face. “What do you wish to converse about, Folkestone?” he asked. His display of calm was admirable, but his voice was higher than it had been.
“To be clear, we all wish to converse with you,” Ferguson interjected, pulling his own pistol from his coat.
Nick rolled his eyes. “There’s no need for theatrics, your grace.”
“This isn’t theatrics. I just don’t want to be left out of the fun. And if Norbury won’t talk to you, perhaps he will talk to me.”
Alex narrowed his eyes. “No one told me to bring a weapon.”
“Ah, Salford. You never get invited to participate in nefarious deeds, do you?” Ferguson said with mock sympathy.
Salford responded by pulling a gun from his coat. “It never hurts to be prepared, though.”
Nick hadn’t stopped watching Norbury during this display. The viscount seemed very close to apoplexy. He edged his chair back as though thinking, vainly, that he might be able to run — or perhaps risk serious injury by tossing himself out the closed window.
“There’s nothing to fear, Norbury,” he said in a soothing voice. “Just tell us what we need to know.”
“I don’t know what you need to know,” Norbury said.
“Do you really have no idea?” Nick asked. “Or are you just telling yourself that?”
Norbury took a deep breath, which led directly into a coughing fit. When he could finally speak, his voice turned into a wheeze. “No idea, Folkestone.”
“I suppose we could shoot you,” Nick mused, “but it would make it hard for me to live in England going forward. I will do it without remorse, though, if it means that Lady Folkestone and our guests are out of danger.”
Norbury’s eyes still watered from his coughing, but they widened as he dabbed at them with a handkerchief. “What danger do you believe Lady Folkestone to be in?”
Nick leaned forward. “If you were better at this, I wouldn’t be concerned. But you and your minions can’t seem to kill me, and eventually she’s going to pay the price for it. They already came close once.”
Norbury blanched. “Whatever has happened to you, you can’t lay it at my doorstep.”
He stood, unexpectedly, and all three of them leveled their guns at him. Marcus leaned against the door and crossed his arms over his chest. Norbury’s eyes darted between them. “Do you really mean to shoot me?” he asked incredulously.
“I would rather not,” Nick said. He set aside his gun and gestured for Norbury to sit. “We confronted you here, rather than in public, because I want to give you an opportunity to save face. I know your friendship with Lady Folkestone is of long duration, and there is no need to ruin your family for your misdeeds. We can settle this quietly. I have a ship that will take you anywhere in the world, as long as you never return. But if you don’t tell us what you know, I’m not averse to beating it out of you.”
Nick didn’t want to beat him any more than he wanted to shoot him — although the longer Norbury delayed, the more he was tempted.
Norbury squeaked. Then he coughed again.
Salford put aside his pistol. “You know, Folkestone, I believe the man really is ill.”
“Did you think I lied about that?” Norbury asked. “What are you accusing me of?”
Nick’s temper broke. “We know you have been trying to kill me. It all makes sense — your India investments, your friendship with Lady Folkestone, your absence from last night’s fireworks. Now, would you rather be transported to Australia quietly, or stand trial for attempted murder?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
If Norbury didn’t kill Nick, she was going to do it herself.
It took her an hour to reach that decision, but she didn’t make it lightly. She mulled over it as she finished her breakfast. She pondered it as a maid dressed her in a simple lavender day gown with a purple sash — something that would be appropriately mournful for marshaling the servants to dispose of a body from her house party. She considered sending someone to make room in the ice house, but the weather was still cold enough that a body would keep in an outbuilding — provided people didn’t continue burning the outbuildings to destroy the bodies within them.
She was losing her mind. She let it happen, though. Making a plan for how to store a dead Norbury was better than imagining Nick’s body in his place. But she didn’t fully decide to murder Nick until, as she and Prudence sat quietly in her salon an