Page 51 of Fatal By Design
“All this for a ring?” she asked, her heart in her throat as she broke Mr. Henley’s order to shut up.
He only glowered. “Do you have any notion how much that diamond is worth?”
If he required money so desperately, there could be only one reason why. “The silver venture. It isn’t going well, is it?”
“I told you to be quiet,” he seethed.
She bit her tongue as it all came together. Mr. Henley had sunk his fortune into the speculation. So had many other peers. “The mine has failed?”
His eyes shone as he adjusted the pistol. But before he could instruct her to keep quiet again, Millie spoke.
“There is no mine,” she said, her voice raspy from disuse. “There never was. I’ve heard him talking. He was conned into investing, and then, thinking it all aboveboard, got others to invest too. Accepted their money and gave it to the swindler.”
“Shut up,” he barked.
“Why? You are only going to kill us anyway. Just as you killed Celine and Sammy.”
Audrey gripped her sister’s arm. “And Lord Cartwright?”
Tears welled in Millie’s eyes. “He is alive. But only because I told them about James’s shell. I didn’t want to. I tried to keep you out of it.”
Audrey understood now. Knowing that Lord Cartwright had gone to Haverfield with the intent to meet with Millie, Mr. Henley and his accomplices had tracked him to the area and abducted him. They had then threatened to kill him if Millie did not confess. Faced with that choice, Millie’s resolve had crumbled. Audrey could not honestly say hers would not have, especially if Mr. Henley had held Hugh at the end of his pistol.
Hugh. He was nowhere near Greenbriar. If she was going to get herself and Millie out of this situation alive, she had no choice but to do it on her own. The tension stringing Mr. Henley into tight knots may be able to aid her.
“You plan to pawn the ring and flee England,” Audrey said, “rather than face the men you’ve inadvertently swindled and admit yourself equally deceived?”
He scoffed. “I partnered with Teague, and now, he is gone. Vanished with all our money. Who do you think would be prosecuted for the scheme once it is made known?”
Had Mr. Henley simply been duped and defrauded, Audrey might have felt pity for him. But his actions to cover up his own wrongdoing, his own folly, had ruined any chance of that.
“Why shoot the driver? Why not just make it look like a regular highway robbery and leave him unharmed?” she asked.
“My men had their orders for good reason. Samuel made the mistake of starting to care for Miss Woods. Started to feel a sense of guilt at the deception,” he said, still pouting. “I could not risk that he would speak of it in the future.”
Samuel. NotSammy, as Millie had called him. A new hire, Millie’s butler had said when Audrey and Hugh had been at Reddingate. Mr. Henley had known him. Samuel had been workingfor him.
Her lips parted in understanding. “Sammy was Lord Cartwright’s former valet. Nowyourvalet.”
Millie balked. “Reggie’svaletbecame my driver?”
“You didn’t recognize him?” Audrey asked. Her sister looked offended.
“I had never met Reggie’s valet. I had no idea!”
“But he knew you had kept the ring. And he told you, Mr. Henley, didn’t he? You sent him to Reddingate to steal it.”
“The cad charmed my maid and convinced her to search my room,” Millie said, her jaw tight. “She found Reggie’s letter asking about the ring, and my response that it was at Greenbriar. That I needed to fetch it before meeting him at Haverfield.”
Audrey exhaled. So that was how Celine had betrayed Millie. She’d told Samuel, who in turn informed Mr. Henley, who then sent his accomplices to waylay Millie’s coach.
“I suppose Celine knew too much as well,” Audrey said, disgusted by the memory of the maid’s body lain out in that Moorsly barn, and the vision the silver pendant had shown her. She and Samuel had not been worth more than the information they’d provided. It was a bald display of Mr. Henley’s obscene lack of mercy.
“All this time, grandfather believed Reggie took it with him when he blew off to India and cut us out of his life.”
“Lord Montague had tried to steal it from Lord Cartwright once,” Audrey said. “He wasn’t going to allow his grandfather the chance again.”
Mr. Henley sneered. “The ring was the least Reggie could give Grandfather for taking him in, for enduring the shame of his heir’s tainted progeny.”
