Chapter 31
Ivy did not know where to look first: at the beautiful woman, who had a grim tilt to her lips and was wearing a fashionable navy afternoon dress, or at the tall, blond-haired and blue-eyed man beside her, who was so chilly that Ivy swore the air cooled upon his entrance.
“Please meet Mr. Zachariah Denholm and Mrs. Emily Denholm,” Owen said, rising to shake Mr. Denholm’s hand. “They run a private detective agency, and I have asked them to look into the matter of the highwayman.”
“Call me Zach,” the man said as he and his wife sat.
Ivy tugged on the silk rope in the corner to order refreshments for their guests before taking a seat beside Owen, her brother in an adjacent chair.
Ivy curiously studied the woman across from her.
She had never before heard of a lady detective, and she was very much intrigued.
“Zach is the man who caught the Evangelist a few months ago,” Owen explained.
“With the help of my wife,” Zach murmured, the corner of his mouth lifting and his blue eyes warming a fraction.
His wife smiled back at him with such radiance that Ivy’s heart twinged. They were so clearly in love. After a moment Emily turned away from her husband, and the happiness faded.
“Lord Brackley, we have discovered concerning information regarding your highwayman,” she said, her fingers winding together in her lap. “He is not a disgruntled client of yours, nor an acquaintance who holds a grudge, but a bitter half-brother.”
Owen’s body language had been stiff from the moment the detectives entered, even though his tone had been genial. At hearing the word “brother” again, he said in a deceptively mild voice, “Please explain.”
Zach leaned his elbow on the arm of the settee. “Your impostor, as you call him, is named Oscar Forsythe, and he was born four years after you.”
Owen’s jaw clenched, but other than that, he had almost no reaction. “Did my mother know?”
“I should say so. It was she who birthed him.”
That got a reaction out of all of them. It was common for noblemen to stray and sire byblows, but it was not so often done in the reverse and the child kept secret.
Emily took up the dangling thread of the story.
“From what we have gathered, your mother had an affair with a marquess in London.” Her cheeks whitened, but she continued.
“You likely do not remember because you were quite young, but it appears your mother and father had a period of estrangement at that time, and he never even knew she gave birth. She left the child under the tutelage of a caregiver in the city, and visited from time to time. We tracked the caregiver down, and she told us tales of your brother. She said he was volatile and mentally unwell, and that he would sulk for days after your mother visited. He was manipulative to the point that she still feels ill talking about him.”
Ivy edged closer to Owen, so that her skirt brushed his trousers. She wanted to hold his hand, but all she could do was watch as a muscle feathered in his cheek and he absorbed the information.
“When the boy was eight,” Emily continued, sweeping a stray curl behind her ear, “your father arrived at the caregiver’s house.
He had discovered money was being sent to the address, and he wanted to know why.
When he learned of the existence of your brother—his wife’s illegitimate child—the funds ceased. ”
“He had a lot of nerve,” Owen said flatly. “I do not remember a time when he did not blatantly flaunt his mistresses.”
Emily and Zach exchanged a speaking glance, and silence swelled in the room.
It was broken by the maid entering with tiny sandwiches and tea.
While Ivy poured the tea and offered lumps of sugar, Owen sat with his brow furrowed and his finger tapping on his knee.
When the maid left, he said, “Did you say the boy was eight when my father visited him? That would mean I was twelve.”
Emily nodded, and Zach watched with sharp eyes as he lifted his teacup to his lips.
“My mother died when I was twelve,” Owen said slowly.
Several moments passed before the weight of what he was implying crashed into Ivy’s chest. Did he think…
Owen looked directly at Zach. “You believe my father killed her.”
“We do not have proof,” Zach replied. He set the teacup in the saucer with a soft click. “The caregiver’s memory is not sharp, but she believes your father arrived in the spring. Your mother died several months later.”
“In the last summer of her life, my mother became unsound in mind,” Owen said.
“She was often confused. Her complexion changed, and white lines appeared in her nails. She complained of a sore throat and chest pain, and then in October she began to exhibit symptoms of gastric fever. One morning I awoke and my father told me she had passed in the middle of the night.” His lips thinned when he looked up from his hands.
“She did not have gastric fever. He was poisoning her.”
Chills raced up Ivy’s arms. From what little Owen had told her about his father, she already knew he had been a monster, but she never could have imagined just how monstrous. This was what the Dove had meant when she said powerful men got away with powerful misdeeds. Even murder.
