“I’m not surprised,” Joshua said. “I did as you asked regarding Bonham. Fortunately, once I discovered his previous identity, everything was fairly easy to investigate.”
Alarm caught Sheridan by the throat. “What previous identity?”
“Before your man of affairs was William Bonham, he was Henry Davenport.”
“Wait, that surname sounds familiar,” Sheridan said.
“You may have uncovered it accidentally in the course of questioning Lady Eustace,” Joshua said. “Did she ever mention a young man who killed himself when your mother refused to marry him?”
Sheridan felt as if a fist of ice closed around his heart. “Matthew Davenport. Yes. Died for love.”
“That was Bonham’s—Henry Davenport’s—older brother.”
“Dear heaven,” Gwyn whispered.
“As you might imagine, it’s no coincidence,” Joshua said. “After Matthew killed himself, his family fell on hard times. The scandal ruined Henry’s father, who was a barrister. He lost all his clients and his reputation. Eventually he and Henry’s mother ended up in debtors’ prison, where both died, leaving sixteen-year-old Henry to fend for himself. So the very clever Henry changed who he was in order to survive. Since he knew a good bit about the law, thanks to his father, he took the name of an obscure member of his mother’s family, long deceased, and somehow got a place as a clerk in a solicitor’s office.”
“I did know Bonham had a background in law,” Sheridan said. “That must be why Father sometimes referred to him as his solicitor.”
“Probably. The solicitor Bonham worked for was so impressed with his work as a law clerk that the man often took Bonham on trips made on behalf of their clients.” Joshua’s expression turned grim. “Guess who one of the solicitor’s more important clients, a wealthy banker, was a friend to.”
“Good God,” Sheridan said, his heart pounding. “Grey’s father.”
“Precisely. I daresay Bonham was shocked to hear that the house party he was attending with his employer was hosted by none other than Lydia Fletcher Pryde, the new Duchess of Greycourt, whom he probably saw as ruining his family.”
“I don’t understand.” Gwyn stared at her husband. “If he blamed Mama and wanted revenge on her, why kill her husband? Why not just kill her?”
“We’ll never know for sure, unless he admits it,” Joshua said, “but I suspect he intended to do so. Instead, the poison somehow ended up in the duke’s food or drink. And afterward, when he saw how little your mother mourned her husband’s death, that probably only reinforced Bonham’s image of her as a deadly siren, who used her beauty and charm to prey on his brother and other hapless men.”
“That’s not fair!” Gwyn cried. “By all accounts, Grey’s father was a despicable man who essentially married her so he and Mama’s mother could continue their affair without its being easily noticed by people in society. Apparently our maternal grandfather didn’t care who our grandmother chose to bed, as long as she was discreet.”
“You knew about that?” Sheridan said. “I only heard of it recently, when Lady Eustace told me. I confess I was so shocked, I didn’t quite believe her.”
“I don’t know if it’s true, but I learned of it from Grey, who learned of it from his uncle, who’d thrown it in his face on occasion.”
“I never knew any of it,” Joshua said. “And I daresay Bonham didn’t either. Your poor mother. No wonder she married again so swiftly. What was it, a year later?”
“Two years.” Gwyn thrust out her chin. “And she married our father for love.”
“Still, two years is quick in some people’s minds, and Bonham would have seen the hasty wedding as evidence of her conniving nature, since he was already predisposed to hate your mother. I’m sure he plotted the best way to get his vengeance on her. So he got his employer invited to that same affair or drummed up an excuse for needing to bring a document to be signed himself or some such. Once there, I suspect he couldn’t bring himself to kill a woman in labor. But perhaps he thought that killing the man she loved might lead to her dying in labor.”
Gwyn scowled. “The man is a monster.”
“Who lost his entire family at sixteen, Gwyn,” Sheridan said. “I’m not excusing him for it, but having lost Helene to illness, I can only imagine how he felt losing a brother to suicide and his parents to illness. He had to blame it on someone. And he picked our mother to blame it on, because she rejected his brother. In his mind, she had set the chain of events in motion.”
Joshua snorted. “We don’t know your mother’s side of the story yet, Sheridan. She may not have been as cruel to his brother as Bonham thinks.”
Gwyn nodded. “I suppose once Mama married Papa, and he took the family to Prussia, Bonham could do nothing more. Following them there would have been difficult, I’m sure.”
“Yes,” Joshua said. “Clearly he gave up his plans for vengeance, at least temporarily. He got his law degree and acquired some wealthy clients. He even got married. Somehow he finagled his way into becoming your grandfather’s man of affairs.”
“There’s no ‘somehow’ about it,” Sheridan said. “Bonham has a reputation for being brilliant, having a talent for not only the law but accounting. Father said that my grandfather often sung his praises in his letters.”
“That’s a good point,” Joshua said. “Everyone I talked to who knew him said he was gifted with both numbers and contracts, the best solicitor they’d ever used. No one would have guessed him to be a double murderer.”
“Not just a double murderer,” Sheridan said grimly. “He killed my uncle and my father, too.” He mused a moment. “The only thing I can’t figure out is why, after serving my grandfather and uncle for years, he suddenly decided to kill Uncle Armie to bring Father and the rest of the family back to England so he could kill Father, too. Why decide to do it nearly thirty years later?”
Gwyn furrowed her brow in thought. “Bonham’s wife died shortly before Uncle Armie did. I remember because Bonham was still in mourning when we met him. And Mama said his wife never bore him any children.”
“So it must have really stuck in his craw that Mother had five,” Sheridan said, “two of them dukes at the time. That she was living a relatively happy, full life in spite of all his attempts to ruin it.”
“Is that why he’s been acting as if he’s courting your mother?” Joshua settled back against the squabs. “He could have murdered her ten times over by now. So has he given up on revenge and decided to try marrying your mother instead?”
As awareness dawned, Sheridan groaned. “That might be his eventual plan—as her husband he would have complete control over her—but I don’t think he was necessarily trying to bring Father back to England when he killed Uncle Armie. I think Uncle Armie discovered what Father discovered later and what got them both killed.”
Sheridan tensed up. “The brilliant William Bonham is embezzling money from the dukedom and quite possibly has been doing so for the past couple of decades. He has apparently decided he might as well get rich off of his revenge.”