The Devilish Duke, page 31
“What is your name?” Devlin asked the butler.
“Stokes, Your Grace,” the man answered.
“Well, Stokes, it appears that someone seems to have a vendetta against myself and has killed three people thus far—Benlow, your late footman, being one of them.”
Comprehension lit the other man’s eyes. “That must have been why an inspector from Scotland Yard came around yesterday asking to see Lady Sophie. Of course, I turned him away, though he insisted on leaving a card.”
Devlin felt a slow-burning anger begin to curl around his midsection at the thought that Scotland Yard would dare to question his fiancée when she had no direct involvement in the matter whatsoever. Obviously, the inspector thought him a great deal more involved than Devlin had supposed. “Did you mention this to Lady Sophie?”
“No, I didn’t have the chance,” Stokes replied. “Though she usually does pick up the calling cards and then takes them with her to her sitting room.” The butler glanced across to the entrance table. “Which is what she must have done today, as the silver tray that holds them is now empty.”
“Of course she did.” Devlin exhaled softly. “Which means she’s seen the Inspector’s card and has gone running off, trying to exonerate me.” And that meant her impulsivity would take her to Scotland Yard or, worse, to his aunt’s house. Darn woman. But at least she was most likely safe, although, with a killer on the loose, Devlin would not feel confident of that fact until she was by his side.
“Exonerate you, Your Grace?” Stokes’ voice was hesitant but determined.
“Yes, Stokes.” Devlin had no time to prevaricate. “Someone is trying to frame me for murder, and I believe whoever it is made darn sure that I had to travel to Dartford and was subsequently well away from Lady Sophie today.”
“And you’re worried that person might seek revenge against you by hurting our Lady Sophie?” Stokes stood tall as Devlin nodded his head in confirmation. “Well, say no more, Your Grace. Whatever we can do to help, we shall,” he vowed.
The other servants all began seconding the declaration.
“I will ride to my aunt’s to see if she’s there.” Devlin swiveled to address them all. “However, it’s imperative that until this madman is caught, you all must pay close attention to anyone lurking outside or looking suspicious or to anyone suddenly calling upon this household that has not before. Then you must get word to me.” He turned his gaze back onto Stokes. “I’m going to need a new horse, and I’ll also need you to send some men to Scotland Yard to see if she went there. And if she is there, send word to my residence immediately.”
“Yes, Your Grace, of course.” Stokes bowed. “Thomas, fetch the fastest horse we have in the stables and bring it around front for His Grace. Mathew and Luke, you two head straight to Scotland Yard and see if Lady Sophie is there.”
As the three men rushed off to do Stokes’ bidding, a middle-aged woman with a rotund figure stepped forward. She quickly whispered to the maid beside her, who in turn bobbed her head and hurried down the hall. “Your Grace?” the woman ventured. “I am the housekeeper here, Mrs. Simpson. I don’t know if it helps or not, but rather unusually, a letter was delivered to the kitchen for Lady Sophie just this morning.”
“Go on,” Devlin encouraged.
The housekeeper cleared her throat. “The man that delivered it was most anxious she get it when she returned home from the Crowleys’. He was rather insistent about it and already knew, even before we’d received word, that she was on her way home.”
“I need to see that letter, Mrs. Simpson.”
“Of course, Your Grace. I’ve already sent Melody off to retrieve it.”
“Has Sophie received any previous letters of the same nature?” he asked.
Stokes stepped forward. “Actually, we have had a bit of theft with Lady Sophie’s mail in recent weeks. Would appear Benlow, God rest his soul, may have stolen her correspondence before meeting his unfortunate end.”
“Ah! Here is the letter,” Mrs. Simpson exclaimed as a young girl rushed back into the foyer.
The young maid skidded to a halt in the center of the room, a cream envelope clutched in her hand. Mrs. Simpson motioned for her to give it to the Duke. The girl gingerly extended her hand, holding the envelope out to him.
