Fallen Hero (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 3)

“Da

mn,” Aaron hissed. He threw a horrified look at Elspeth. “Wait.”

But Aaron was too late to prevent Elspeth from pushing to her feet beside him and looking over the gravestone at her brother. Rather than scream, as he suspected she would, Elspeth walked slowly toward the body, the head of which Oliver was draping with a cloak.

“Sorry, Elspeth,” Oliver murmured.

“He is gone?” Elspeth whispered in disbelief.

Oliver nodded.

“He knew he couldn’t go anywhere but behind bars,” Aaron said softly. He walked up behind her and slid his arms around her. Quietly, he turned her in his arms and held on to her tightly. Strangely, she didn’t cry. “Let’s get you home.”

Aaron suspected the tears would come later.

“It is all right,” she murmured when Oliver tried to cover the rest of the body. “I think that by Thomas faking his own death, he inadvertently did me the greatest favour anybody could do. You see, I grieved for him back then. The man who left the house for London, seemingly perfectly content with his lot in life, did die. He certainly didn’t come back as he said he would. I grieved for the man I thought he was, not knowing what he had become. I cannot be sorry for his loss, not really. I know I will cry, because he was still my brother, if only I can forget the man he became in the study. Right now, all I can feel is glad that he is gone, and no longer in any position to hurt us anymore.”

With that, she took one last, lingering look at the corpse and quietly turned her back. She clasped Aaron’s pro-offered hand tightly and allowed him to guide her through the cemetery, all the way back to the house. Once there, she headed straight toward the brandy decanter in the sitting room, and poured two liberal shots before she downed one.

It burned a fiercely blazing trail all the way down to her gut, which instantly began to burn in protest, but Elspeth paid it no attention. She stared blankly into the fire for several long moments.

“What will you do now?” Aaron asked from beside her.

Elspeth sighed. “I am going to live my life,” she replied quite frankly. “I didn’t stay here because I was content, I stayed here because I truly thought Thomas wanted someone to run his house while he worked on his investments.”

“There weren’t any investments,” Aaron replied. “He lied.”

“What was he doing then?” Elspeth cried in frustration.

“He was writing correspondence, working on how he was going to spend your combined fortunes no doubt. Who knows what he was doing? He certainly didn’t invest his money from what I have seen of his withdrawals. The amounts he took weren’t large enough to be invested in anything of note. Besides, from searching through the desk, there is no paperwork detailing any investments at all. He has to have spent the money he took out of the bank, including yours, on frivolous exploits,” Aaron warned.

“Like whores,” Elspeth said frankly.

Aaron lifted his brows but didn’t deny it because he had absolutely no idea.

“How much is left? Of the money I inherited?” she whispered.

Now that the brandy had settled in her stomach, Elspeth began to feel sicker and sicker. She paled and stumbled over to a chaise upon which she slumped into with a heavy sigh.

Aaron promptly sat down beside her and clasped her hand in his. He had to have some form of contact with her, if only to reassure himself that she really was physically unscathed by her ordeal.

“You know there was the three thousand locked in that coffin. When you come to think about it, it was a very clever plan. Nobody would stop to think that the money might be in there. It was withdrawn. We all thought Thomas had done something in London with the cash. There is no reason why it should ever have been found, which meant Thomas, if he had gotten away with thieving this property off you, could have come back whenever the dust had settled, dug up the coffin, retrieved the cash, and nobody would ever have been any wiser. It’s the perfect crime, really.”

“It is disturbed of anybody’s mind who came up with it,” Elspeth snorted.

“He just got too greedy and had two buffoons helping him,” Aaron replied with a disgusted shake of his head. He slid a look at her. “If Thomas does have any money stashed in any bank accounts anywhere, unless he has left a last will and testament that states otherwise, which I doubt, everything he had will come to you. There won’t be much, though, given what the bank have said. The three thousand Sir Hugo put back into the bank is yours now anyway. I doubt anybody will contest it is rightly yours.”

Elspeth nodded. “There isn’t anybody to contest it, is there?”

“Frederick won’t,” Aaron confirmed. “He is going to be behind bars for a long time.”

He bit out a curse and began to pace in front of the fire.

“What?” Elspeth asked as she watched him.

“I cannot believe he would leave you destitute like that,” he burst out. “It makes me livid that he could actually be that cruel. You were practically starved, of heat and food.”

“That is what they wanted, though, wasn’t it? If they couldn’t try to romance the house out from under me, they would have to force me to sell it. By doing that they had to make life here unbearable,” Elspeth whispered. “I am struggling to believe that the man I thought I knew could really be that callous.”