“I will only tell the solicitor what is necessary to establish your history as Margaret Finley. The rest does not signify to his duties as executor. With any luck, no one will learn the rest of it.”

She caressed his jaw, then his mouth. “I had no reason to kill him, if you are wondering. I had my freedom. The separation probably saved his life, until someone else did the deed, that is.”

Damnation, she had just admitted she might well have killed her husband but for the separation.

“You may not be able to protect me, if you are thinking that way,” she said.

“That remains to be seen.” He thought he could, though. These revelations had altered his view of many things. Like seeing a battlefield from high ground suddenly, he had realigned certain evidence like so many troops. The path to victory would require some inquiries she would not like, however, and a retreat of sorts, for now.

She leaned closer, and gazed right into his eyes. “Chase, you once told me that you knew I had not killed your uncle. You just knew. Are you that sure that I did not harm Algernon?”

He took her hand in his. “Minerva, I don’t think you did this, but I do not know it the way you speak of a better sense knowing. The devil of the truth is this—I have realized that I don’t care if you killed that rogue. In fact, a part of me hopes that you did.”

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Chase left Minerva’s house at dawn and rode to Park Lane. He went up the stairs of Whiteford House and entered the duke’s apartment. He strode over to the sitting room windows and drew the drapes.

A silvery mist hung over London, obscuring most of the rooftops. A few lamps still glowed, not yet extinguished. Down below the gardens and mews showed as little more than blotches of grays. While he watched, however, the sun’s slow rise began defining the forms more, etching trees and houses. The mist slowly thinned.

He gazed to the northeast. The broad swath of Oxford Street ran nearby. A few streets beyond it an opening in the buildings’ rooftops showed Portman Square’s location. A little to the southeast the much larger opening of Grosvenor Square loomed, and beyond it Berkeley Square.

“What in hell are you doing here?”

He turned his head to see Nicholas squinting at him while he tied a banyan around his body.

“I am thinking about Uncle Frederick.”

Nicholas came over and looked out while he yawned. “Town looks peaceful at this hour. Almost beautiful.”

Chase opened the window. “It is coming alive, but the sounds are still distinct. At night there are moments of silence. He liked that silence. He liked the world at night.”

“It might have been better if he had not.”