Who Wants to Marry a Duke - Sabrina Jeffries Page 0,63

again.

“I think they truly were in love,” Gwyn said.

“Or they truly believed they were, anyway,” he said.

“Are you still so cynical?” Gwyn asked. “Hasn’t Olivia changed your opinion about love in the least?”

He snorted. “Certainly not.” And surely Olivia was too practical to believe in love.

But Gwyn was wrong about it being time they told Mother their suspicions concerning the deaths. It was too soon. They didn’t even have enough evidence to prove the murders or who might have done them.

Telling his half brothers, Sheridan and Heywood, on the other hand, was another matter. When Sheridan had first pointed out that the two most recent dukes of Armitage, including their stepfather, might have been murdered, Grey, and later, Thorn, had been skeptical. Now both of them were less so. And since the current Duke of Armitage was Sheridan, Thorn could no longer afford to ignore the possibility that Sheridan might be next.

That thought rolled around in his head throughout the day. While he was riding out to speak to a tenant farmer about switching to growing barley next year. Or when he was talking to the master of the hounds about buying a few more retrievers to fill out their kennel. Or even after dinner while he relaxed in his banyan and hunted through the printed copies of his plays to see if he’d ever done a final scene like the one he was preparing to write.

Thoughts of Sheridan and Heywood were still at the back of his mind when he strolled out into the hallway to find Olivia coming up the stairs with brisk steps and bright eyes. Her gown—a coarse one of bottle-green fustian with cap sleeves—seemed to be the one she preferred for working with chemicals. To that was added a white apron.

For some reason, he imagined her in nothing but that apron, and his pulse leapt into double-time. He wanted to strip everything from her. He wanted to see her naked.

Damn. “Up late again, I see.” Thorn closed the door to his study behind him. It wouldn’t do for her to wander in and see his work in progress spread out across his desk.

“So are you. But I’m glad.” She smiled as she paused outside his study. “How is it you always guess when I’ve made an important discovery I’m just itching to tell you about?”

“Perhaps I really can read your mind.”

“I doubt that,” she said with a lilting laugh. “Because if you could, you’d know I have done it!” She continued up the stairs at a slow pace that invited him to follow.

So he did. “Done what? Is this another of those remarkable developments in chemistry that I can’t even understand when you explain them?”

“No, indeed. This is the culmination of everything we hoped for. I found arsenic exactly where I’d postulated that it might be—in his stomach, which means his food had been poisoned with a large dose. And the fact that I didn’t find any in his other organs only confirms that the poison had been fed to him.”

“That’s impressive. Congratulations. So that means your method works just as you had expected?”

“It does. I can write an article about it as soon as you and Grey are comfortable with that.”

“You’re sure it can be trusted as evidence in a court of law?”

“I am. Isn’t that amazing?”

“It is,” he said as they reached the next floor. He found her excitement amusing, considering what had caused it. “You’ve proved that Grey’s father was murdered. Amazing, indeed.”

Her face fell. “When you say it like that, it sounds awful.” Slowly, she headed toward the suite of rooms she’d been using, across from Gwyn’s bedchamber. “I shouldn’t be excited over any man’s death.”

“I’m just teasing you. He died long ago.” He prayed his sister was asleep by now. Otherwise, their voices might impel her to come chaperone, and he was enjoying having Olivia to himself. “Forgive me, but I find it funny the way you get so delighted about the results of your experiments.”

“Well, I’ve always been more comfortable in the laboratory. I don’t understand people very well. I try to, but sometimes their behavior just isn’t logical.”

“I agree with you there. People are peculiar beings.”

She nodded. “As Shakespeare said, ‘For man—’”

“‘—is a giddy thing.’”

“Yes! I do love that line.”

“And I do realize your success in finding the arsenic is quite an accomplishment, not just for you, but for all of us. It means we haven’t been imagining things.”

She paused outside her sitting room. “You mean about Grey’s