“There was quite a bit of blood,” Cecil continued. “I was watching from the forest. I thought I had you that time until I realized you'd only cut your arm. I'd been hoping for a chest wound.”

“I'm sorry to have disobliged you,” Charles said in a dry voice.

“Ah yes, that famous Billington wit. Such a stiff upper lip you possess.”

“Clearly I need it at times like these.”

Cecil shook his head slowly. “Your wits won't save you this time, Charles.”

Charles stared his cousin hard in the eye. “How do you plan to do it?”

“Quick and clean. I never intended to make you suffer.”

“The poison you fed my wife did not precisely sit gently in her stomach.”

Cecil let out a long-suffering sigh. “She is ever getting in the way. Although she did cause that nice kitchen fire. If the day had been windier she might have done my job for me. I understood you fought the flames yourself.”

“Leave Ellie out of this.”

“At any rate, I do apologize for the virulence of that poison. I had been told it would not be painful. Clearly I was misinformed.”

Charles's lips parted in disbelief. “I cannot believe you're apologizing to me.”

“I am not without manners—just scruples.”

“Your plan is going to fail,” Charles stated. “You can kill me, but you won't inherit my fortune.”

Cecil tapped his finger against his cheek. “Let me see. You have no sons. If you die, I become the earl.” He shrugged and laughed. “It seems simple to me.”

“You'll become the earl, but you won't get the money. All you'll get is the entailed property. Wycombe Abbey is worth quite a bit, but as the earl, you will be legally barred from selling it, and it costs a bloody fortune to keep it up. Your pockets will feel even more pinched than they do right now. Why the hell do you think I was so bloody desperate to get married?”

Beads of sweat appeared on Cecil's brow. “What are you talking about?”

“My fortune goes to my wife.”

“No one leaves a fortune like that to a woman.”

“I did,” Charles said with a slow smile.

“You're lying.”

He was right, but Charles didn't see any reason to inform him. In all truth, he'd planned to amend his will to leave his fortune to Ellie; he just hadn't gotten around to doing it yet. Charles shrugged and said, “That's a gamble you'll just have to take.”

“That's where you're wrong, cuz. I can just kill your wife.”

Charles had known he would say that, but it made his blood boil all the same. “Do you really think,” he drawled, “that you can kill both the Earl and Countess of Billington, inherit the tittle and the fortune, and not be a suspect in our murders?”

“I can…if you're not murdered.”

Charles narrowed his eyes.

“An accident,” Cecil mused. “A terrible, tragic accident. One that takes both of you away from your loving relatives. We shall all grieve terribly. I will wear black for a full year.”