Devlin took it and looked it over carefully. The envelope was made of a cream vellum, without a distinguishable seal or return address on the rear.
He deftly opened it and found that it simply had two sentences written on it. Two sentences that had never terrified Devlin more: You are next. No one will be able to save your fiancé from the gallows then.
Slowly, he folded the letter over and replaced it back in the envelope. A dozen faces were all looking at him expectantly, anxiety in their eyes.
“We must find her at once,” Devlin said. “She very well may be in great danger.”
There were several loud gasps from them all, with some of the younger maids bursting into tears.
“Hush now,” Stokes commanded them. “Doesn’t mean he’s got her yet.” His suddenly anxious gaze found Devlin. “Does it?”
Devlin put the letter into his jacket pocket with precise movements, paying particular attention to push down the panic that was suddenly rising like an ugly beast, threatening to consume him. He’d never felt such a sense of helplessness before. “She’ll be at Scotland Yard or my aunt’s.” He kept repeating that mantra to himself. She had to be. He couldn’t contemplate the alternate. “Before she returns, though, make sure every inch of this residence is secure.”
“I will see to it.” Stokes bowed.
Devlin walked toward the front door as Stokes began issuing instructions to the others.
“Huntington?” Lady Winthrup spoke up.
He stopped at the threshold and looked over his shoulder at her worried face. “Yes, Lady Winthrup?”
“Please bring her home to us,” she said. “I do not know what we would do without her.”
Neither do I, he thought grimly, careful to mask his emotions. “I shall bring her home safe and sound,” he vowed before opening the door and stalking down the front stairs to await the horse. He had to bring her home. He didn’t want to contemplate how barren and desolate his life would be without her.
A few minutes later, a black stallion was brought around front, eager to be off as it sidestepped impatiently on the pavement. Devlin gripped the pommel and swung his leg up and over the saddle. He took the reins and spurred the horse into a gallop.
He rode down the street, weaving between the carriages lumbering past. He could barely breathe, let alone think. The letter in his pocket felt like it was burning a hole through his heart.
He wanted to pound his fist against something as a feeling of abject helplessness consumed him. He did not know where Sophie was, while a murderer had his sights set on her. Was she safe? Was she in danger? He had never felt so helpless before in his life, not even after his parents’ deaths. Damn it. He was not going to lose her, not now. Not after realizing how important she was to him.
The thought burned through him, rage beginning to replace the sense of uselessness. Devlin would not let that madman take Sophie from him. He would not let someone else he loved be murdered.
He quickly urged the horse down Mayfair toward his aunt’s residence. Hopefully, Sophie was there at that moment, at loggerheads arguing with his aunt in the safety of her drawing room.
The thought that whoever had written that note might have gotten to Sophie first was enough to send a shard of terror deep into a place in his heart he hadn’t known existed.
But then a deep, simmering anger pushed aside the fear.
Whoever had written that note had signed his own death warrant.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“You are mistaken, Lady Brampton,” Sophie calmly stated in response to the woman’s pronouncement. “Devlin’s father did not kill your husband.”
“I am mistaken, am I?” Lady Brampton snapped. “What would you know of it?”
Studying the woman’s features, Sophie could see the bitter grief still present, even after all of these years. She suddenly felt very sorry for her. To have been so consumed with unexpressed rage all this time was not a burden she would wish upon anyone.
“You loved him?” Sophie gently asked her.
Lady Brampton’s mouth twisted into a harsh snarl. “Everyone thought I married him to become a duchess. They all thought I was so concerned with the title that I cast James aside as soon as Charles took an interest.” She laughed bitterly. “At first, I admit, the thought of being a duchess was very enticing, but little did everyone know that in the end, Charles stole my heart.” She looked up at Sophie. “It is funny, really, for I would have given up the title in a second if it had meant spending one more day with Charles.”
Sophie did not know how to respond. The lady was still devastated over the man’s death.
