CHAPTER 18
The tea turned cold on Charlotte’s tongue. Octavia’s passionate avowals of innocence while waiting for the gentlemen had struck a deep-seated chord within her—and so she had trusted her instincts.
A mistake, apparently.
Charlotte set down the cup and closed her eyes, feeling like an utter fool.
“Did what, exactly?” asked the earl dryly, breaking the taut silence. “There are a number of heinous crimes for which you and Mr. Hillhouse are the prime suspects.”
Octavia’s head snapped up. “Good God, I didn’t mean . . . that is . . . Forgive me, I’m not making any sense.” She gave a self-mocking sigh. “Truly, I’m not usually a featherheaded peagoose. I—I had better start from the beginning.”
“Take your time,” encouraged Jeremy, assuming a seat on the sofa and crossing his legs.
Wrexford, noted Charlotte, perched a hip on the arm of the upholstered side chair. In the harsh shadows, the sharp planes of his face looked even more forbidding than usual as his eyes narrowed and he fixed the poor woman with an intimidating scowl.
“Sterling might be willing to dally here until dawn,” he snapped. “But I’d prefer to get on with it, Miss Merton.”
She bobbed a small nod. “Several months ago, Benedict and I began to notice small irregularities in Eli’s study and in his workshop.
Tiny things, but to our eyes, items were out of place, as if someone had been riffling through papers and examining prototypes.
When we mentioned it to Eli, he shrugged it off, but we noticed that he became more careful about locking up drawings and the parts to his new engine. We did as well.”
Octavia brushed an errant curl from her face. “It was then that we also noticed Lord Kirkland had come for a stay at his father’s estate and was making frequent visits to the Ashton residence. Benedict noted that he started loitering around the textile mill as well.”
“That was unusual?” asked Jeremy.
“Very,” answered Octavia. “Kirkland very rarely paid a visit to Blackstone Abbey. And when he did, word was he only came to rusticate from creditors and wheedle more money out of the marquess. He certainly never showed any interest in Eli’s mill—other than to see how many guineas he could squeeze from his father’s profits. ”
“His father was a primary investor in Ashton’s business,” mused the earl. “Did Kirkland not own an interest in the company, too?”
“No. In fact, Benedict often heard Lord Blackstone speak disparagingly about his son’s intelligence and his inability to understand the fine points of finance,” answered Octavia.
Charlotte considered the information. “You implied to me earlier that you and Mr. Hillhouse suspected that Kirkland’s growing interest in Ashton’s affairs was personal.”
“We did.” Octavia’s expression turned grim.
“Eli was spending more and more time with Benedict in the workshop, which is located in an outbuilding on the grounds. As my work was in the study, I was more aware of the comings and goings within the main house. Kirkland began appearing almost daily to take tea with Mrs. Ashton.” Her expression turned sardonic.
“That is, tea was delivered to the parlor. What took place behind the closed doors I cannot say.”
“But you can venture a guess?” asked Wrexford.
“It’s not that I have a sordid mind, sir,” replied Octavia somewhat defensively.
“But Eli was like a father to me, and knowing how much he loved his wife, I worried that he might be crushed by a betrayal.” She drew in an unsteady breath.
“So Benedict and I began making some inquiries. And the secret we discovered chilled us to the very marrow.”
Charlotte slanted a glance at Wrexford. His expression remained unchanged. Jeremy, on the other hand, was looking increasingly uncomfortable.
Secrets. No matter how deeply buried, they had a way of slithering their way back up to the light of day.
“In her youth,” continued Octavia, “Mrs. Ashton faced a time when she was in dire financial straits. Her father had lost his business, and on his death she was faced with being thrown into the streets. However, despite her lack of money, she did have two very valuable assets—her striking looks and her ability to bewitch men. She used them both to attract a wealthy protector.”
“Lord Kirkland?” guessed Charlotte.
“Lord Kirkland,” confirmed Octavia.
“You have proof of this?” demanded Wrexford.
“I’ll get to that in a moment, milord,” answered Octavia. “We also discovered that Kirkland had taken to playing cards with Neville McKinlock at a gaming hell in London that caters to deep play.”
Wrexford’s expression turned grim. “The owner of Locke and Wharton?”
“Precisely, sir.”
“Locke and Wharton is Ashton’s main competitor,” explained the earl to the others. “Their steam engines are very good, but if Ashton had come up with a way to make his models more powerful, then McKinlock’s company would be left in the dust.”
