A Gentleman's Curse (Avenging Lords 4)

He was busy phrasing another question in his mind when Claudia said, “So Terence rarely visits Alfred?”

“Rarely?” Justin scoffed. “He’s been once this last month.

”

“To bring the medicine,” Claudia clarified.

“Yes.”

“And both you and Selina attend to Alfred around the clock.”

Justin frowned. “From ten in the morning until ten at night, yes.”

That left twelve hours unaccounted. So Terence might have visited during the night without their knowledge. Lockhart would check with Simmonds upon his return.

“And my father’s symptoms worsened when Lord Greystone returned from India,” Lockhart confirmed.

Justin winced as he nodded. He pressed his fingers to his cheek. “By Selina’s reckoning, Greystone had been home for a few days when Alfred started vomiting and lost his appetite.”

Was it a natural sickness of the heart or was foul play afoot?

“And you’re in love with Selina,” Claudia blurted.

The statement came as a shock. Justin was too much of a fop to satisfy a woman with Selina’s voracious appetite. Then again, he was easy to control, easy to manipulate. Many times in the past, Selina had tried to use her body to get what she wanted. Nothing of any great importance—attention, new dresses, jewels to show how much he cared.

“Selina needs a man who loves her to distraction, not one who abuses and humiliates her publicly,” Justin replied. “Terence didn’t even have the funds to pay her modiste. The poor woman was beside herself with worry.”

And no doubt Justin came to her rescue.

The fool should be pitied, not beaten.

Lockhart climbed off his cousin and dragged the fop to his feet.

Panic flashed in Justin’s eyes. “What are you going to do? Kill me?”

For a second, Lockhart wondered if the comment was said in reference to what had happened on that fateful night at the inn. But if Justin had known the truth, he would have used the information as a weapon to attack, a shield to defend. Unless of course, he was the one hiding behind the oak tree, the one guilty of murder.

No. Justin didn’t have the strength of mind or body to drive a blade into a man’s heart.

“Answer one last question, and I shall release you,” Lockhart said. He would ask Greystone to monitor Justin’s movements for the next two days. “Why would Lord Greystone’s return affect my father so deeply when he believed I was dead?”

“I can only think it was something Captain Connor said on his return from Meerut.”

“Captain Connor? Of the 8th dragoons?”

During his time in India, Lockhart and his friends had spent many drunken nights with the captain. Captain Connor had inherited an estate in Harrogate and returned two months before Lockhart’s ship landed in England. What the bloody hell was he doing in London?

Justin brushed dirt off his coat and breeches. “I’ve never met him. Selina told me Terence spoke to the captain at his club, that the man was happy to inform him you’d not died from a tropical fever but was very much alive and well.”

Damnation!

Lockhart had spent a month in a ramshackle cottage for naught. A month eating pheasant and stew. A blasted month sleeping next to Dariell. He glanced at Claudia’s heart-shaped face, at her sparkling blue eyes, eyes that held the power to caress him with one sweep of her lashes. How could he be angry? He’d spent a month with a wonderful woman who had changed his life.

“So you were all awaiting my return?” Lockhart couldn’t help but feel foolish.

“The captain mentioned that you and Greystone were inseparable. Once Greystone returned, Terence knew it was only a matter of time before you ventured into town.”

And yet both Terence and Selina had appeared shocked to see him at the Comte de Lancey’s masquerade. Was it shock or were they just as skilled when it came to acting?