His mind recoiled at what she described. His jaw clenched so hard he couldn’t speak. If Finley were not already dead, he’d—
“She grew up fast,” Beth said. “It changed her, not all to the good. Then the miracle happened.”
“Miracle?”
“One night when we were in London—he rarely brought her up here, and even then never let her go out. We were up here and he got drunk and took after her. I feared he would kill her. The next day, after he’d left the house, a boy come to it, asking for the woman of the house. She was in no condition to be seen, but she went to the threshold and this boy hands her a box, then left. It contained money. Gold coins. We neither of us could imagine who sent it. We waited for someone to arrive and say there’d been a mistake, but no one ever did. If that weren’t a miracle I don’t know what one is.”
“And so she left?”
“As did I and my boy, as soon as we returned to Dorset. We lived in one chamber together at first, while she found a way to get a separation. She bought a pistol and learned how to use it and took it everywhere, even to bed, in case he tried to come and get her and force her back. Fortunately he died soon after he was made to agree to her living apart, so she was safe then.
“I thought you should hear some of this,” Beth said. “She told me some of what happened with you. She doesn’t trust men much anymore. Especially ones that can hurt her. She is better off left alone by such as you.”
Beth’s expression turned belligerent when she warned him off. He could hardly blame her. He could hurt Minerva with this inquiry. He had broken into her house to see if he could, hadn’t he?
Minerva knew that when one got down to it, her inheritance made her an excellent suspect. High on the list, as she put it. That she had permitted their passion was a testament not to his great skills as a seducer, but to her indomitable spirit that even now wanted to be free of that horrible time, completely.
“Is she at home now?” he asked.
“She’d think it odd that I went out if she were. She left to go to the City. Had to visit some office about ships.”
“Do you remember which office?”
Beth shook her head and began retracing her steps. “She mentioned it, but I don’t remember. In the City, though. Something to do with packets.”
“I thank you for telling me this.”
“There was more, but not fitting for you to hear.” With that she walked away from him.
He didn’t need to hear it. He could imagine it. Finley had probably been a brute in bed too. A man looking for a victim would not stop at that.
He remained where he stood for a long time, looking out over the park but seeing nothing. Anger came in waves, and each time he had to force control on it. He should have known this. Should have guessed, or at least suspected, especially after she told him about her husband’s failures in bed. If Minerva had been timid or fearful or other than the self-possessed woman she was, he might have at least wondered. Instead she had defeated the mouse that Finley had tried to make her, and turned into a tigress. Margaret Finley had indeed become Minerva Hepplewhite, even before she assumed the new name.
He swung up on his horse and turned it toward the park’s gate. She was looking into ships. Packets. Hell, maybe she was planning to leave England.
* * *
Minerva closed the tome and sat back in her chair. Normally she was excited when an inquiry yielded the results she expected. This time she hated it.
She should tell Chase about this. She would not, however. Soon enough he would look into where everyone had been that night the duke died. He would want to confirm their stories. Then he would learn what she had just learned, that Kevin Radnor had not been in France that day. He had been right here in England.
She could not spare Chase that discovery, but she did not have to be the person who told him, either.
She thanked the clerk who had aided her and stood, brushing the dust off her dress and pelisse. She removed her bonnet and gave it a good shake. She made her way out of the building only to find her way blocked. Standing just outside the portico, his arms crossed and his face set in an expression of concern, stood Chase Radnor.
He saw her emerge and stepped up to where she had paused. His presence made an exquisite, sad yearning flutter inside her.
He looked down at her, his blue eyes dark like lapis lazuli, his rough features refined by the patrician angles they formed. His gaze demanded her entire attention.
“I do not think you had anything to do with the duke’s death,” he said. “I know this as surely as I know I’m standing here.”
“Yet you have no proof of it, and some evidence that disagrees.”
“I know, Minerva. I have no doubts about it.”
He did know. She saw the truth of that in him. Her throat tightened. To be believed by anyone was not something she ever counted on.
“Come with me,” he said, offering his hand. “I would like to talk with you if you will permit it.”
They strolled along the City’s streets until they arrived at Lincoln’s Inn. The gardens there offered some privacy and they sat on a bench. Barristers walked by in their robes and clerks hurried back and forth.
He took her hand, discreetly, so anyone walking by would not see. Glove on glove their interwoven fingers nestled between their hips on the bench.
“Beth spoke with me.”
“I wish she had not.”
“I am glad she did. Everything she told me fit with what you had already let me know. I was just too stupid to see it.” He squeezed her hand. Again that frown, and a troubled expression. “Beth said he hurt you badly.”
To speak of it, to give particulars, would revive memories she had learned to forget. All the same a chill ran down her back, like the old days. “We both feared one day he would go too far. It seemed a high price to pay for the satisfaction of knowing he would hang.”
“I am grateful that he did not have that chance. Relieved and grateful.”
“He didn’t have the chance because I found a way to leave him.”
“Was that when you came here?”
“I left before he died.” She lined up what she needed to explain, and what she might avoid. “I left Algernon and went to live on my own, with Beth and her son. He kept trying to force me back. He began some court proceeding that would obligate me to do so. I decided I could not accept that. So I found the information that would stop him.”
“You conducted an inquiry.”
“My first. Beth helped. Even Jeremy helped, boy though he was. We learned that Algernon was not always impotent. On occasion he could be most potent. With another woman, who played peculiar games with him.”
“Did that stop him?”
“He laughed at me when I threw it at him. He wasn’t even ashamed that his lover was a relative. An aunt, for goodness’ sake. A blood relative at that. So I arranged to catch them at it.”
“I trust you brought witnesses.”
“Of course. I found where they met. I waited until they were together, paid off the innkeeper, and up we went with the key. There they were, doing something he would not want described in a courtroom. He tried to bribe my witnesses on the spot, but they held firm for me. He agreed to a separation a week later. That helped, but not as much as I had hoped.”