“Big house, garden full of flowers I couldn’t pronounce. Awkward silences. He did say he’d been sad to learn of Mum’s death, which was kind, and then he offered to pay for my commission. Said he thought Mum would want him to do whatever it took to keep me safe, which was true. I took it for her.”

Edgar could have kept his heir in Britain altogether. “Nothing else?”

“I didn’t want to be the Earl of fucking Warwick, and there was still a possibility for him to father a legitimate heir.”

Stranger things had happened.

“That changed after Egypt.” Kit refilled his glass and carried the decanter to Jasper, who shook his head. He needed his wits about him. “I went to see him after I returned—once I saw Da.” He returned the whiskey to the cabinet and kept walking. He reached the door before he reversed direction. “I wanted him to know he’d invested wisely, I suppose.”

Jasper understood that compulsion. He’d often wondered whether his father would be proud of what he was accomplishing. Since Grandfather’s death, the curiosity had doubled.

“It was clear he was ill.” Kit’s jaw kicked sideways. “Very ill. We went on a carriage ride around the village and the estate, and then we went back to the hall. Edgar warned me he’d written a new will, claiming me. He wanted to keep Warwick safe.”

“Safe?” Jasper thumped his glass to his desk. “From me?”

“That was a poor choice—”

“Get out.” Jasper heard his knuckles crack before he felt them. His heartbeat deafened him to anything other than his breathing. “Leave.”

Kit placed his glass on the nearest table and walked to the door.

“Wait.” Jasper didn’t turn, but he knew Kit would stop. He always did. “We were set upon by highwaymen on the way here. We may be getting too close, either in London or in Cardiff. Be careful.”

“Thank you for the warning.”

The door closed with a snick. Jasper refilled his drink, his back to the empty room. The latch clicked again.

“Jasper?”

“Mother.” He had so many questions, but he didn’t dare face her until he had better control of his emotions.

Instead, she put herself in his line of vision. “There is a way to fight this. Mr. Burks says we can argue that Edgar’s illness rendered him incompetent. That a devious man took advantage of a previous kindness, and—”

“You knew, didn’t you?” She had to have known. She and the family lawyer hadn’t arrived at this plan of action surrounded by strangers at a house party. It explained also her cold civility every time Kit visited. “All this time, you knew and you said nothing.”

“We thought it best.”

Best. To keep the secret that his best friend, the man he thought of as a brother, was actually related to him.

“Burks is ready with the paperwork—”

“I will not lie about Kit’s paternity. Edgar did the right thing, finally, and we will honor it.”

He lifted the decanter and carried it with him to a chair that faced the gardens. “Leave me.” The glass was half full when he remembered his manners. “Please.”

She did.

Jasper drank until the garden resembled the impressionist painting hanging over the mantel in the dining room.

His life was full of secrets and lies, the ones he’d perpetuated as a façade to hunt other liars and thieves and the ones others told him. His mother, his best friend, his family—even his wife.

Darkness fell as he finished the whiskey and moved on to the gin.

Was Annabel a spy, using everything at her disposal to get close to him? Or was her interest, her affection, authentic? Had he let her into his life only so she could tell Spencer everything and ruin his plans? Or worse, given the attack on the road? He couldn’t be sure of anything any longer.

Stapleton was a shadow against the firelight as he set a tray on the desk. “Lady Ramsbury insists you eat, your lordship.”

Jasper nodded but didn’t leave his chair. There was every possibility she’d poisoned it. Or, since Kit had hired Stapleton, they were working in concert. Perhaps the assassination attempts weren’t related to his progress in the embezzlement case or Gareth’s death, but instead led to his newly discovered cousin’s darker motives.

His stomach rumbled and gurgled as the scent from roast beef and herbed potatoes curled through his nose and downward. Using the desk for balance, he moved to his chair and sat. After choking down the first few bites, eating became easier. The room was brighter and warmer than he’d thought, though he’d never heard anyone stoke the fire or bring in candles.

Annabel. It had to be her doing. Mother would have fussed, and the servants would have never breached the door of their own accord. Would a woman who wished him dead care whether he sat starving and cold in the dark?

Jasper finished his dinner and stood. He left the room and several of his doubts behind, though he listed to the right as he crossed the hall. He clung to the banister and watched his feet as he climbed the stairs. It would never do to evade being trampled and shot only to tumble backward and bash in his head on his own stairs.

His bed was turned down, but empty. His eyes adjusted to the dim light. Annabel’s door was ajar, a sliver of firelight tempting him to go through it.

A bleary-eyed Travis entered the room a few moments later. “Your lordship. Do you need—”

“Thank you, Travis, but return to bed,” Jasper whispered, hoping to avoid waking his wife. “I can do this myself.”

He did just that, stripping off his clothes before filling the basin and scrubbing clean. He cleaned his teeth last, hoping to rid himself of the smell of alcohol, if not the effects.

He opened the door to a room he’d never entered as an adult, other than during the tour the previous butler had insisted on conducting before his departure. Likely to prove he hadn’t stolen anything.

All Jasper cared for was the woman in the bed, facing the door. Everything he wanted to ask her, every word he wanted to say, jumbled together in his brain and stayed there. “My feet are cold.”

A slow smile crept over Annabel’s face as she pulled the bedclothes back in invitation. Jasper slid beneath them and into her arms. Her warm cheek rested against his chest. “Your mother told me everything.”

Likely not everything. He didn’t even want to tell her everything. Not tonight.

“She believes you are angry over Edgar’s slight.” Her breath heated and tickled his skin.

Her hair was silk against his fingers. “What do you believe?”

“That you want a fourth estate like you want a third arm.”

“A third arm might be useful now and then.” He stroked her spine, and she arched closer, pressing her breasts against his ribs. “They lied to me, Annabel.”

“Do you tell the truth all the time?”

He forced himself not to squirm away from her question. “This isn’t water in my gin glass. He’s my cousin, and he couldn’t find a good time over the last twenty years to tell me. Neither could Mother.”

“Sometimes the longer you’ve kept a secret, the more difficult it is to reveal,” she whispered. “Especially if you care about the person.”

Her words pricked his conscience, but he pushed the impulse aside as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. The peace she gave him was addictive, and he didn’t wish to lose it. Perhaps, though, he could explain the reasons for his decisions and it would help later. When he was sober. And clothed, without her knee resting near vital bits of his anatomy.

“Society wraps heirs in soft cloth until we’re needed,” he said. “We’re all shipped off to school, safe from any drama of home and family. We’re groomed to manage estates, but not work them; to create children, but not raise them; to declare wars, but not fight in them.”