Page 47 of Stolen By the Cruel Duke
He wasn’t quite sure why he was admitting this to James, but he suspected it had to do with his revelation about Lady Carfield. He felt a little calmer now, less muddled up and angry.
James considered this. “Would it be easier to accept her being hurt if you believed she was guilty of betraying you? Would you think she deserved it, if that were the case?”
“I’m not sure. Perhaps.” But the thought brought such an immediate wave of nausea that Phineas immediately shook his head and looked up. “No, it’s not that. There is no circumstance where I would want her to be physically harmed, even if she is guilty of everything I accused her of.”
“Well, in that case…” James frowned. “Maybe, if you believe that she was in on the robbery, then you can tell yourself she wouldn’t have been hurt by those thugs had she been there when it occurred. Because why would they have hurt someone who was working with them? Maybe they’d superficially injure her, to convince you she wasn’t in on it, but they wouldn’t cause any lasting damage. And she certainly wouldn’t have died.”
“I… I don’t know,” Phineas stammered out.
What James was saying made sense, but Phineas still felt so confused and unsure of everything he was feeling. The image of Iris, dead on the ground, kept filling his mind, making it hard for him to think.
He’d never forget what a dead body looked like as long as he lived. He could remember it like it was yesterday, the day his parents died. The robbery had taken place not far from their castle in Yorkshire, shortly after his parents had left on a trip to London. When they hadn’t arrived at the residence of their friends, the Stockwells, that night, a search party had been sent out. And when the bodies were found, they’d been taken to Eavestone Castle, which was closest.
It had been a cold, rainy night when Phineas had heard the clattering of carriage wheels on the gravel of the drive. He’d been asleep, but it had jolted him awake. Somehow, even then, he’d known something was wrong.
He’d run to the window, where he’d seen a carriage bearing the Stockwell crest racing up the drive. Then the butler ran out of thecastle, carrying a torch. There were shouts. There were screams. Phineas felt fear go through him like a knife.
He’d thrown on his dressing gown and crept out of his room and down the stairs. In the hall, a sight like nothing he’d ever seen had met his eyes—his parents’ twisted bodies being carried inside by footmen. The smell of blood was thick in the air. Some of it still glinted on his father’s coat as it caught the light from a torch. And his mother—his beautiful, kind mother—whiter and paler than he’d ever seen her, her lifeless eyes staring at him.
She was the only one who’d seen him, crouched at the bottom of the stairs behind a suit of armor. But she couldn’t say anything to him. She couldn’t comfort him. She couldn’t respond as the hurried cries ofFetch a doctor, at once!filled the hall. She couldn’t say that it was too late.
Phineas had never forgotten that face. He sometimes saw it, from time to time, out of the corner of his eye. And he’d seen it again at Eavestone House when Iris had looked at him with her big, round eyes, so full of fear.
Across from him, James sighed, and he was pulled out of his thoughts. To his surprise, James was smiling, if a little sadly.
“Well, I think I do know,” he said. “Because listen to what you just said, Phineas. ‘I know she would have tried to stop them.’ Deep down, you trust her. Deep down, you know she wasn’t working with her father, that she would have tried to prevent you from being robbed by her father—again—and from losingthe evidence that would have allowed you to finally seek justice. Deep down, you know she’s innocent.”
Phineas blinked. He hadn’t even realized that he’d said this. The words had just come out, instinctively. But James was right. Deep down, he knew that Iris would have defended his home—theirhome—and tried to stop anyone who wanted to steal the evidence that would allow him to get justice for his parents’ deaths. Which meant that he did believe she was on his side.
“But then why am I accusing her of working with her father?” he wondered out loud. “Why did I subject her to the barrage of slanderous accusations?”
James opened his eyes wide and sighed. Phineas frowned at him. He knew James had his theories for why he’d done what he’d done, but Phineas didn’t want James’s theories. He wanted to figure out why he would inflict so much pain on his wife.
“If Iris had been home when the robberies had taken place,” he began slowly, “then the men easily could have killed her and made her look like it was an accident. And yes, it does seem like they waited until she was gone to ransack the place. She could have come back early, of course, but that isn’t the point…” He frowned.
Whatwasthe point?
Across from him, James sat back and took a long sip from his scotch. He had a half-amused smile on his face, and Phineas got the impression his friend was enjoying watching him piecetogether his feelings. After all, piecing together and admitting emotions was not something Phineas normally did. He wasn’t very experienced at it.
“The point is, we’re dealing with Carfield. He’s already proved over and over again that he’s dangerous. That he would do anything to get his way. I mean, look at what he did to my parents! He and my father were best friends! I can’t believe all of that was disingenuous. They used to hunt together every week since they were teenagers. But somewhere along the way, Carfield realized that my father being alive was less useful to him than my father being dead. His greed became so great that he was willing to kill him, and my mother, in order to achieve his aims.”
Phineas looked up at James, who was watching him closely. Realization was dawning on him. Fear was flooding him. All of a sudden, everything made sense.
“And if a man can kill once to achieve his aims, then he can kill again,” he whispered. “Especially someone whom he has already grown to hate, like the daughter who betrayed him. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if it allowed him to recover the evidence that he had my parents killed. He might even do it just to take revenge on the two of us.”
Phineas stood up. He was suddenly so restless that he needed to be moving, to try and get rid of some of the stagnant fear inside of him.
“I realized all this—albeit subconsciously—when I was talking to the Constable. I realized that letting Iris be part of my life is dangerous for her. Not only does it put her at risk of being killed if she gets in the way of Carfield’s plans, but it tells Carfield that she is precious to me. And this man has made it his life mission to take away everything that is precious to me—my parents, my land, and now maybe even my wife. If I allow Iris to live with me, if I love her like I want to, then she will always have a target on her back. Carfield will use her to get to me.”
“Bravo!” James said, setting his glass down on the table and clapping his hands together. “I must admit, I didn’t think you’d get there that quickly. That was some excellent bit of insight into your own tortured mind, my friend. Your wife must have taught you how to do that.”
“She has made me more in touch with my feelings than I ever thought possible,” Phineas grudgingly admitted. “But tell anyone that?—”
“Yes, I know. You’ll have me killed.A laCarfield and his closest friend.”
Both of them sobered up. Phineas suddenly felt very tired. All the restless energy left him, and he slowly sank back onto the sofa.
“What am I going to do?” he murmured. “Just because I understand now why I pushed Iris away doesn’t mean I know how to fix this. I almost wish I had accused her of those things because I actually believed them, or in order to protect my ownheart. If that were the case, I could simply apologize to her and beg her to take me back. But now that I know the truth… going back and apologizing wouldn’t help. She would still be at risk from Carfield.”
