“I said no such thing, you damned troublemaker,” Sheridan shot back. “Now I remember why I was so happy to have you gone.”
Heywood clutched at his heart. “That’s a hard blow, considering that I took a leave of absence to come help you with this old pile.”
“That’s not why you came home, and you know it. You’re only here because—”
“Boys, boys,” Beatrice said, biting back a smile. “Could you at least wait until the breakfast is over before coming to blows? Gwyn and your mother will hang you up by your . . . um . . . earlobes if you destroy the decorations they so carefully picked out.”
“It’s possible Gwyn would hang them by something decidedly lower,” Grey said.
Beatrice gazed up at him. “I was going to say that, but I wasn’t sure how serious you were about your duchess being able to speak her mind.”
“Around this lot?” Grey snagged a glass of punch from a passing footman. “You have to speak your mind if you’re going to compete with the likes of Heywood.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Heywood said. “I’m an officer and a gentleman.”
She patted his hand. “I’m sure you are. Grey is also a gentleman two days a week.”
“What?” Grey cried in mock outrage. “It must be at least three. I’m certain of it.”
Sheridan had been watching their bantering with an impatient look, and now took the chance to jump in. “I know you’re itching to get out of here, Grey, but I have to talk to you privately about something urgent.”
Grey raised an eyebrow. “Not a chance. The last time you wished to talk to me privately in the midst of a social situation, you were accusing Beatrice’s brother of murder. So I think I’ll pass. It’s my wedding day, after all.”
“Still, I need to speak to you.”
“Anything you wish to say to me can be said in front of Beatrice. And surely you trust Heywood, too.”
Sheridan glanced at Beatrice and sighed. “Very well. It’s about that note summoning Father to the dower house. I’m not entirely certain, but I think it might have been given to Father by a footman who used to work here. He left the day after Father’s death. I’d initially assumed he left because he saw the writing on the wall—that the staff was going to be reduced yet again.”
“But leaving would have been unwise since he wouldn’t have wanted to depart without a reference if he could get one,” Beatrice said.
Sheridan turned to her. “Right. Clever of you to recognize that.”
“My wife is generally clever,” Grey said.
Oh, she liked the sound of that—“wife.” And the “clever” part wasn’t bad, either.
“But now I wonder at the footman’s suspicious timing,” Sheridan went on.
“So do I,” Heywood said. When Grey looked at him oddly, he shrugged. “When I first arrived, Sheridan gave me a summary of his suspicions and what came of them.”
“I didn’t want to get into this today of all days,” Grey said dryly, “but Wolfe said something the day the constable came that started me thinking. He pointed out that if anyone had motive, it was Mother, since she’d had three husbands die, leaving her property, et cetera.”
When his brothers bristled, he said hastily, “Don’t worry, I set him straight on that score, but he had a point. Three husbands dead, two of them so close together that there were barely three years between their deaths? Two relatively young and all in good health? Perhaps this is about someone trying to kill Mother’s husbands. It’s odd, don’t you think?”
He’d talked about this at length with her, but every time he did, a chill swept over her anew at the idea.
Heywood snorted. “That’s absurd. Our father didn’t die until he was a ripe old age, and he and Mother had been married for nearly thirty years.”
“In Prussia,” Grey said. “But only a few months here.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Sheridan asked.
“The first two deaths took place here in England,” Grey said. “But after Mother married Father, they went to Prussia. The few Englishmen there stick out, so murdering Father would have been more difficult to hide. And perhaps the killer couldn’t afford to follow them there. Or he had a family he couldn’t leave or something. But Father came back only after your uncle Armie suffered an accident on horseback. Then Father drowned a few months later in what we’ve already determined was not an accident.”
“Yes, but your father died of an ague,” Sheridan pointed out.