Chapter 17
“It shouldn’t be long before we reach the house,” Felix said, his attention shifting between the other occupants of the coach.
They had shared a coach so they could talk, but Darius found himself to be strangely quiet.
They’d been together for nearly five hours now, and he had barely said a word.
Something didn’t feel right given how his friends were acting.
Perhaps he was merely being overly anxious at the thought of leaving Meredith alone after what had happened at Gunters. But still, he couldn’t shake the sense that something wasn’t right.
And it seemed he wasn’t alone in that regard. Lionel was frowning, his arms crossed, and Vincent looked ruffled. Felix seemed more on edge than usual, and Kit looked uncharacteristically baffled.
Darius had had enough. “All right, what’s the matter with all of you?”
“Nothing is the matter.” Felix’s answer came too quick, and his smile was a little too forced.
Darius glared. “Something is most certainly the matter.”
“No, it isn’t,” Felix protested. “You’re simply nervous about your engagement.”
Kit, who sat next to Darius and across from Felix, leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“Even after all these years, I can still tell when you’re lying, Felix,” Kit said.
“And we never lie to each other.” To hear this coming from Kit woke old memories in Darius.
The vows they had made as young boys had sustained Kit through seven years of living as a convict laborer in Australia.
He took their vows more seriously than any of them.
Lionel sighed. “He’s right. We’ve been through far too much to lie. Felix, tell him, or I will.”
Felix’s gaze dropped to the floor of the coach, before he finally raised it again. “I did genuinely wish to celebrate your nuptials, but this all came about as a favor to Warren.”
Darius frowned. “A favor? I don’t understand.”
“He needed you to be away from London for a few days.”
“Why?” Kit asked sharply.
Felix glanced between Kit and Darius nervously. “Because he and Meredith have a plan to get Crell to confess that he murdered his wife.”
“What?” That single word came out as a roar. Even Lionel flinched. Darius banged his fist on the coach roof, then leaned out to shout at the driver.
“Turn around at once and take us back to London. Lives depend on it!”
The coach began to make a turn on the road, far too slowly for his liking. Darius flung himself at Felix, grabbing his waistcoat and pulling so their faces were but inches apart.
“Darius, steady on,” Vincent began, but Darius ignored him.
“You will tell me everything, and you’d better pray nothing happens to my future wife.”
Lionel put a hand on Darius’s arm. “Before you blacken Felix’s other eye, give him a minute to explain.” His friend’s calming influence only just reached him through his haze of emotion. “You know full well that none of us would put Meredith in any real danger.”
Lionel was right. The man had taken a beating for Meredith, quite a bad one, and he still looked the worse for wear.
Darius released Felix and forced himself to clear his head. He trusted the men in this coach with his life, and now he was trusting them with Meredith’s.
“Very well. Explain.”
Felix described Meredith’s scheme to catch Crell, and Warren’s foolish role in it all.
Terror gripped Darius’s heart at the thought of her waiting in the gardens to meet a murderer.
He hadn’t forgotten the way she’d looked when she’d first told him about the scream she’d heard, or when told him later she believed it had come from Mrs. Crell.
Why hadn’t she come to him? Why hadn’t she trusted that he hadn’t given up in his pursuit of Crell? But then, he hadn’t told her that he’d gone underground with his investigation.
“You knew all this?” Darius snapped at Lionel. “Who else knew?”
“Not me,” Kit said, scowling at the others.
Felix sagged. “Because you’re married, Kit. Warren knew you wouldn’t hide this from Darius because you think of Meredith’s safety just as you would Suzannah’s.”
“He’s damned right I would.” Kit’s face was full of storms. “I’m sorry, Darius. I would have stopped this nonsense had I known.”
Darius glared at Lionel, Felix and Vincent. “You three just agreed to help them?”
Lionel matched Darius in his displeasure. “I did not agree. I only learned of the matter before we departed. I was debating whether to tell you when we reached Felix’s country house.”
“I have no doubt regarding Meredith’s safety,” Vincent replied honestly. “Warren will be there, along with Mr. Doyle. Crell would have to be a fool to act against her once they announce themselves.”