Neither Zach nor Emily refuted his claim.
“What happened to my brother—Oscar—after she died?”
“We do not know,” Zach answered. “We believe he stayed in London, watching you.”
“He ruined my friendship with Barnes.” Owen nodded to Barnes, who was sitting in his chair and listening with unwavering attention. “I was meant to stay in London, but I spent the past decade abroad instead because of him.”
Zach appeared unsurprised. “The more threads we pulled on, the more we unraveled. We have reason to suspect your brother was also blackmailing your father over your mother’s death.”
Ivy thought of the disrepair that Brackley Estate had been in before Owen had arrived, and his obvious shock at finding it so. That, she supposed, was where the viscount’s money had been going.
“Earlier this year, Oscar opened a factory using his blackmail gains and the investors he acquired while pretending to be you.”
“That part I figured out,” Owen said. His emerald eyes took on a distant look. “He has become bold in his confidence in how much he looks like me. What is his ultimate plan? Does he believe he can kill me and take my place as viscount without anyone being the wiser?”
Ivy paled, but his hypothesis would explain the attempts on Owen’s life. “He thinks you are complicit in your mother’s death,” she said. “Do you remember him saying he wanted justice for her?”
“I am not surprised he blames you,” Emily interjected. “Based on the caretaker’s description of Oscar, he is mentally unwell. That is to be expected, when one comes from bad stock.”
Owen’s head jerked upward, and he said stiffly, “My mother had her failings, but she was a fine woman.”
“Oh!” Emily seemed taken aback. “My lord, I did not mean your mother.”
Her statement hung in the air, as heavy as the sweet scents of lemon cakes and tea wafting from the tray. “Are you saying that you know the name of the marquess my mother had the affair with?”
Zach reached over and squeezed his wife’s hand in support.
She cleared her throat, her cheeks still bloodless.
“Yes. It seems the marquess was busy siring bastards across London at the time.” She nervously licked her bottom lip.
“During our investigation into your brother, a number of connections came to light. When Oscar left the caregiver’s home, he also left behind several belongings.
One was a miniature portrait of a man presumed to be his father. You may know him as the Silk Stalker.”
Ivy gasped. The Silk Stalker had terrorized noble-blooded ladies across London six years previously, and had strangled eight women with a silk cravat before he was revealed to be a marquess.
She had read gossip about the Silk Stalker’s bastard daughter becoming involved with a detective constable; it had caused quite the scandal, since that same constable had been tasked with catching another of London’s lady killers at the time.
Ivy had not matched the Denholms sitting before her with the gossip until now.
And Emily was saying the Silk Stalker, her father, also sired Oscar Forsythe.
Emily nodded as recognition sank in across the room. “It seems I have a newly discovered half-brother as well, Lord Brackley. One who appears intent on destroying you.”
Once the Denholms had taken their leave, Owen asked for a few moments to gather his thoughts.
Ivy slowly took the stairs to the second floor, trying to recall all the gossip she had read about Emily Denholm earlier that summer.
She thought she remembered that Emily had been a governess.
Was it possible she had worked for the Dove, too?
Ivy heard footsteps on the runner and whirled around to find Barnes behind her, his hands in his pockets and a strange look on his face.
“That was unexpected,” she said lamely. “I suppose you are delighted to discover that you are not alone in your hatred of Owen.”
“I am stupid, Ivy.”
Ivy’s brows winged upward. Barnes rarely admitted to his faults, much less stupidity.
“I was stupid not to question what I saw that evening ten years ago. I was so certain of the evidence that I did not once consider it could have been falsified.” Barnes inhaled deeply, his dark eyes fixed on a portrait over her shoulder.
“Despite what you have every right to believe, I am not delighted to discover there is a madman after Owen, especially now that you are to marry him.”
“I would have thought you would find Owen’s murder a rather convenient end to our betrothal.”
He shook his head. “I have seen how he looks at you, Ivy. I saw it the moment I arrived at the house. Why do you think I insisted on staying? Owen Brackley is in love with you. Even though it has been a decade, his personality has not changed. He is singular in his focus. If he loves something or someone, he loves them with his whole heart, and he cannot hide it. I could not wish anything better for you.”
“You have misread the situation, Barnes. He does not love me. We are marrying because he compromised me, and that is all.”
To her annoyance, Barnes smirked. “Trouble, that man was never going to let you go.”