonable and logical."
Tony was not certain whether to be cheered or depressed by Patrick's admission. Even he would admit that what he was proposing was far-fetched, and he had hoped that Patrick could convince him that it was all utter nonsense. It seemed that the opposite had happened.
Tony ran a hand tiredly through his dark hair. "I was both hoping and dreading that you would say exactly that. I'll confess, it would be easier just to blame fate than to believe that there is someone out there who is so diabolical that he would murder a woman and her unborn child simply to inherit a fortune."
There was a bleak silence as the two men considered the situation before them. Even when Tony sat down and sipped his whiskey, the silence continued for several more minutes, each of them staring into space.
It was Patrick who finally broke the silence. "If, and I'm only saying if, Elizabeth was killed because she was pregnant, and assuming that your relative is the man who killed her, having finally stained his hands with blood, why didn't he then come after you?"
Tony grimaced. "I'm guessing, but I imagine that he was unnerved after Elizabeth's murder, and I suspect he had to gather up his courage to strike again. I also don't think that he wanted the murders too close together. The last thing he would have wanted was for anyone to connect my murder with Elizabeth's—that would point suspicion in a direction he surely did not want it to go. He had no choice but to wait—and there was probably still the hope that I would do the job for him and manage either to break my neck or die in a duel." His jaw clenched, his eyes taking on a dangerous gleam. "It is one thing to kill a woman," he said harshly, "and another to kill a man—a man known to be handy with his fives and one known to be usually armed." He took a long swallow of his whiskey. "He had to wait. And by the time several months had passed, the situation had changed."
"The Westbrook fortune," Patrick said flatly.
Tony nodded. "Yes. The Westbrook fortune. He'd waited almost five years already—what harm was there in waiting several more? Especially, if at the end of that time, one would lay hands on a fortune that made the Daggett money look paltry?"
Patrick scratched his head. "I don't know, Tony. I have trouble swallowing the notion that someone would wait that long. Nearly fifteen years is not five or six."
"I agree, and I don't think he planned, in the beginning, to wait five years, much less fifteen." Tony answered quietly. "I think he did plan to murder me, if I didn't do the job for him myself, just as soon as he felt it was safe to do so. Remember that he had time on his side—even with Uncle Alfred's tightfisted ways, none of them are penniless. Our villain probably thought to wait a year or two before killing me and probably even hoped to make it look like an accident." Tony's lips thinned. "A fall down my own stairs while drunk or, perhaps, a broken neck from a fall from my horse." Sardonically, he added, "History, one might say, tragically repeating itself when you recall how my father died."
"What changed his plans?"
Tony shrugged. "I don't know. I keep coming back to the Westbrook fortune." When Patrick started to protest, Tony held up a hand. "Wait. I gave you only the bare bones of Grandfather's Westbrook will: There are two significant provisions that I did not elaborate upon." He smiled ruefully. "My grandfather really couldn't bring himself to hold too tight a rein on me, even from the grave. Consequently, he ordered that at age thirty, no doubt hoping I would have matured somewhat, that fifteen percent of the portion held in the 'funds' should be dispersed to me—a rather handsome sum, I might add. The same amount would also be dispersed when I reached thirty-five."
Patrick sat back, absently brushing his steepled fingers against his lips. Nodding, he said slowly, "And so our villain decided that waiting until you were thirty would be greatly to his advantage—at the time only three or four years longer. Another advantage to waiting—by then, no one would ever think to connect Elizabeth's death with your own, no matter what the circumstances."
"That's what I think."
"And having waited until you were thirty, having invested, as it were, almost a decade in planning your demise, what was another five years—especially since you would be getting another fifteen percent? And as you say, our villain is not destitute. Greedy to be sure. But he could afford to wait."
Tony nodded again. "That's what I think. That the idea of gaining the entire Westbrook fortune only gradually occurred to him. And remember, over the years I have spent the majority of my time in England—well out of his reach, unless he wished to take a chance of being too-conveniently near at hand when I died. A chance he could not take, because though I am certain he would have arranged things to appear accidental, there was always the possibility that things could go wrong."
"He certainly didn't worry about covering up Leyton's murder or Molly's," Patrick commented grimly.
Tony smiled, not a very nice smile. "Ah, but you see, he considered himself to be their superior. They were nothing to him—he didn't fear them."
"And you think he fears you?"
"Why else am I still alive? He could have murdered me any number of times over the years if he were willing to take the chance. And again, I can think of only two reasons why he has not: the Westbrook fortune and his uneasiness—fear, if you will—in confronting me."
Patrick sighed, and muttered, "I know that there is a flaw in your reasoning, but blast if I can find it. Damme. Against my better judgment you have convinced me that you might be right."
The two men talked into the wee hours of the morning, coming to no conclusions or solutions. They were both tired and not a little depressed when Tony finally escorted Patrick out of the house to where his horse had been tied.
The light from the lanterns, which hung on several of the pillars at the front of the house, flickered weakly over them as they stood there talking. In view of the lateness of the hour, T
ony had suggested that Patrick stay the night, but Patrick had declined.
Swinging up into the saddle, Patrick said, "You have me viewing my every action with an eye as to what our villain may think, and though we have often stayed the night at each other's home for no apparent reason, right now I am uneasy at the notion."
Tony grinned at him. "You just don't want to be in my vicinity, should he choose to murder me tonight."
Patrick laughed, but his gray eyes were serious. "Hardly that, but remember should you be murdered, someone must avenge you. And I swear to you that I shall see your murderer dead and that no harm comes to your lady and her child—or you—if it is in my power to do so."
"At least," Tony said grimly, "you will only have to narrow the choice of my killer down to one from three."
Patrick uttered the three names in a savage tone. "Albert. Franklin. Or Burgess."
"Precisely."
Tony waited until Patrick had turned his horse away and disappeared into the darkness before turning to mount the steps of the house. He was exhausted, and a few minutes later he was asleep within seconds of his head hitting the pillow.
* * *
Arabella and Jeremy's return to Greenleigh had been met with little fanfare. No one had come to call while they had been gone, and the Tidmores, like the well-trained servants they were, expressed no undue interest in their whereabouts during the preceding forty-eight hours.
Since she was exhausted after the events of the past two days, after taking a long, hot bath, and enjoying a light repast with Jeremy, she bid her brother an early good night and retired to her bedroom. She fell asleep almost as soon as she lay down on the welcoming softness of her feather bed.
Left to his own devices, Jeremy wandered about the downstairs, rather bored with his own company. Feeling let-down after the excitement of the stirring events of the past few days, he eventually sought out his own bed. While knowing that his lips were sealed for the time being, before sleep finally claimed him, he was just young enough to spend an enjoyable few minutes imagining the expressions of astonishment and envy on the faces of his friends when the truth became known.
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