Page 66 of The Duke's Stubborn Wallflower
My cousin may be a dullard, but he is not a murderer.“You are lying. You must be. We have out differences, but my cousin would never do that,” Nigel insisted.
The footman blanched and shook his head. “Sir, I swear it is the truth. I swear it on my mother’s life.”
An odd roiling sickness spread through him. He felt as though he had swallowed a live eel. His ears seemed to be full of a strange ringing sound, and the world around him was spinning.
“Your cousin…” Alexander shot Nigel a look. “… he is next in line, is he not?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t make him a murderer,” Nigel noted, anger and disbelief warring within him. “He has been trying to help me.”
“How has he been trying to help you?” Alexander asked softly, but Nigel could hear the bite of suspicion in his voice.
“He said… He said he would find me a botanist. Someone who might be able to cure the curse. But that never materialised.” Nigel shook his head, feeling as though it were full of molasses. “He… he was the one who recommended Mr. Jaspers.”
Slowly pieces started clicking together in Nigel’s head. The odd taste in the wine his cousin had brought him. How eager he had been to supply him with another footman.He kept drawing attention to my symptoms — but perhaps… No…
“Your cousin is the one who recommended Mr. Jaspers to you? And he knows botanists.” Alexander looked troubled.
“I have proof. I have… I have letters from him.” With a shaking hand, Mr. Jaspers procured several folded pieces of paper from his pocket. “I was supposed to destroy them, but I kept them just in case. In case he turned on me.”
Nigel took the paper from the man and read: “My patience draws thin. You have two days to end NM, or I will take matters into my own hands.”
The letter was dated yesterday. Nigel’s hands shook, but for once, he knew exactly what it meant. Rage and disbelief flowed through him.I trusted him with my life.
“Tell me everything. How did you get mixed up in all of this?” Nigel asked, frustrated by his sluggish brain.
Dandelion appeared to have finally calmed down, but Nigel was not going to release her collar.
Mr. Jaspers took a breath, glancing between Alexander and Nigel as he said, “I overheard him, Lord Briston, talking to his father. Saying how they’d made a mistake waiting so long to kill the last two Dukes and that they needed to kill youbeforeyou could sire a son.”
“Killed the last two Dukes?” Nigel stared at him. “This… this whole time… it has been them?”
Mr. Jaspers nodded. “I was so shocked, I knocked over a jug, and Lord Briston… he found me. Asked me what I’d heard, and then… well then… he told me he’d kill me, kill my whole family, if I didn’t do what he asked.
“I tried to delay. I didn’t want to commit murder. But… my sister, she works for him. And about a fortnight or so ago, well, she started getting sick. Said Lord Briston was making her drink some strange tonic.”
“Couldn’t you simply tell her to stop drinking it?” Alexander demanded.
Mr. Jaspers shook his head miserably. “She’s a widow with two girls. She needs this job. Lord Briston said he’d sack her if she didn’t drink it. That he’d write her an awful reference and make sure she’d never work again.”
“But surely you could’ve gone to the magistrate?” Alexander asked.
“Even with the letter and the proof you have, they would not have had an antidote.” Understanding bloomed in Nigel, and he felt it fuel his anger.
“The man has abused his station for the last time. We will sort this. You have two dukes on your side now, and Rokesby is well versed in poisons and antidotes.”
Nigel had never been more grateful for his friend’s overprotective paranoia than in that moment. “So, I take it, getting you this job was just a way of getting you close to me.
Mr. Jaspers nodded, seeming simultaneously terrified and relieved. “I was supposed to slowly poison you, just enough to make you sick. He gave me the measurements, said to wear gloves because the stuff would cause a rash, told me it’s what they’d done to the other two dukes.”
“This whole time, our line has not been cursed? But this goes back beyond my grandfather!” Nigel’s head felt as though it were full of lead. His thoughts were sluggish.
Mr. Jaspers shrugged. “I only heard them speak of the last two Dukes. Lord Briston told me that the others were just bad luck as far as he knew, but his father and grandfather had sought to capitalise on the myths.”
“He told you rather a lot for a mere servant.” Alexander frowned.
“He gets chatty when he’s drunk. Even more so if he is happy.” Mr. Jaspers was still shaking. “He seemed to think that he’d won a girl away from Nigel and was celebrating that you’d be dead, and he had won her heart.”
Nigel scoffed. “Olivia would never love a snake like him.”
