Heart's Demand (29 page)

Chase took that moment to stagger in. He was still disheveled, a kerchief still pressed to the cut on his cheek. His eye had continued to puff up and was now swollen completely shut.

“They left?” Chase asked.

“Yes,” Valois responded when Bryce didn’t.

“What about Nicholas and Isabelle?”

“Apparently they’re bound for Parthenia,” Valois said.

“But…but…they were kidnapped! They were terrified of those men. Isabelle screamed and cried. We have to help them.” Chase turned to Bryce, accusation in his tone. “Why didn’t you stop Pippa?”

Bryce studied Chase, a wave of dislike and disdain bubbling up.

“Prick,” he spat. “Rude, stupid prick.”

He pushed by Chase and proceeded to his room where he could lock himself in and figure out what to do next.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

George Blair, Earl of Radcliffe, hovered behind a tree in the woods outside Radcliffe village. The Blair twins rode out every day, and George was waiting for them to pass by.

The coaching inn was just up the road. They’d taken rooms there, bold as brass, as if they had every right to flaunt their paternity. They were talking to whoever would listen, telling stories that were circulating like wildfire.

George could barely leave his bedchamber. Whenever he did, he was met with insolent stares of condemnation. So far no one had dared to mention the gossip to his face, but he could sense the festering derision, the hope that change was coming.

Well, change wasn’t coming.

From the moment the twins had blustered into the castle, George had known he had to get rid of them, but he couldn’t figure out how. It had never occurred to him that Julian’s children might live and thrive, that they might have the audacity to show up where they weren’t wanted.

He’d devised no contingency plans, had prepared no counter offensive against their lies and smears. Of course they weren’t lying. That was the problem. Their every comment had a ring of truth. People believed whatever they said. They had their father’s charisma, their father’s gift for making others like them.

George had considered having them arrested and immediately executed, but apparently their sister was alive too and married to a British aristocrat. If George had had them jailed, no magistrate would have dared to hang them, and he’d have stirred an aristocratic incident between the two countries besides.

His next idea had been to hire a murderer, a tenant or perhaps an employee at the inn who could enter their room in the middle of the night. But with how they were starting to be worshipped wherever they went, George didn’t trust anyone. Any paid assassin would likely tattle.

No, there was just one way to handle it. He had to dispatch the twins himself. He could do it too. He had the gall, the nerve. He’d dealt with their father easily enough. Without a word of warning, he’d shot Julian in the chest, and he’d never regretted it.

George and his father had never understood Julian, had never liked him, had always been embarrassed by him. He’d been wild and carefree and independent, had never worried about conventions or morals.

George’s father had yearned to be free of the constant humiliations Julian had inflicted on the family. His marriage to an actress had been the final straw. Like a plot out of a Shakespearean tragedy, his father had begged to be rid of his rebellious son.

George had acted on his father’s plea, and it remained the only remarkable deed he’d ever committed. He’d killed Julian for his father, then he’d been allowed to wed Julian’s rich, pretty fiancée.

If he could shoot his own brother and not regret it, he could certainly kill his brother’s sons. He merely wished he was younger, his hands steadier, his vision clearer.

Suddenly he heard horses approaching, but they were traveling very fast. If it was the twins, he’d get just one chance and didn’t dare miss.

He eased out from his hiding place and glanced down the road. It was the twins! Their horses were cantering, and in the blink of an instant, they’d hurried on by. He slumped against the trunk of the tree, railing over his fate, his lot.

It was desperate business, attempting homicide, and he dawdled for a few minutes, letting his pulse slow, his nerves calm. Then he spun to sneak into the woods and return to the castle. As he did, he was gazing down the barrel of a pistol held by one of his nephews.

“Hello, Uncle George. Fancy meeting you here.”

“What the devil…?” George muttered, his fear acute, his rage boiling over.

Why couldn’t his plans ever succeed? He was old now, and none of his dreams for Radcliffe had ever come to fruition. He’d been cursed the day he’d murdered his brother, cursed again when Anne Blair had been convicted, then transported. It wasn’t fair for the twins to demand justice after so many years.

He might have raised his own pistol, but before he could move a muscle, his nephew grabbed it and tossed it away. He was tall and imposing, and with his dark hair and blue, blue eyes, George might have been staring at Julian all over again.