“Everyone thought I was bitter because I had been deprived of one day having the title of duchess added to my name,” Lady Brampton continued. “They all joked behind my back about how it was fate’s cruel joke on me. That if I had married James, I would have been a duchess. But none of them knew how very much I loved Charles, how very much I still do, even to this day. None of them even suspected what I know to be true, that he was murdered.”
“Why do you believe him to have been murdered?” she asked. “Did he not die from falling off his horse?”
The woman scoffed. “You would have never have met a more accomplished rider than my husband. To suggest he fell off his horse whilst cantering through the even grounds of our estate is ridiculous.”
“But even the best of riders can fall,” Sophie gently reminded her.
“Not my Charles,” Lady Brampton affirmed. “He knew Huntington Court better than the back of his hand. But do you know why I do not believe that he died from an accident?”
Sophie said nothing, waiting for an answer.
“When he left for his ride that morning, he was wearing the ring his father had given him, the ring bearing the Huntington Crest, the ring each future Duke of Huntington had worn before him.”
She smiled briefly at the memory. “When I found his body—indeed, I was the first to do so—his ring was nowhere to be seen. Everyone said it must have come off when he fell, as none of the money from his money clip was missing to suggest he had been robbed. But I knew then, I knew in my heart, that Charles had been murdered. That he had been killed by his brother. Charles rarely removed his ring, because he could never get the thing off his finger without my helping him.”
“Why would you assume Devlin’s father had anything to do with it, if in fact Charles was murdered?” Sophie asked.
Lady Brampton clucked her tongue. “Is it not obvious? He was the only one that benefited from Charles’ death, the only one that would have an interest in taking the heir’s ducal ring. Charles’ death benefited no one else aside from him. If not him, who else? James was the only one with any motive.” She paused to scowl at Sophie. “Do you see now why I hate Devlin so much? He looks just like his father, just like James, who took my dearest Charles from me!”
Sophie remained silent for a long moment, thinking through the various possibilities. For if Charles was murdered, as Lady Brampton believed, then that would mean that whoever murdered him had been waiting a very long time to seek his revenge against the rest of his line of succession.
“Who is next in line to the title if Devlin died?” Sophie asked, the thought filling her with a dread she had never known.
“Some distant relative in France, I believe.” Lady Brampton soothed a hand over her coiffure. “I care little over the matter now, seeing as how your fiancé has already tarnished the name beyond repair.”
“You might very well care, my lady, because I am confident that it was not James that murdered your husband at all.”
The woman lifted her chin and looked down her formidable nose at Sophie. “What do you mean, girl?”
Sophie played her trump card, sure that the information had to jolt Lady Brampton out of her smug tirade against Devlin. “My fiancé does not, nor has ever, had your husband’s ring.”
“And how would you know if he does or does not have it?” the woman asked mockingly.
“Scotland Yard has it,” Sophie answered.
“What?” the woman said, nearly choking on the word. “What do you mean, Scotland Yard has it?”
“I believe your husband’s ring was the ring found underneath the body of a maid who was recently murdered,” Sophie told her.
Lady Brampton had not been expecting that response, if her reaction was anything to go by. The woman had suddenly turned deathly pale.
“The ring…found under…I do not understand. Murdered?” Lady Brampton put her hands up to her temples and massaged them. “You must be mistaken.”
Sophie shook her head. “It bears the Huntington crest upon it, and it is certainly not the ducal ring that Devlin inherited from his grandfather, which he’d made sure was buried with the old duke. Devlin believes it to be the ring that belonged to your husband, although he has never actually seen it before, so he cannot be one hundred percent certain. But the odds are very high that it is your late husband’s ring. You are likely the only person who can confirm that for certain.”
Lady Brampton quickly stood. “I have to see it at once!”
“I was hoping you would say that,” Sophie murmured.
