Page 58 of My Rogue, My Ruin
Archer walked toward the chair Brynn had been sitting in but decided at the last moment to stand. He moved to the window, overlooking the back lawns.
“Not at all. Ask what you must.”
Thomson glanced at the pages in his notebook. “Where were you when the men retired to the billiards room after dinner?”
Though he trained his expression to appear serene, Archer’s mind raced. “I had to attend to some matters of urgent business.”
“Where? In the house? The duke’s study?”
“Of course not. I have my own rooms here.”
Though now, he supposed, all the rooms were his. It hit him for the first time. He was no longer a marquess, but a duke.
Hell, he had not wanted the title. Especially not in this way.
“Did you cross paths with the duke?”
The inquiry agent’s voice brought the room back into focus. “No. I left to speak in the gardens with the stable master regarding one of my mounts.”
Mr. Thomson raised a hand. “You left a dinner party to attend to urgent business, in the gardens with your stable master, regarding a horse. Do I have that right?”
Archer frowned. It did, even to his own ears, sound utterly suspicious. But he remained stoic. “Yes. And while I was there, I noticed a light in the duke’s study.”
“Go on. What happened next?”
Archer was beginning to dislike the man’s probing, but he held his irritation back. He supposed such thoroughness would help catch the criminal. “We heard the shouts, and I ran inside. I checked the duke’s pulse, and there was none.”
Archer pulled his timepiece from his pocket. A couple of hours had passed. “I hate to rush you, but I am expecting my sister from Essex shortly. Is there anything else I can answer for you?”
Mr. Thomson eyed him. “Just one more thing. You and your father fought quite publicly several days past. My notes say that it turned physical.”
Damnation, where the devil had he heard that? Archer had been present for every interview this morning and not once had the argument from the masquerade been brought up. The inquiry agent had gotten a rather fine head start with the staff, it seemed.
“It was an unfortunate turn of events,” Archer said, attempting to put a bland facade on the argument. “Fathers and sons will always have disagreements.”
Mr. Thomson nodded. “It was the same with my father. The man was exacting.”
Archer didn’t respond, nor did he care.
Mr. Thomson’s stare centered on Archer as he pulled something from his pocket. “This was found in the pocket of your father’s trousers. It is a note, asking the duke to meetyouin the study.”
Archer froze, staring at the crumpled piece of paper.
“The footman who delivered the note to the duke in the billiards room last evening said it was found lying, sealed, on a serving tray in the kitchens.”
Archer picked up the piece of paper, the lightweight linen parchment instantly recognizable. It was indeed his own stationery. Drawn from the stack he kept in the desk in his rooms. One look at the handwriting, however, and his shock turned to fury. It was the same scratchy script that had graced the two previous notes left for Archer. One in Essex, another in the silver salver at Hadley Gardens, and now a third, in the pocket of his father’s corpse.
“I did not pen this.” Archer dropped the paper. “Or leave it in the kitchen for a footman to deliver, for that matter.”
He certainly could not come forward about the other notes, both of which had pointed to a secret. Mr. Thomson was already suspicious as it was.
“I suspected as much,” Thomson said, though his words sounded hollow.
The agent gathered his notebook and the forged note and tucked his pencil away while Archer’s mind raced. That clever bastard. Whomever it was had intentionally drawn his father from the billiards room and had wanted it to look as if it had been Archer.
“You should get that hand looked at,” Mr. Thomson said as he got up and walked to the door. Archer glanced down, still distracted by the note. The gauze bandage he’d wrapped around his wound was spotted with fresh crimson spots.
Archer did not deign to offer a reply. He owed the man no explanation. He followed Thomson to the door and watched with burgeoning unease as Heed escorted the agent toward the front of the house.
