Page 112 of The Work of Art

Forsythe responded by immediately moving closer to Philly. “You always were the most insufferably arrogant boor, Heywood. Perhaps you once had reason, but not anymore.” He gave a contemptuous snort. “My God, how I used to despise you. You and all your rot about duty and honor. Where has it got you, I ask? You came back from the Peninsula a cripple. Nothing honorable about that, as far as I can tell.”

“What do you know of honor, Forsythe? You’ve been a coward all your life.”

Forsythe’s face went red with anger. “Damn you. Why could you not have stayed in the country? If you’d never come to London, this would all be over by now.”

“To what end?” Arthur asked in the same controlled voice. “Did you think to see Moreland tried and executed?”

“Why the devil not? Even a duke can’t get away with murder twice.”

“You were ever a fool, Forsythe. A member of the House of Lords hasn’t been hanged in over fifty years. Besides, Moreland hasn’t murdered anyone. It was you who drowned Molly Cartwright in that fountain.”

Philly stifled a gasp.

Forsythe’s hand trembled on his gun. “No. I loved Molly. I’d never have done her harm.”

“She refused your hand in marriage so she could marry Moreland. She wanted money and a title. You had neither.” Arthur took another step into the clearing. A searing pain shot through his right leg. He ignored it. “Did you follow her to Moreland Park? Argue with her? Murder her in a fit of rage?”

“No!” Forsythe shouted.

“Or perhaps she allowed your affair to continue for a while after she married? Perhaps she strung you along with promises, until one night, when you came to meet her—”

“Moreland influenced her. He turned her against me. She’d never have cast me off of her own accord.”

“Is that what she was doing the night you killed her? Breaking off your affair?”

Forsythe edged closer to Philly. He was almost touching her now. “Men like Moreland believe they can do whatever they want. Take whatever they want. He never cared about Molly. She was a possession to him. No different than one of his horses.” He skimmed Philly’s face and figure with fevered eyes. “He’d have taken possession of you, too. He’d have showered you with clothes, and jewels, and all manner of fine things. What would you have thought of Heywood then, I wonder? If old Moreland had said you had to choose, would you have thrown him over? Told him he was nothing but a worthless second son? Told him that no woman in her right mind would ever be his wife?”

“It sounds as though she spoke to you in a very cruel manner,” Philly said.

“She was raving! I held her head under the water to bring her back to her senses!”

Philly blanched.

“It was seconds, merely. Just long enough to settle her. To make her see reason. I promised her I’d let her up as soon as she’d calmed herself, but she wouldn’t stop struggling.” Forsythe’s face contorted in a strange mixture of fury and anguish. “When she grew still, I thought she’d come to her senses. I released her then. I was going to warm her with my coat. I didn’t want her to catch a chill.” He gave Philly a desperate look. “It was too late, don’t you see? There was nothing I could do to save her.”

“No, I…” Philly broke off with an anxious swallow, her attention briefly arrested by Forsythe’s hand quavering on his pistol. “I don’t suppose there was.”

“I had to put her body into the water. I didn’t want to do it. Molly was deathly afraid of the water. But it was the only way.” Forsythe glanced at Arthur. “Moreland believed she fell into the fountain and drowned, the damned old fool. He barely mourned her. He couldn’t wait to find his next wife. His next possession.”

A glimmer of rage broke through Arthur’s cold veneer. “So, you thought to murder her, as well.”

“It was Darly who gave me the idea. He told a group of us at the club that he’d met Townsend’s niece. That she was a rare beauty. A Work of Art, he called her. Said he hoped she wouldn’t go the way of Molly Cartwright. That’s when I knew what must be done.”

Philly looked at Forsythe in bewilderment. “But I didn’t marry the Duke of Moreland, sir. Surely your scheme had no more reason to include me?”

“You’re all politeness, Mrs. Heywood,” Forsythe mocked. “But even you must realize that by refusing Moreland’s money and title to run off with Heywood, you’ve done more to humiliate him than Molly ever did by cuckolding him. You’ve made him the laughingstock of London. He has every reason to wish you harm. If you’d been killed, I knew that society would blame Moreland. Even better, Heywood and the earl would have blamed Moreland. Justice would have been done at last, don’t you see?”

Arthur had had enough. “What did you promise my servant in exchange for helping you?”

Forsythe’s brows shot up in surprise. “Violet told you? Directed you here to the clearing in a sudden burst of conscience?”

Philly tightened her fingers into the fabric of the silk wraps she carried in her hands. “Are you Violet’s gentleman?”

“Nothing so refined as that, my dear. I tumbled her a time or two, and now the stupid little fool expects I’ll marry her. It’s all been a rather tedious affair, I must say. Hardly worth the few services she rendered in exchange.”

“She delivered the note for you,” Arthur said.

“Obviously.”