…
As soon as Lady Brampton had looked at the ring that the Scotland Yard inspector held in his fingers, all the color leached out of her face, and the woman had had to grab onto Sophie for support.
She’d recognized the ring as that belonging to her late husband. A ring that had been missing for over twenty years yet had been discovered under Tina’s body.
Lost in thought as they started their return trip, Sophie barely heard the turn of the carriage wheels as it began lumbering forward on the cobbled street. She hoped Abby would not be too put out with having been left at Lady Brampton’s residence, but the woman had refused to travel with a servant inside the carriage.
They rode in silence for a time, Lady Brampton’s face shadowed by the dim light coming from the street lamps. “Are you all right?”
The woman turned away from the carriage window and away from whatever thoughts had been consuming her. “This does not exonerate Devlin, nor prove that his father did not murder Charles.”
Sophie very nearly threw her hands up in exasperation but managed to restrain the impulse. “Think, Madame,” she implored. “If Devlin was such a villain, would he really leave behind a ring that would point to him as the suspect for Tina’s murder and your husband’s?”
“It may have accidentally fallen off his finger.”
“But why would he wear it in the first place?” Sophie moaned, exasperated by the lady’s adamant refusal to see the logic in the situation. “Why would he risk wearing your husband’s ring at all if it could lead back to him? The simple fact is he would not. He is far too clever to do such a thing.”
“But that does not explain how it was found there. It makes no sense,” Lady Brampton said.
“It does if someone was trying to frame Devlin for murder, does it not? Someone who has killed three people already. Someone who more than likely killed your husband, too. Someone who is quite unhappy with the whole Huntington line of succession.”
“But Devlin’s father was the only one to benefit from Charles’s death,” Lady Brampton exclaimed. “No one else did.”
There had to be some explanation, but Sophie simply couldn’t fathom what it was. “Did your husband have any enemies at all? Anyone with a grudge against him?”
“No, of course not,” Lady Brampton replied. “He was a kind and gentle man; he looked after everyone. He even donated to… No, it could not be…” she whispered, fairly wilting in her seat.
Sophie leaned over and grabbed the woman by the shoulders. “What is it? What have you remembered?”
Stricken, Lady Brampton covered her mouth with one gloved hand. “It could not be…” she said. “No, surely not.”
“Tell me,” Sophie implored.
Lady Brampton closed her eyes for a second and then reopened them, tears beginning to pool in their inner corners. “Charles tried very hard for so many years to keep it a secret,” she whispered. “To protect me from the gossip.”
Sophie gripped the lady’s hand with her own. “What was he keeping a secret?” All of these partial answers would drive her mad if she didn’t get the whole story soon.
“Not what, but rather whom.” Lady Brampton shook her head as if to clear it, some strength seeming to return to her. “Five years before Charles and I married, he had a liaison with an opera singer.” She cleared her throat and continued. “As a result of that liaison, a child was born. The woman did not wish to keep the babe, so she left him at an orphanage, with Charles none the wiser as to his existence.”
Sophie gasped. “That is terrible.” Another poor baby discarded instead of cherished.
Lady Brampton nodded weakly. “Yes. Charles did not find out until a few months before marrying me. The lady had left the babe at the orphanage in Hamden Village.”
“The local village near Huntington Court?”
“Yes,” Lady Brampton replied. “The woman had apparently thought it would be amusing for the future Duke’s bastard son to grow up practically under his nose. But I think her conscience got the better of her when she found out she was dying, for she tried to send Charles several letters, which he returned unopened. I daresay she grew desperate and must have written to the headmistress of the orphanage, telling her the truth of the matter before she passed away.
“The headmistress then wrote to my husband, coincidentally only a few months before our marriage, threatening to make it publicly known that he had a bastard son if he did not pay her a monthly stipend. Her timing was impeccable, as our wedding was being touted as the event of the season. We even had some foreign princes attend. The headmistress must have realized it would be the perfect time to extract money from my husband.”