“Exactly,” said Octavia, her voice rising in urgency. “So when we learned that Kirkland owed McKinlock a veritable fortune in gaming debts, we began to see how it all began to fit together.”
“Conjecture,” murmured Wrexford.
“We realized that, sir,” countered Octavia. “We knew we had to assemble proof to convince Eli that he was being doubly betrayed.”
“What you’re saying is that his wife and Kirkland were conspiring to steal Ashton’s invention,” intoned Jeremy.
“Yes! Giving it to McKinlock would allow him, not Eli, to file for the patent. Locke and Wharton is skilled in steam power. It would have been nigh on impossible to contest their filing.” She lifted her shoulders.
“The legal precedent is, the victor is always the one who files first—and to him go the spoils.”
“A riveting tale,” drawled the earl. “But again, have you proof of this?”
A spasm of emotion flitted across Octavia’s face, but it passed too quickly for Charlotte to tell what it was.
“We put together the story through conversations with trustworthy people, but we’re not na?ve, Lord Wrexford,” responded Octavia. “We began gathering actual evidence to corroborate what we had heard. However . . .” Her voice faltered for a moment. “However, Eli was murdered—”
“And then Hollis,” interjected Wrexford.
“That only added urgency to the task,” said Octavia. “To put a fine point to it, Benedict was worried that we might be in danger if Kirkland or the widow got wind of what we were doing.”
Charlotte couldn’t help but wonder about one thing. “What about Ashton’s drawings? How did you know they were in the rooster?”
“We put them there for safekeeping.” A wry grimace. “We were aware that our things were being searched, and knowing Mrs. Ashton disliked the bird, we thought it a clever place in which to conceal the papers.”
“Too clever,” murmured Charlotte.
“Yes, you can imagine my chagrin when she made a gift of it to you.” Octavia sighed. “I’m not sure whether it was high drama or high farce.”
“Perhaps,” she mused, “it turned out for the best.”
“Let us return to Benedict and his disappearance,” urged Jeremy. “Or was that merely an act to throw us off the scent?”
Octavia looked stricken. “No!” she exclaimed.
“I swear it! Benedict was making a visit to the toolmaker’s shop but after that, he was going to meet with a former maidservant at Mrs. Ashton’s love nest, who said she had some letters written by Lord Kirkland to his paramour.
However . . .” She swallowed hard, struggling to keep her voice from cracking. “However, he never returned.”
Her gaze turned to Jeremy, who looked as if he might be ill. “As I told you, I fear something terrible has happened. Benedict would never simply slink off and leave me.”
“You seem very sure of that,” said Charlotte softly. But knowing what she did about the young man’s past, a very ugly thought leaped to mind.
“I am.” Octavia hesitated. “You see, we’ve made no announcement of it yet on account of the troubles, but we’re engaged to be married.”
“Love.” Wrexford chuffed an exasperated snort. “As if we haven’t enough youthful follies to plague our patience.”
Charlotte shot him a warning frown.
Glowering, he fell silent.
No one seemed anxious to speak. Jeremy rose and moved to the window. The draperies tremored as he leaned in and pressed his forehead to the fog-misted glass.
Her heart ached for him. It looked as though bile was churning, hot and acid, in his belly. She guessed that he, too, was thinking the same thing she was.
Octavia watched him, her gaze turning troubled. “Lord Sterling? Is something wrong?”
For a long moment, it seemed Jeremy hadn’t heard her. He held himself so still that his form slowly faded into the surrounding shadows.
If only it were that easy to escape from fears that threaten all we hold dear.
Jeremy finally tore himself away from his own inner demons and turned to face them. “Miss Merton, much as it pains me to do so, I must ask you how much Benedict has told you about his past.”
A tiny muscle jumped at the base of Octavia’s throat as she swallowed hard. “You are, I presume, referring to a misunderstanding he had at Oxford concerning a friend’s missing purse.”
A look of anguish flooded Jeremy’s eyes.
Octavia saw it and stiffened in alarm. “It was a mistake,” she said. “Benedict had picked up his friend’s coat, thinking the man had left it in the lane, and was accused of—”
“It was no mistake,” interrupted Jeremy. “Benedict was driven by a desperate need of blunt for his books, and made a bad choice. It was I who helped extricate him from the affair and see to it that he was not charged with the crime.”
“No,” she whispered. “I don’t believe it. Benedict doesn’t have an evil bone in his body.”