Money seemed to have been Martha Seabright’s prime obsession. She’d been blackmailing Stanley Hayes for years, after all. How bitter she must have felt when Paula married a man of high social standing and considerable wealth. Especially since, without Martha’s decision all those years ago to sell her son, Archibald Blickson never would have considered Paula a suitable wife.
“There is no need to tell Miss Spencer any of this,” Esther said, her pinched scowl deepening. “It is none of her business.”
“It became my business when your son murdered a woman sitting next to me at the benefit dinner. He then threatened to do the same to me,” Leo replied sharply.
“Murdered?” George tried to stand, but his legs wouldn’t hold him. The boy fell back onto the cushions, Paula catching his arm to steady him.
“Aunt,” she almost wailed, with a pleading look.
Esther would have known, of course, that Martha had not borne a child shortly before sending all three children away to the orphanage.
“You offered to take the children in rather than let your sister send them to the orphanage,” Leo said to Esther. “But Martha denied you. Was it because she knew Felix was the boy’s father?”
Leo wasn’t as certain about this deduction as she had been about Paula being Edward’s mother. However, it would answer why Esther and Felix had been willing to go to such dire lengths to get Edward back now.
The older woman’s body, which was draped in a sensible ulster coat, an item usually only worn while traveling, went rigid. The barest flare of her nostrils indicated Leo had touched a nerve.
“Did Martha hold you responsible for her daughter’s condition? Maybe she wanted to punish you, or Felix, by withholding Edward from you,” Leo suggested.
Paula avoided Leo’s eyes, giving a distinct impression of guilt. Seduced by her own, much older cousin.
“That is why you cut your sister from your life, isn’t it?” Leo continued when neither of the other women spoke. “Because she denied you your own grandchild. A grandchild you were told died in the orphanage’s care. And now, all these years later, you learned the truth just as Paula did. Felix too.”
And here they were, preparing to set out with George in tow. Paula would leave her husband, and Felix his theatre, and they would be the family they ought to have been. Grandmother, included.
“Where is Felix now?” Leo asked, a small twinge of worry creeping in. Esther’s reluctance to shoot her in front of Edward had buffered her from harm. From what Leo had experienced of Felix, however, he would not be so restrained.
“I’d like to get some air,” George muttered, again trying to get to his feet. This time, he gripped the arm of the sofa and balanced himself with a helping hand from Paula. She hushed him, telling him they would go outside soon.
Leo focused on her. “You warned Gavin not to go to the dinner. You said he’d be a traitor if he went, but it was really because you knew what Felix had planned, isn’t that correct?”
Paula bit her bottom lip, still unable to look at Leo.
“You didn’t want your brother to come to harm, just like you don’t want George to come to harm. I can see you care about the boy. Youlovehim.”
“Of course she loves him,” Esther hissed. “She is his mother. A mother will do anything for her child.”
Esther had proven that to be true. She was just as complicit in the killing of Martha Seabright as her son. Not only had the three of them planned to take Edward back from the family he’d gone to, but they also wanted revenge. And not just on Martha.
“Nurse Radcliff arranged the adoption?—”
“That womanstoleour Edward. She knew Paula was the babe’s mother, and yet she allowed my sister to accept that wretched man’s money in exchange for a child she had no right to sell!”
In all truth, Esther wasn’t wrong. Her fury was warranted, as was Paula’s. Martha had done a horrible thing by taking her daughter’s baby and giving him away. She’d profited for years off that adoption, blackmailing Stanley Hayes. And she had deprived her daughter the chance to be a mother to the boy, as she had promised when Paula entered the orphanage.
Martha Seabright had been a despicable sister and an even worse mother. But by murdering her, Esther, Paula, and Felix had lowered themselves to that same level of deplorability. Not to mention what they had planned for Nurse Radcliff.
“Felix went to Twickenham, didn’t he?” Leo asked next. “Nurse Radcliff was found dead yesterday. Murdered, in fact. However, what Felix didn’t know—couldn’t have known—was that the woman he killed was not the Nurse Radcliff who had given Edward away to Stanley Hayes.”
Paula’s dark brows pulled taut in confusion.
“The woman he killed was Nurse Radcliff’s elderly aunt, the former Matron Radcliff. Surely, you remember her, Paula?”
By the instant blanching of her skin, she did.
“The current matron at the orphanage, Caroline Westover, née Radcliff, handled the adoption. Imagine her shock when she found her aunt, an innocent old woman, murdered in cold blood.”
Paula raised a tremulous hand to her lips. “Thatis where he went? To Twickenham? My God. I knew he’d gone somewhere, and I knew Felix was still so angry, but I never thought?—”
