After a moment, frowning, Justin went on, “At first I thought he’d swooned and fallen. I went in, touched him, then saw the dent in the back of his head. If the lamp hadn’t been on that end of the desk, I wouldn’t have seen it-there wasn’t much to see. I checked for a pulse and then looked into his eyes-he was dead. Then I saw the poker lying on the other side of him.”

Justin fixed his eyes on Christian’s face. “Given the whole…” Searching for words, he gestured. “…situation between Letitia and Randall, and how that had echoes in this business about Hermione, I honestly thought he’d pushed her one step too far. That she’d seen red, picked up the poker when he turned away from her, and struck him. And killed him.”

“You didn’t think to go up and ask her-see her, find out, what state she was in?”

Justin grimaced. “I honestly didn’t know if she knew she’d killed him-as I said, the blow wasn’t that easy to see. She might just have struck him, not realized she’d struck so hard, then just flung down the poker and stormed out. Not the most likely thing, not with anyone else, but with her and Randall…well, it wasn’t inconceivable.”

“And you weren’t really thinking all that clearly.”

“Well, no. All I could think about was that she’d killed him, and all because of her marriage to him-all to protect the family, and that even then, she was protecting Hermione…” Justin’s jaw hardened. “I just thought it was time someone in the family protected her.”

Christian had question upon question crowding his mind-about Letitia, her marriage, the “situation”-but he forced himself to concentrate first on clarifying what had happened that night. “Let’s say it was eleven forty-five when you entered the study and found Randall dead. Mellon saw you leave the house, and he admitted he’d already been in bed for a time.”

Justin nodded. “I told him to take himself off, that I’d see myself in.”

“So he said. But Letitia must have left Randall shortly after that. You know your sister-she might rant, but the longest she’ll go for is ten minutes, then she runs out of steam, runs out of temper-and usually storms out and away from whoever she’s screeching at. In this case Randall. And that’s exactly what she says she did-so she must have left Randall at, say, ten thirty-five. Ten-forty at the latest.”

Frowning, Justin nodded for him to continue.

“So you find Randall at eleven forty-five, and wield the poker-but according to my knowledgeable surgeon, while Randall was definitely dead before you struck him, he’d only been dead for fifteen to thirty minutes at most. Not the hour that would have been the case if Letitia had killed him.”

Justin looked incredulous. “Someone else was there?”

Christian nodded. “It appears someone else saw Randall between she and you.”

“I didn’t hear anyone else arrive.” Justin grimaced. “Not that I necessarily would have.”

“Mellon swore no one did.” Christian reviewed what he now knew. “We’ll have to follow that up later, once we’re back in London.” He refixed his gaze on Justin’s face. “Let’s leave the mechanics of Randall’s death aside and concentrate on motives. What is it about Randall’s marriage to Letitia that explains all this?”

Justin blinked, then stared, expressionless, at him. Then he blinked again. “You don’t know?”

“Obviously not.”

Justin let his puzzlement show. “But why hasn’t she told you?”

A rhetorical question, but he gritted his teeth and replied, “You’ll have to ask her. But for now, why don’t you tell me.”

Justin’s perplexity turned to a frown. After a long moment he said, “It’s not my place.” His frown deepened, then he shook his head. “I can’t understand why she hasn’t told you. Before, I can understand-you never went near her, and so never gave her the chance…not that if she’d wanted to she couldn’t have created a moment. But now she’s asked you for help, and you’ve been seeing her for what? Six, seven days? And she still hasn’t told you?”

Christian looked at him. “Just tell me.”

There was that in his voice that brooked no further argument.

Justin met his eyes, raised his brows fleetingly, then capitulated. “I knew you and Letitia planned to marry, that she’d sworn to wait for you to return from the wars.”

He wasn’t surprised; Justin and Letitia had always been close.

“All was well until eight years ago. All just rolling along as it usually did, then suddenly-no warning whatever-m’father informed us, Letitia and me, that we-the Vaux, the family-were bankrupt.”

Christian blinked.

Justin saw and grimly nodded. “Indeed. Somehow, he’d run through the entire fortune, and it wasn’t a small amount.”

“How?”

