Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83053 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83053 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
“Enough!” Jonathan shouted, slamming his hand on the table. “I did not kill your father, Thomas! We have established quite clearly that Montague did that.”
Polk leaned back, his face pale beneath the candlelight. Thomas rubbed his temples, attempting to make sense of the words being thrown around.
“Even if it wasn’t you,” Thomas began slowly. “You knew about it and you did nothing.”
Jonathan’s eyes widened, and he took a step back, reeling from the accusation. “I… I didn’t know until it was too late,” he stammered. “By the time I figured out what Montague had done, your father was already…”
“Dead.” Thomas finished Jonathan’s sentence with a finality that echoed in the spacious room.
Polk shifted uncomfortably in his chair, absorbing the weight of Jonathan’s confession.
In the silence that followed, Jonathan dropped his gaze to his hands, his fingers working nervously at the buttons of his waistcoat. When he finally spoke, his words were barely audible. “I am not proud of what I did next.”
Thomas took a step towards his cousin, his hands curled into fists. “What?”
Jonathan closed his eyes and took a deep breath in. “I figured out that Montague was responsible for your father’s death, Thomas. I found the letters, and they were damning. I should have turned those over to the authorities, but I…” He buried his face in his hands.
“I swear to God, Jameson, if you don’t tell me right now—”
Jonathan held up a hand. “As you know, the gemstone mines my father and I invested in turned out to be worthless. I needed money, and I suddenly had this information against Montague…”
“You used it against him.” Thomas grabbed Jonathan’s face—his left hand throbbing, but he didn’t care—and forced his cousin to look him in the eye. “Rather than swallow your pride and admit that you were penniless, you blackmailed Montague into helping you get me out of the way so you could inherit the earldom.”
“I didn’t think he was going to try to kill you, Thomas! I knew that he knew everything about you. He’d watched you grow up. I figured he would be able to talk you into relinquishing your title in my favor. I guess he thought that would be a fruitless effort, so he settled on”—all the color drained from Jonathan’s face—“a different way of relieving you of your duty.”
Thomas let go of Jonathan’s face and crossed his arms over his chest, leveling a stony gaze at him. “And yet you didn’t think to tell me? To warn me of what Montague might do to me?”
“I was afraid,” Jonathan admitted. “Afraid of what Montague would do if he found out I’d betrayed him, afraid of what you would think of me for getting entangled in such a nefarious plot.”
“But you knew that there was at least a possibility that Montague might try to kill me.”
Jonathan’s face tightened. “I really didn’t think he would go there. I swear it!” He burst into tears. “Oh, cousin. I beg your forgiveness.”
Thomas regarded his cousin coldly. “It’s not my forgiveness you should be after, Jonathan. It’s God’s.” He turned his back on his weeping cousin.
Polk’s gaze darted between the two men, his face a silent reflection of the tension hanging in the room. “But there is one thing I still don’t understand. Why did Montague want Thomas’s father dead? It’s not as if the earldom would pass to him.”
Jonathan looked up, wiping his eyes. “Revenge,” he said simply. “Against the dowager countess. When his wife took ill, he requested that she summon the physician. She was in the middle of a luncheon and did not call for medical assistance until after it had finished. By the time someone had arrived, his wife had taken a turn for the worse and nothing could be done. Montague believed the countess directly responsible for his wife’s death. A spouse for a spouse.”
A chill ran down Thomas’s spine. “That coldhearted bastard. There would be no way of knowing if his wife would have lived had the physician arrived a few minutes earlier.”
“I’m not defending his actions, nor his motive,” Jonathan replied. “Montague is not well in the head. That much has been made clear to me over the past several months.”
“And yet you still conspired with him.”
“What was I supposed to do?” Jonathan threw his hands into the air in exasperation. “By the time I realized how utterly unhinged a man he was, I was in too deep. Turning him in would have implicated me as well.”
“You could have come to me, Jonathan. I could have turned Montague in, convicted him with your testimony.”
Jonathan gulped. “I did not want you to know of my father’s and my failure in the Americas.”
Another moment of tense silence.
“What poison did he use?” Thomas finally asked. “What killed my father, Jonathan?”
Jonathan’s eyes widened and he swallowed hard. His eyes clouded over as he choked out his answer. “Nightshade. Deadly nightshade.”