Could not be certain his “intentions” weren’t simply a reflection of what he thought he ought to do, ought to feel. How he thought he should now behave with respect to her, the lover he’d effectively jilted.
She wasn’t at all pleased with Justin for telling him her secret; whether if left to herself she would ever have told him, she honestly didn’t know. That point was now moot because Justin had told him—but she didn’t, she’d realized, know what el
se her idiot brother had seen fit to reveal.
Reaching the lodge, she swept through the door with considerable force. Christian followed rather more slowly.
Her gaze fell on her brother, seated at the table, about to tuck into a heaped plate of ham and eggs.
She pinned him with a narrow-eyed glare. “How dare you?”
Justin eyed her measuringly. “How dare I what?”
“How dare you share details of my private life—including the reasons behind my marriage to Randall, which you swore never to reveal—to him.” She flung out a hand toward Christian, now blocking the doorway.
Justin shrugged. “Randall’s dead. Christian isn’t.” With his knife, he pointed as if directing her attention. “He’s here.”
“I know he’s here, but that gives you no right—I gave you no leave—to divulge my personal secrets!”
Justin frowned, his temper rising to match hers. “Well, someone had to. You hadn’t bothered to tell him. Not even after Randall’s death!”
“I would have told him sometime, but that’s not the point!”
“So what is the point?”
“The point is—”
Christian walked forward and pulled out a chair. He didn’t wait for permission from Letitia—certainly didn’t wait for her to sit—before settling at his ease. Leaning back, patient, he waited.
Letitia paced along one side of the table, raging at her brother across the expanse. Glowering, Justin tracked her movements, his cutlery unused in his hands.
Arms and hands flying, Letitia ranted; scowling blackly, Justin gave as good as he got. For his part, Christian said not one word, far too wise in Vaux ways to attempt to intercede; far better for both to air their tempers, to let the pent-up emotions free. While Letitia might be berating Justin over his “disloyal revelations,” that was only her principal complaint; if it hadn’t been that, she would have been upbraiding him over his attempt to deflect suspicion from her by encouraging it to fix on himself. Justin, meanwhile, although dogged in his defense of Christian’s right to know the long-ago truth, was equally irritated by her refusal to accept his grand sacrifice.
Eventually, Christian knew, they’d run down. Letitia, he estimated, had at most a few minutes more left in her. Justin might have greater stamina—not that he would wager on it—but he wasn’t truly angry, more irritated with her for calling him to account for a fault that, in his eyes, was hers.
Christian focused on her face, faintly flushed, eyes sparkling. Despite her protestations, he did wonder if she would ever have told him of her own accord. Knowing her pride, knowing how deeply she’d despised Randall, he doubted it.
As he’d predicted, she eventually sighed, and rubbed the center of her forehead. “This is getting us nowhere.”
Justin opened his mouth, caught Christian’s warning glance and grudgingly shut it. Tightening his grip on his knife and fork, he looked down at his plate. Only to discover that his man, Oscar, clearly a veteran of Vaux affairs, had slipped a cover over the dish.
Without a word, Oscar reached past Justin and whipped the cover off.
Justin grunted his thanks and cut into an egg. “There’s no point carrying on. What’s done is done—now we have to deal with it.”
Having run out of steam, Letitia plopped down on the chair Christian pushed out for her. “I still can’t believe you thought I’d killed Randall.”
“If you’d been able to hear yourself that night, you wouldn’t have any great difficulty.” Justin shoveled in some ham, studied her while he chewed. He swallowed and said, “At least Hermione’s safe from any further matrimonial machinations.”
Letitia nodded.
After their outburst, both needed a moment to recoup. Inwardly smiling, Christian took charge. “Now that we can all think, might I suggest it’s time to focus on the problem before us?”
Letitia and Justin turned their heads and regarded him with identical expressions suggesting neither was sure which problem he was alluding to.
He enlightened them. “If Letitia didn’t kill Randall—which we know to be fact—and Justin didn’t kill Randall—which we also know to be the case—then who did kill Randall?”
They both stared at him, then frowns slowly darkened their handsome faces.