“I’m Matthew, in case you were wondering,” the man said.

“I wasn’t wondering,” George grumbled.

“Were you hoping to shoot me in the back?”

“Bugger off.”

“I have a problem with people shooting at me unaware, and ever since we arrived, I’ve been expecting you to try something stupid. Were you supposing I wouldn’t observe you lurking in the trees?”

“You have no right to question me, and I won’t stand for it on my own land.”

“There’s the rub, Uncle. It’s not
your
land, is it?”

The other twin blustered through the forest. He noticed George’s gun lying in the grass, and he snatched it up and stuck it in his belt.

“What have we here?” Michael Blair asked.

“I told you I saw him,” Matthew said.

“Your eyesight must be better than mine.”

“No, I simply don’t intend to be shot ever again. I’m a little more vigilant than you.”

Michael sneered at George. “You scurry around like a rat in a sewer, don’t you? I wouldn’t put it past you to attack on the sly.”

“It’s the coward’s way,” Matthew said.

“We’ll see who’s a coward in the end,” George fumed.

“Shut up, Uncle,” Michael said. “A great benefit of being
me
is that I don’t have to listen to anyone who annoys me.”

He marched over and stood shoulder to shoulder with his brother. They towered over George, their imperious expressions snide and condemning.

Fate was so cruel. It seemed as if Julian had returned to Radcliffe, except there were two of him instead of one. Two exact copies. Two replicas who looked the same and talked the same and acted the same. They’d already disarmed George, and he felt so helpless he might have been castrated.

“We have your wife’s confession,” Michael said.

“I have no idea what you mean,” George replied.

“We’ve sent all the papers to our solicitor in London.”

“Why would I care about that?” George asked.

Michael chuckled, and it was an eerie, dangerous sound. “We’ve commenced legal proceedings to retrieve what belongs to our brother, Bryce.”

“It’ll be a cold day in Hell when you best me,” George said.

“You don’t believe we can?” Matthew mused. “Michael is disgustingly wealthy, and we’ve heard you’re not.”

Michael said, “We’ve heard you’re a lousy landlord, that you’ve wrecked the farms and the fields and the flocks. You’re land rich, but money poor.”

Matthew continued, “Michael can keep our claim locked up in the courts for the rest of your miserable life, and he won’t miss a penny of the lawyer’s fees. We can have your bank accounts seized and your crops garnished. We can have you evicted while we’re adjudicating. We can have you arrested for murdering our father and held without bail until the case is resolved.”

“You could make it easy on yourself and go away.” Michael smiled his deadly smile. “That way, we won’t have to torment you to the bitter end.”

“Go away?” George said. “You’re mad if you think I’d leave my rightful place.”

“You always call Radcliffe your
rightful
place,” Matthew said. “It’s not yours, you scurvy dog, and it never was.”

“I won’t be insulted by you,” George huffed.

He pushed them, but it was like shoving a brick wall. Neither of them moved, and the only thing George accomplished was to feel his palms throbbing where he’d smacked those two massive chests.

“Tell me something, Uncle,” Matthew said.

“What?”

“Did you enjoy killing our father?”

“Sod off, Matthew Blair. I don’t answer to the likes of you.”

But the idiot wouldn’t be deterred. “Did you creep up on him from behind? Or did you have the balls to shoot him in the face so he’d die knowing it was you?”

George was so incensed, it was on the tip of his tongue to crow about his supreme triumph. He’d never been able to admit the deed, how quickly it had happened, how unsuspecting Julian had been. They’d been hunting, with Julian being his usual confident, posh self. He’d been bragging about his wife, about his children, about how silly their father was to demand he set his wife aside.

Julian had been beloved by everyone, so he’d never understood the level of George’s dislike, had never understood George’s jealousy or envy. Julian had had the courage to flee Radcliffe, to travel to distant lands and see fascinating sights and people. He’d wed without permission, to the most extraordinary, beautiful woman in the world. He’d done it unabashedly, without shame or remorse, and George had seethed through all of it.