“Investments.” Justin’s lips curled, and Christian knew what had turned him so conservative. “Somehow or other-it was never clear-the whole lot had gone. Worse, we were in debt, and sinking fast. There was no way back, no way out. Except…at just that time, Randall, who Letitia had met but only in passing, made an offer for her hand. The pater refused, of course-when Randall pressed, Papa intimated that the family weren’t flush with funds. Not long after, Randall came back-with a complete and accurate summation of the family’s finances, and a plan to resurrect them.”

“Let me guess-the plan included Letitia marrying him.” He heard himself ask the question, but part of his mind had already disengaged. Was already absorbed with another, quite different question.

“Not included-the plan was contingent upon their marriage. And not just that. There were conditions. Some of them I don’t know-once she’d decided she had to do it, Letitia took it upon herself to finalize those with Randall. I do know that part of the agreement was that there would be no hint whatever that Letitia had married to secure the money-that he’d bought her, as it were. He insisted, and she ultimately agreed, that to the ton and the world, the marriage had to appear to be a love match.”

“Was there any chance Randall was in any way connected with the bad investments your father made?” Again the words fell from his lips perfectly sanely; inside his skull, a chant of Why, why, why? was starting to pound.

Justin met his eyes. “There was no hint of it.” Then he added, “Not then.”

That recaptured his attention; he narrowed his eyes. “But now?”

“When Randall started proposing investments to me, I got suspicious. Knowing why he was doing it, there was just too much of an echo with the past. I started asking around. I haven’t found anything definite, but…the feeling’s still there. That if all those years ago we’d looked more carefully, we would have found a connection.”

“Is that what’s behind your rift with your father?” Some small part of his mind persisted in filling in the gaps. The rest was consumed with more pressing issues.

Justin sighed, closed his eyes. “Yes. I couldn’t-still can’t-forgive him for losing all that money. For putting all our futures at risk, for being the reason Letitia sacrificed herself-her happiness, the future she should have had-to secure ours.” He opened his eyes. “That’s what I can’t stand-it still rankles. Every time I see him.”

Christian nodded absently.

A moment ticked past. He was about to push back from the table-to pursue the urgent need building inside him-when Justin, who’d been broodingly studying him, said, “You know, I take it back. I can understand why Letitia hasn’t told you. You should have known how it was. She loved you. The only thing that might have swayed her was duty to the family-you had to have known that.”

The observation gave him pause. He hadn’t known that because…

Regardless, a lack of faith on his part didn’t excuse the oversight-the slight-implicit in Justin’s story. He dragged in a huge breath. “I…see.”

He could hardly speak-couldn’t think. The emotions churning inside him were so powerful he wasn’t even sure he could stand. He pushed up from the table. “If you’ll excuse me…I’ll see you in the morning.”

Puzzled, curious, but after one glance at his face not about to detain him, Justin nodded.

As he reached the door, Justin called, “You may as well bring Letitia with you tomorrow. She’ll be happier once she sees me.”

He raised a hand in acknowledgment but made no reply. He had no idea what state Letitia would be in come morning.

He might just have strangled her by then.

Leaving the lodge, he strode swiftly, increasingly quickly, back to the house.

Chapter 7

Letitia heard Christian’s footsteps an instant before he flung open the door to her room. Catching the door’s edge with one hand, his gaze pinned her where she sat swiveled around in surprise on the stool before her dressing table, then he stepped into the room-and slammed the door behind him.

He stalked toward her, glowering furiously. More angry than she’d ever seen him, angrier than she’d thought he could be. His face was pale, his nostrils pinched. As he drew near, his eyes reminded her of thunderheads, roiling and dangerous.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me why you married Randall?”

The words were uttered with such vehement force, a lesser woman would have quailed.

Unimpressed, she swung her legs around so she was facing him, and arched her brows. “And what good would that have done? Now, so long after the fact?” She realized the implication, and calmly continued, “From which question I take it you found Justin. Where is he?”

Halting before her, he glared down at her. “In the lodge in the park.”

She frowned. “Damn! I’d completely forgotten it existed. I thought it was derelict-Justin’s the only one of us who’s ever had any interest in it. Of course, over recent years he’s spent much more time here than I have. I’ve hardly-”