Page 4 of The Devil Himself
“Good God.” Shaking his head, Rys waved his free hand in the air. “If he was such a good man, why would someone kill him? Trust me, my dear Fitzwilliam, in my long experience with the seedier side of life, good men don’t get murdered.”
“They do when they have two utter bastards for brothers.” Luc dropped that like someone dropping a dog turd in the punchbowl at a society ball. And it floated there between them for long moments.
Rys went still except for his heart, which started to race. “Surely you do not think that Daffyd or Arthur had aught to do with this?” The two brothers between him and his oldest were hardly fine, upstanding paragons, but murder?
Luc’s eyes flashed blue fire, his hand clenching on his glass. “I do. And so does Hannah. Which is why I’ve come to you.”
Rys stared. “I have less to do with them than I did with Owen.”
“I know. Which is why you can help me to figure out what happened. They will never believe you would bestir yourself to help with Owen’s wife and son.”
Stunned, he shook his head. “They would be right. Why would I do that?”
“Because you have access to a world far beyond the peerage, and contacts within it as well, that I cannot begin to fathom. You can put out inquiries.”
Rys wasn’t sure what the feeling was that squeezed his chest. His disdain for his family and his longstanding pain at theirrejection mixed with his long-suppressed care for his brother, who he had adored and admired as a child, tagging along with Owen and his friends on so many occasions.
“No.”
“Rys—”
“I said no. It is not my affair.” His brothers could go to the devil.
“Hannah and the children are living in fear, Rys,” Luc said quietly, stopping his pacing to watch him intently. “They are afraid to leave the house, afraid to eat the food the servants give them. Young Gareth is the legal heir to the title, but he is under Daffyd’s guardianship until he reaches majority. Who’s to say he won’t be next?”
“How old is the child now?” Rys asked, unholy curiosity prompting him.
“Fifteen.”
“Ah.” He could see the conundrum for his brothers, if they were indeed colluding to take over the title. At fifteen, young Gareth was old enough to know if the guardianship was being mismanaged, because Owen would have been grooming him to take over since he was in short pants. “Nearly a man, then.”
“Yes. And yet still a boy.” Luc sighed, then drank down the rest of his whisky. “And a danger to anyone who might be looking to fleece the estate.”
Fascinated in spite of himself, Rys leaned his bottom on the gaming table, crossing his booted feet at the ankles. “Do you really think Daffyd or Arthur did this? How did Owen die?”
“He was shot in the chest leaving his club. The ball took him in the heart, killing him almost instantly.”
“A footpad then.”
Luc snorted, the sound indelicate for such a finely dressed gentleman of the Ton. “You know as well as I do that mostmiscreants in the city cannot afford firearms. This was a deliberate assault.”
“And what makes you think my other brothers did the deed?”
“Or commissioned it,” Luc interjected. He set down his glass to start counting off on his hands. “One, Daffyd has recently been gambling to excess at the Carnival of Dionysus, among other more usual clubs, such as Brooks’. I have no doubt he’s deep in debt by this point. And Arthur is known for spending lavishly on his mistress, a stage performer who is open to the highest bidder, as it were, and on his horses, which he procures at Tattersall’s.”
Rys watched, his attention arrested by Luc’s hands, which were long-fingered, lean, and yet powerful instead of delicate. He looked like an angel, as his mother had always said, but he was all male. And Rys was a fool to notice.
“Two,” Luc said as he pulled down another finger. “Hannah tells me there were some bitter, loud arguments in the weeks leading up to Owen’s death. She wasn’t privy to the subjects, but she could hear the raised voices, and Owen was left quite tense.”
“But he did not confide in her? Or in you?”
“No. I asked him about it when I saw an exchange at our club between him and Daffyd, and he told me he was looking into the entailment’s accounts but had nothing he was able to share yet.”
“Is that it? It could be coincidence.” All men of the Ton had some dissolute proclivities. It hardly made them murderers.
“It could. But since Owen passed, Daffyd has been gambling every night, and Arthur is in the process of procuring a townhome.”
“I’m sure my father left them an inheritance. There was a great deal of money that was not entailed with the title.”
