have come out eventually. It is too big a secret for a man like that to manage forever. The pain would have still come.”
“I suppose that’s true. But I don’t like being the architect of it regardless.” Gilmore huffed out a breath of frustration. “Dastardly wicked business, this.”
“I agree.” He was careful about his tone as he asked, “Where is your sister at present?”
Gilmore jerked his gaze to Owen. “Why do you ask?”
Owen stopped in the path. “My duty now is to investigate what happened to Montgomery. I have curiosity about all the players in his final days and weeks on this earth.”
Gilmore shook his head. “My sister isn’t a killer. Even if she wished to be, she wasn’t in Town to do such a thing. As soon as I realized what was afoot, I had her spirited away to my estate in Cornwall. She is far, far away, Mr. Gregory, and will remain there.”
“She must have been grieved to know the man she thought she loved enough to marry was untrue,” Owen said.
“She’s young,” Gilmore muttered. “So very young. And she feels deeply. So yes, she is heartbroken, indeed.”
“I’m sorry for it.”
Gilmore cleared his throat. “You must think me a great fool for not knowing what was happening in my own house. Especially since the man involved was brother to one of my closest friends. A man I grew up with off and on.”
Owen nodded. “I admit the question has crossed my mind.”
There was a long pause before Gilmore spoke again. “What you must understand is that though I had a passing acquaintance to Montgomery when we were children, we were never close. He and Leighton were always at odds and were often kept from each other. When Leighton inherited the title, he cut his brother off and I hadn’t seen the man since an ugly encounter more than three years ago. When I thought of him, which wasn’t often, I always assumed he was simply living his life in London.”
“But when you discovered your sister was secretly involving herself with someone, didn’t the name tip you off?” Owen pressed.
“The secret was the problem,” Gilmore said with a heavy sigh. “I knew there was an interested party and that he could not be a man of honor because he was sneaking around, violating the bounds of propriety in order to see Ophelia alone.”
The way Gilmore’s jaw clenched did not alleviate any of Owen’s suspicions about him. In that moment, the duke looked like he could kill.
“And that was when you hired me,” Owen said.
“Yes.” Gilmore shook his head. “God’s teeth, this is nothing but horrific. When you told me it was Erasmus Montgomery and that there were other brides…it became clear that the man was a bigamist. It’s too much. I despise Montgomery with every fiber of my being.”
“Enough to kill?” Owen asked softly.
Gilmore turned on him and their eyes locked. “I wanted him dead, yes. But I never would have killed him. There were ways to deal with this problem without it being public but murder certainly wasn’t one of them.” He shook his head. “To cause harm to my sister, to my friends…to Abigail and the other wives? I despise it to my very core.”
Owen examined his companion more closely. He’d learned over the years that there were pieces of evidence that proved and disproved, unadulterated facts that could be measured and shown to others. And then there were the kinds of feelings that he had learned to trust in himself. He’d trained himself to see lies, to see pretended emotions.
When he looked at Gilmore, he saw nothing disingenuous. He believed the duke. And the fact that the man had brought him along to confront Montgomery the night they found his body also was a point in his favor.
So although he couldn’t dismiss Gilmore completely, Owen wiped his name from the top of his list of suspects and felt comfortable with doing so. Which meant he could focus on other topics that the man might assist with.
“Leighton mentioned an earlier love of Montgomery’s. A barmaid? Since you were acquainted with the family, do you recall anything about her?”
Gilmore nodded. “I think I remember something of the scandal, yes. Our fathers were friends, you know. I’m certain they must have spoken about it. Would you like me to seek out the late duke’s diaries and correspondence and see if I can uncover any facts of that situation?”
“That would be very helpful, yes,” Owen said.
“Very good.” They had almost