“I pray you will not be long. The doctor’s visits tire him.” Mr. Cooper dipped the cloth into the pitcher, wiped the earl’s face with it, and dried his cheeks. He checked that the nightshirt’s laces were secure, prodded the pillows at the old man’s back, and took up station in a chair on the far side of the bed.

“Lord Rotherhide, I am an investigator for the Bow Street Magistrate’s Court in London. Dan—”

“Where is the doctor? I thought the doctor was here?” The old man spoke to his valet as if Daniel wasn’t in the room.

“Milord, may we talk about your grandson?”

This got a response. He blinked. “So many regrets, but what could I do? I had to tell him.” His voice wavered, and his skeletal hands picked at the down comforter across his lap. A tiny bit of spittle appeared at the corner of his mouth, and small tremors altered his expression from one moment to the next as his lips quivered. “It will all come out after I am dead, but it did not seem right for the boy to find out that way.”

“What will come out? By the boy, I assume you mean Alonzo Darby, Viscount Coatsworth?”

“He’s gone.”

“Do you know where, sir? I’ve been sent to make inquiries.”

“He’s strong. Not like my son. Alfred was soft.” The earl said it as if this was the worst condemnation possible. “Always acting with his tender heart and not his head. He would have ruined this estate. Given the servants too much leeway. Let them take advantage of him. Never acting like an aristocrat. I had to stop him. He had no backbone.”

Daniel said nothing, looking to the valet, who stared at the far wall.

“I killed him, you know. I killed Alfred.”

“Sir?” Daniel tensed, stepping closer. Was he confessing to murdering his son?

“I forced him to choose. Demanded it.” His voice was thready, breathy, but determined. Daniel could not have stemmed the tide of words short of clamping his hand over the man’s mouth. “Threatened to disinherit him. I couldn’t keep him from getting the title, but I threatened to leave every last shilling it takes to run this estate to someone else. He would be an earl, and he would have Lockewood, but he would be penniless.”

His head wobbled, but he pressed on. “So he obeyed. He did what I demanded. And it killed him. He died of a broken heart. Then I find out he didn’t really obey at all. Just pretended to.” A weak cackle came from his nearly toothless mouth. “Showed a spark of rebellion, though even in that he was a coward. I wish he had stood up to me, just once. Really stood up to me and told me to go to the devil. Lord knows I told him to enough times.”