A fool… or desperate, Darius thought. He knew how easily everything could go wrong. And a man could snap Meredith’s pretty neck in an instant before help could arrive. But as he tried to calm down, he realized there was blame to lay at his own feet.
“I should have been honest with her about what I was doing,” Darius said as he stared bleakly at his friends. “She must have thought I’d given up trying to catch Crell, and that I was focused solely on our wedding. I fear that might be what motivated her to act.”
“You didn’t tell her about the inquiries I have been making into Crell’s finances?” Lionel asked.
Darius shook his head. “I was planning to, once we had something worth sharing.”
This surprised Lionel. “I had thought that was the reason she decided to act, since it would have given leverage to get a confession.”
“You mean you’ve found something?” asked Darius.
“I have. I had planned to tell you what I’d learned at Felix’s estate.
I managed to find the barrister who handled Minerva Crell’s affairs.
You were right in suspecting that she’d had the control of the money, and that most of it was still tied up in a trust that her husband had very little access to.
At the time they married, there was a miscommunication between the couple.
Crell believed he would be given control, when rather his wife’s money was neatly tied up and protected by an outside trustee. ”
Lionel paused a moment. “This created some strain between them over the years, at least from what the barrister could tell during his infrequent visits with Minerva. Then, in the last few months, money requests started to increase from Minerva. So I looked into where the money was ending up. I spoke with all of the fashionable tailors, the best jewelers and dressmakers.”
“Well, don’t leave us in suspense,” Felix replied.
Lionel cleared his throat and continued.
“Crell was spending lavishly, and I don’t think any of it had to do with his wife.
There were dinners in hotels, jewels being purchased in large quantities, and he’d completely redone his wardrobe in the last month and there were custom dress fitting bills, box seats at the theater.
But as I understand it, Minerva could barely leave the house and hadn’t attended any dinners, nor the theater. ”
“He was spending time out with his mistress,” Vincent surmised. “That would certainly cause a vast increase in his expenditures.”
Darius digested the information. It was all valuable information, but didn’t prove much, though it seemed quite obvious as to what must have happened.
Minerva learned what her husband was doing and likely confronted him about it.
The only way for him to keep access to her money was if the mistress took his wife’s place.
Thus the move outside of London, where all future contact with the barrister would be handled by letters and forged signatures would enable him to keep drawing on her accounts.
But Minerva would have known and therefore she would have to have been killed.
But a man could not be convicted of murder on common sense guesswork.
With his questions answered, Darius fell into an anxious silence for the next several hours it took to return to London. He could only pray they wouldn’t be too late.
* * *
By late afternoon, Meredith’s nerves were frayed. She paced in the drawing room, waiting for Warren to return from Crell’s country house.
Darius and his other friends had left earlier that morning.
She’d only had dim, sweet memories of him kissing her goodbye before he’d slipped out of bed.
That tender parting had left her feeling strangely bittersweet, perhaps because she now wished she had told him about her plan to trick Crell into confessing.
They had started this investigation together, and now it had all become twisted up.
She’d pulled away from Darius to handle this on her own because she feared he would not let her do something simply because it was dangerous.
But she had to do this. She had ignored the signs that Mrs. Crell was in danger.
Flashes of the woman flinching as she’d moved in the gardens, and her mention of being clumsy…
it was so obvious now that Mr. Crell likely had a hand in those bruises.
Sadly a man had a right to beat his wife, at least in a court of law, but that didn’t mean he had the right to murder her.
Still, she hadn’t felt she could push Darius to let her assist him, and it had become clear he no longer wanted to be involved in catching Crell, not after his failure to find evidence with Doyle.
He may have given up, but I cannot. I must press on, even if it means keeping this from him until I’ve seen it through. I owe it to Minerva.
Meredith turned that memory of Darius’s goodbye kiss over and over in her mind, remembering the feel of Darius’s lips upon her throat, her cheek, her forehead as he murmured he would bring her back a gift from the jewelers before coming home.
But the real gift had been the way he made her feel before he had left.
She felt loved and cherished, and that only twisted the knife deeper into her chest at the thought that she had been the one to keep this a secret from him.