Chapter 20 #2
The duke easily brushed off his nephew’s statement.
“I am amused that you would think me capable of such vile acts of violence. After what your father did, you should believe that I would not want to see anyone suffer the same fate as your mother, my dearly departed sister.” He moved over to the sideboard.
“I think what we need is a drink so that we can all sit and discuss this matter like reasonable adults.”
Cordell shook his head. “The time for that has passed once you started murdering innocent women.”
“Innocent?” The duke laughed almost manically. “Those sirens would lure me to their side and then toss me aside when they tired of me.” He gestured over his shoulder to Aislynn. “She will make a fool out of you if you allow it. Mark my words.”
“Is that why you threatened Miss Sims? Because you saw her as a threat to me?” Cordell challenged.
The duke filled a glass and waved his arm around as he spoke.
“She is just like the rest! Capable of luring a man to his demise by their lurid dreams.” He swallowed the liquid in his glass with a single toss.
When the tumbler came down, a gun appeared in his other hand.
“You cannot allow them to win, these devious women who trick men into following them down to their depths. My sister was guilty of the same crimes. She allowed your father to follow her all the way from the continent where he took her away from me.”
Aislynn’s gaze shifted to Cordell, but she could not discern if his uncle’s words were a reflection of his current expression. Unfortunately, something told her things were about to get much worse.
* * *
“He took her from you?” Cordell said softly, not sure if he was prepared to hear the answer.
The duke ignored the glass and opted for the entire bottle instead.
The pistol was still gripped tightly in his hand.
It concerned Cordell, but he was standing between the weapon and Aislynn and that was something.
“My sister betrayed me and went to another and started to increase with you.” He gave a smirk.
“But I took care of my problem with due diligence.”
Cordell stilled, a sick sensation starting to churn in the pit of his stomach. “What do you mean?”
“I loved her!” He slammed the bottle down so hard that the glass cracked and broke under the pressure, littering shards all over the floor, but his uncle hardly noticed. His eyes were unfocused, glazed over. “She left me no other choice.”
It had been years since he’d thought about his childhood, but Cordell distinctly remembered the same distant look in his father’s eyes from time to time.
Every time he would talk about his homeland, that melancholy would strike and he would fix a special tea.
Thinking upon it now, it was the duke that had sent the tincture to his mother to help ‘cure’ her husband’s melancholy through the years, but as his uncle spoke, so many things that he hadn’t noticed as a child were starting to fall into place.
Like a puzzle that had not quite fit together, now it all made so much sense.
“My father wasn’t mad,” Cordell whispered. “You poisoned him.”
The duke gave another laugh that made him sound unhinged.
“It was the perfect solution! He always talked about how grand blue lily was for his constitution. I explained that I had something similar in my gardens that would help to ease his mental upset, but that is not what morning glory seeds are for. I have used them several times for my own amusement.” He tapped a finger against his lips.
“Unfortunately, I fear it was the mercury that finally caused him to alter his perception past the point of no return. A small dose now and then was enough to make him question reality, but one day I misjudged the dosage and gave him too much…” His voice trailed off and he frowned.
“She was not supposed to die. I swear her death was an accident.”
Cordell’s head was spinning. To learn that the man he’d believed had dragged him out of the mire was responsible for it all made him want revenge.
His fists clenched at his sides, but oddly enough, his breathing remained steady, calm.
“Did you try to kill me too?” He had to know the full truth of his uncle’s madness, the insanity that he’d struggled to defend for so long.
“What? No!” The duke looked truly stricken.
“I looked at you as my own son! You were the child we were supposed to have. Not him. Never him. I would have never allowed her to travel beyond the shores of England had I but known she would engage in a torrid affair and break my heart.” He shook his head.
“For years I tried to forget her but I failed. Miserably.” His expression brightened, as if seeing the sun emerging from the clouds of his convoluted mind.
“And then I saw her treading the boards on the stage and I knew that she must be mine. Miss Flynn. But she spurned me, just as your mother had done. She had to be punished.”
“And the others? Did they reject you too?” Cordell asked.
“They were worthless harlots, the lot of them!” he growled. “I would offer them the same delights that have been my boon companion over the years, but they refused my gifts. They refused me. I could not continue to bear the same humiliation over and over again.”
“What of Miss Sims?”
The duke shifted his focus to her. It was the moment Cordell had been waiting for. “She was standing in the way of your happiness. I could not let her take you from me. You are mine as surely as your mother was. We were all meant to be together. Forever.”
Cordell didn’t hesitate. He sprang forward when his uncle was fixated on Aislynn.
He saw the pistol pivot in his direction, but it was too late.
He was too fast for the older man and threw all his weight into the duke’s midsection, and they fell to the ground in a tumble of arms and legs.
After a brief struggle, Cordell was easily able to subdue the duke and tie his arms behind his back with the rope he’d concealed in his jacket.
Without looking back at Aislynn, he said, “Gather the others.”
He heard her footsteps depart the room while he faced off with his uncle.
Tears stung his eyes but they were not due to grief or loss, although the knowledge that his uncle had murdered his father as surely as he’d pulled the trigger on a pistol and set it against his temple was not going to be easy for him to get over.
“Was it worth it, Uncle?” he questioned harshly.
“Was it worth all the pain and anguish you have put me and yourself through over the years simply because you could not let her go? You let me believe madness was my destiny when I could have pursued happiness instead.”
The duke truly looked confused. “I did it all for you. For us. For the family we should have been.”
“That is not a family,” Cordell countered. “That is an obsession.”
Aislynn returned with Lord Alton, Reynolds, and the other Runners in tow. The butler followed them all into the room looking highly alarmed but he was ignored as the duke was lifted to his feet and carted away by the authorities.
Lord Alton remained behind, a somber expression on his face. “I guess we did not need a signal after all,” he murmured. “Aislynn told us what the duke confessed and I… honestly do not know what to say.”
“I know. Neither do I,” Cordell said. “All this time I thought my father was mad when it was my maternal uncle.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I do not know where to go from here.” It seemed as if the weight of the world were pressing down on his shoulders, threatening to suffocate him.
And then there was a lilting voice reaching out to him. “How about the first thing is to go home?”
He looked at Aislynn. “I suppose that is a start,” he noted. “But I need to see to my uncle first.”
The three of them traveled back to London in silence, this time, each lost to their own contemplation. When they arrived in the city, the carriage stopped at Spade’s and Aislynn exited the vehicle. “I will return as soon as I am able,” Cordell promised.
He was grateful that she did not argue but disappeared inside the establishment where he knew Mary would watch over her and she could give a full accounting of what had happened.
When he was alone with the viscount on their way to the Tower, he said sincerely, “Thank you.”
“Any time, old friend.” Lord Alton returned. “However, might I offer a word of advice? Do not let all this unpleasantness spoil what you have with Miss Sims. She is a good woman.”
Cordell sighed. “But what of the madness? Although I now know the extent of my father’s illness was not due to a natural misalignment in his brain, I now have to worry about the threat that my uncle’s insanity will affect me someday.”
The viscount nodded. “I understand your hesitation, but you cannot live your life in the event that something horrific will take place. If we lived in such fear and hesitation, there would be a short supply of people in this land.”
Cordell gave a snort, because the viscount made a valid point. “I cannot argue with that logic,” he agreed.
He was eager to learn what the royal physician would have to say about Otlingham. That would surely put some of the doubts that continued to plague him at ease.
At least, that is what he prayed would happen.