Page 50 of Marriage Most Scandalous
She squirmed but told him honestly, “I was afraid you were going to kill her.”
“I wasn’t, but how in the bloody hell am I going to get the truth out of her if I can’t speak to her alone?”
“It’s not as if everyone here doesn’t know what you’ll be asking her. You don’t need privacy for it.”
“You’re missing the major part of that scenario, Maggie. Having others around will give her the courage to lie. She’ll feel safe doing so.”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” she replied with some embarrassment.
“No, you were too busy thinking you’d hired a murderer,” he replied.
A lot of embarrassment now. “You did look like you had murder on your mind,” she said in her defense.
“Good to hear, since that was intentional,” he said dryly, then sighed. “Very well, a new tactic, then. If it’s all been about the bloody title, then let’s see how long it takes them to try to kill me.”
She didn’t like the sound of that, not one bit. “You’re going to set yourself up as a target?”
“That is the easiest course of action, since the lady will no doubt go to extremes to make sure I never find her alone now.”
“Do you really think your brother is part of this?” she asked him.
“Don’t you?”
“Well, yes, I did but that was before I learned that he’d like to divorce her but can’t. What d’you suppose is preventing him?”
“Blackmail would be the logical guess, though with that lady, anything is possible. However, you might as well know I never suspected my brother of having harmed our father. He may have harbored some resentments, but not against our father. I believe he resents me because he loves Douglas and felt I was the favored one. On the other hand, I doubt Juliette is alone in this.”
“Who, then?”
“Timothy mentioned that one of the grooms in the stable here speaks with a French accent. I checked into that with Hobbs. The chap was hired to work here at Juliette’s insistence, right after she married Denton. So he is definitely an acquaintance of hers.”
“Or accomplice.”
“Exactly. Which could explain how my father had another accident yesterday while Juliette was in London. Her accomplice could have been hiding behind one of the trees and thrown something out on the road to spook the horse, then removed the evidence.”
“People have been known to break their necks falling off horses,” she remarked.
“True, though the chance of that is rather bad odds, which leads me to wonder . . .”
“What?”
“If the intention is actually to kill him, or just make it appear so.”
“For what purpose? To frighten him?”
Sebastian chuckled without humor. “If so, they’re failing miserably. He has to suspect something for that premise to work, but from all that you’ve told me he seems to suspect nothing. But no, I was thinking along different lines, that perhaps these accidents are meant to frighten Denton instead, which could be the hold Juliette has over him.”
“Goodness, I never would have thought of that.”
“It’s just supposition.”
“Have you considered the possibility that Douglas just doesn’t want to frighten the rest of us by admitting something is amiss?”
“Actually, I’d guess that is more likely the case, rather than his concluding there’s nothing odd about the number of accidents he’s recently experienced. My father isn’t stupid. We’ll have to see what my talk with him turns up.”
“If he’ll speak to you.”
“I don’t intend to give him a choice in the matter,” he said.