He’d yearned—just once—to exhibit the same sort of brash aplomb, but he’d been stuck at Radcliffe, too meek to shuck off their father’s heavy hand, too timid to reach for things he’d craved. So he’d taken what Julian hadn’t wanted. He’d taken Radcliffe and Susan and never looked back.

But standing here in the forest, with Julian’s sons glaring at him, he didn’t dare confess any of it.

He grinned maliciously. “I guess you’ll have to go to your grave wondering how he perished. For if I knew—which I don’t—I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of apprising you.”

“You stole everything he had,” Matthew taunted, “but we hear you’ve received no pleasure from any of it.”

“Let’s tabulate your sorry list of accomplishments,” Michael said. “Tenants who loathe you. A bitter, disloyal wife. A failed estate. Three sons who were never hale.”

“Doesn’t it gall you,” Matthew said, “that you struggled so diligently to ensure Julian’s children died. Yet we’re all thriving, while your children didn’t make it. You have the worst luck.”

They smirked, and George should have kept his mouth shut, should have let the taunt go unchallenged, but he couldn’t help blurting out, “None of it was my fault. I was cursed by your mother.”

“Good,” Matthew said. “It appears to have worked.”

“Your mother was a whore,” George spat.

Both twins gasped, and Michael hissed, “What did you say, you prick?”

“She was a whore, a mercenary leech, a money-grubbing fortune hunter who viewed your father as naught but a fat bank account.”

He was surprised he managed to spew the entire string of insults. Michael Blair seized him by the throat and lifted him off the ground, and he was squeezing tight, choking the life out of George. George pried at his fingers, but couldn’t pull them away, and he was rapidly losing consciousness.

Before matters could escalate to a dire level, Matthew stopped his sibling.

“Whoa! Whoa!” Matthew counseled. “Steady, Michael, steady on. We agreed not to kill him, remember?”

“I’ve changed my mind,” Michael said.

“No, you haven’t,” Matthew insisted. “We’re shaming him to death. That’s the plan. We’ll expose him for the brother-murdering dog he is. We’ll pilfer what he has and leave him with nothing—as he left out mother with nothing. It’s a better punishment by far.”

Michael tossed George away, and he collapsed in a heap. He was too terrified to get up, and he peeked at Michael, alarmed over what he might do next. From the bloodthirsty gleam in his eye, George wasn’t certain he’d been calmed sufficiently to prevent further mayhem.

“I want him dead,” Michael tersely said.

“Not now. Not yet,” Matthew replied. “He’s still an earl. We’ll finish it when he’s not.”

They gazed at one another, and they appeared to be carrying on a conversation in their heads. Ultimately Michael whipped away and started into the trees to where his horse was chomping on the grass.

“I’ll join you shortly,” Matthew called.

Michael waved but didn’t glance around. He jumped on the animal and galloped away.

George heaved out a desperate sigh. “Where is he going?”

“To the coaching inn. We’re waiting on an arrest warrant.”

George blanched. “An arrest warrant for who?”

“For you, Uncle. For killing our father.”

Matthew leaned down and dragged him to his feet. He was wobbly, off balance, dizzy and disoriented. His throat throbbed where he’d been throttled, and he felt sick to his stomach.

“You have no evidence,” he murmured.

“We have your wife’s written confession. We weren’t joking.”

George scowled, anxious to conceal his panic. “You couldn’t possibly have.”

“Yes, we have it so we’re aware of every sordid crime you committed.”

How had it been delivered into their possession? Who had done it? Susan was too ill. Had it been Katherine? Would she have betrayed him? Or was it someone else?

He’d learn the identity of the culprit and that person would be hanged. Until he was carted off in chains, he was still lord and master at Radcliffe. He would be happy to impart a bit of swift justice. Even if it was to pretty, quiet Katherine.

“You can’t prove any of it,” he declared. “It’s the words of a dying woman who’s mad as a hatter.”

“We don’t have to prove it. As I said, my brother is very wealthy. We can torment you over it for the remainder of your days. You’ll have failed in your quest to steal our father’s legacy. Julian and Anne Blair will be avenged—by their children.”

Matthew pushed him toward the road, but George wasn’t sure he could make it to the castle on his own. He wished he could ask Matthew to give him a ride, but he’d rather be boiled in hot oil than ask the man for any favor.