Carlotta stood outside the door and stared blankly at the wall opposite while she listened to Phillip talk to her father. She had expected Horace to warn Phillip of some sort of fictitious character flaw to try to prevent him from helping her, but he didn’t.
Because Phillip told him that I was his wife.
Carlotta closed her eyes and allowed tears to trickle steadily down her cheeks. She still struggled to understand what had happened over the last several days. She had endured so much yet in a way was glad that she had been through it. It had taught her that she was far more capable than she had realised. That she could survive by herself. It was difficult and not at all enjoyable, but she could do it. She had learnt that she didn’t have to put up with anybody’s bullying of her, criticism of who she was, or someone telling her what she should say, think, do or want out of life. She was ready to move away from her father’s house. In fact, she had to wonder how she had managed to live there for as long as she had.
‘Now what?’ she whispered.
For the first time in her life she had absolutely no idea what she wanted to do; what the future had in store for her. What she did know was that with a thousand six hundred pounds she had far more choices than she thought she had.
Suddenly, a burgeoning thought began to build in the back of her mind. She contemplated it before instantly dismissing it, but it refused to budge or be ignored and continued to build into a very real and persistent possibility. So much so, Carlotta almost absently began to climb the stairs to her bed chamber. She didn’t even bother to think about staying beside the door to listen to the rest of the conversation. She had heard enough already. It was time to leave the past behind her and focus on the future, and it was a heck of a lot brighter than she had realised, but it had nothing to do with her inheritance and everything to do with one very special man: Phillip.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘Where did you get the thugs from?’ Phillip asked Horace.
‘Yes, where does a man like you meet hired guns?’ Oliver added.
Horace glared at the floor. ‘I met them in a tavern.’
‘Which one? We are going to go to the tavern to find the thug who escaped. He shot at officers of the War Office and has to be arrested for it.’
‘It was you who killed his friend, wasn’t it?’
‘Well, he did walk straight into the middle of one of our investigations, fully armed and ready to fire. You can hardly expect us not to shoot him, now can you?’ Oliver drawled.
Phillip tipped his head and squinted at Horace while he contemplated what Carlotta had told him. ‘You knew your wife was having an affair, didn’t you? That is why you returned when she was leaving the house? You knew you were going to catch her in the middle of trying to escape you.’
‘The stupid woman couldn’t lie worth a damn,’ Horace growled. ‘Of course I knew she was having an affair. She refused to visit my bed and wouldn’t even let me touch her. I had heard rumours. People had seen her in the town. She was careful to keep her assignations away from the village and use the guise of visiting her cousin. I only realised she was lying when I knew that damned fool of a cousin of hers had gone to London for a few weeks, yet my betraying wife told me that she was going to visit her cousin.’
‘How did you know she was going to leave you?’ Oliver prompted.
‘Because I had heard them whispering on several occasions, but they stopped as soon as I entered the room. My wife always locked her door whenever she wasn’t in her bed chamber. When I demanded the key from her, she claimed she hadn’t got it on her, or she had put it somewhere but couldn’t remember where. So, I went into Carlotta’s bed chamber and had a look around. At first glance it all looked as it should be but when I searched the drawers, I found them empty. Everything had been packed into a single bag which had been stored in the cupboard beside the fireplace. She was ready to leave. I suspected that was what they had been whispering about and knew that if they were going to leave it would be when I planned to go away. I left as I usually did, but only went to the tavern in the village and had a few ales. An hour or so later, I returned to the house and watched it from the end of the garden. It didn’t take him, that lover of Regina’s, long to turn up with his carriage. They were in the process of loading the bags onto it when I turned up. That’s when I lost my temper.’
‘So you beat the lover half to death and then turned on your wife because she dared defy you,’ Phillip whispered.
‘I didn’t plan to do it. It wasn’t murder. I didn’t mean to kill her,’ Horace growled.
It wasn’t a mournful plea like any innocent person would make. Horace’s protest was an outraged snarl of contempt that did little to convince any of the Star Elite of his innocence.
‘Did you push her?’ Oliver demanded.
Horace didn’t answer.
‘We will take your silence as confirmation that you did,’ Phillip warned. ‘You pushed her. According to the star witness, in this case Carlotta, you pushed your wife, who stumbled backward and caught her heel on the stone steps leading up to your front door. Because she fell backward, she couldn’t stop herself from falling and slammed her head onto the stone steps with all the force you pushed her, and it killed her instantly.’
‘She wouldn’t wake up,’ Horace whispered. ‘At first, she was breathing. I tried to help her but what could I do? She was breathing, but then she just - stopped.’
‘But you pushed her and ma
de her hit her head. If you hadn’t attacked her, she wouldn’t have fallen, wouldn’t have hit her head, and wouldn’t be dead today. That is murder, Horace. Because of you, she lost her life and it was through no accident, no freak of bad luck. It was a shove – your shove – that killed her.’ Phillip sighed heavily and didn’t hesitate to step back when Jasper and Aaron stepped forward to restrain Horace.
‘Are you really married?’ Horace asked with a suspicious glint in his eye.
‘Yes,’ Phillip lied, having no qualms about lying to a killer. ‘She is my wife.’
‘Let me see the certificate. You don’t have my permission to marry her,’ Horace growled.
‘She is three and twenty,’ Phillip replied calmly yet firmly. When Horace didn’t deny it, Phillip heaved a mental sigh of relief. ‘Then she is old enough not to need your permission to marry in a legal sense. Yes, it would socially and morally be the right thing to do to ask for your permission to marry but seeing as you are a killer, I don’t think I have to give a damn about your opinion. I mean, what individual would go to a murderer to ask their permission to do anything in their lives?’