Julius's Passion (Regency Club Venus #4) - Carole Mortimer Page 0,45
fever and discomfort.” The older man shrugged.
“I cannot believe… It is despicable,” Bethany accused. “To kill first your brother and then your nephew.”
“Except my nephew is not dead,” Metford snapped.
James looked at his uncle with complete contempt. “But you very soon will be. Dangling at the end of a hangman’s noose.”
Bethany felt as if she had received one shock on top of another these past twelve hours. James’s resurrection. Learning David and Henrietta were not her real parents nor James her brother. To now hear that Adrian Metford had actually killed his own brother, as well as attempting to murder his nephew, was almost beyond belief.
She gave a pained frown. “Why have you always been so kind to me if you felt this way?”
“Because you are my daughter,” he announced triumphantly. “Mine and Henrietta’s.”
Bethany had been feeling off-balance since the moment she learned she was not Lady Bethany Henrietta Metford at all but the illegitimate niece of the Duke of Blackborne.
Now she was glad that was the case, because it meant she could not possibly be related in any way to the madman who believed he was her father. “You and Henrietta…?” She released James’s hand to step away from him, not wishing to be touched by anyone at this moment.
Not even Julius?
Most especially not Julius.
What must he think of this situation, of her, now that he was aware of her illegitimacy, and of her dead mother and insane father?
“Just the once,” her “uncle” answered. “Henrietta and David’s relationship was strained after trying for another child for several years and failing.” He glanced at James. “I am surprised David was able to sire you!”
James scowled. “You had an affair with my mother?”
“Not an affair, exactly. I…comforted Henrietta one evening when David was out at his club. Afterward, Henrietta said it must never happen again, and it did not.” His expression became triumphant. “But that once was enough to produce Bethany. My daughter.”
“Did Henrietta tell you that was the case?” Julius prompted.
“She did not need to do so,” Metford crowed. “She and David took themselves and James off to the continent for several months, and when they came back, they brought Bethany with them. Of course she is my daughter.”
“I am not your daughter,” Bethany denied.
“Of course you are.”
“No. Nor am I David and Henrietta’s,” she said flatly. “They took me in after my real mother died and my father was too ill to care for me.”
Julius saw the way in which Bethany had paled. Not surprising when she had slept for only two hours or so earlier this morning and was now being bombarded with shock upon shock.
He moved around the desk to put his arm about her waist as he guided her across the room to stand in front of the window before taking her gently in his arms. “No matter what you are thinking,” he spoke softly so that only she could hear him, “you are wanted by your brother James and your Uncle Gabriel. You are also wanted by me,” he added softly.
“As your mistress?” she said bleakly.
“No, as my—”
“Put the pistol down, you fool!” James’s shout interrupted them.
Julius instinctively placed Bethany behind him as he turned to face the two men. What happened next seemed to occur as if in a dream.
Metford had removed a pistol from one of the desk drawers and placed it against his temple, and the two men were now struggling together, James to keep the pistol from being fired and Metford growling and cursing as he was thwarted again and again from shooting himself.
In the midst of the struggle, the study door was suddenly flung open, the butler, obviously drawn here by the shouting, now standing openmouthed in the doorway.
The sound of the pistol being fired reverberated around the room.
Chapter Sixteen
Ipswich House, London
One week later
“He’s here, Bethy.”
She turned slowly to look at the brother who had been returned to her a week ago, only for her to learn hours later he was not her brother at all. Except James constantly assured her that he was, that a little thing like not sharing the same blood made no difference to the love he felt for her and always would.
The person who might separate them had now arrived.
Gabriel Templeton, the Duke of Blackborne, had returned from France this morning to be met by Julius Soames with the news that his niece was alive and waiting to meet him at Ipswich House.
Julius…
There had been no opportunity for the two of them to speak privately