Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

" T hat," James said, as the carriage rattled around them, "was the stupidest thing you've ever done. And you've done a fair number of stupid things over the years, my friend."

Phineas glowered at him from across the carriage.

They were en route to James's residence, the carriage clattering over the uneven London cobblestones, jolting them painfully. And it wasn't just physical pain that Phineas felt.

In his entire life, he had never felt so awful. Which was saying something, considering how many awful moments he'd experienced in his life, including the recent discovery that his parents had been murdered. But what struck him about the feeling he had now, as opposed to the ones he'd had in the past, was that before, he had been the victim of terrible events. That had been catastrophic, of course. Being subjected to the whims of fate or others' cruelty made one feel powerless, a feeling he couldn't stand. But for the first time in his life, Phineas was experiencing what it felt like to not be the victim, but the perpetrator of injustice.

Yes, he had brought down half a dozen men of the ton. But those men deserved every single thing they got. Iris, on the other hand, hadn't deserved anything he'd said to her.

Phineas tried to swallow down the feeling of intense guilt and self-loathing that was threatening to spill out of him. He couldn't get the image of her hurt, still hopeful eyes out of his head. She had looked so scared and yet still so strong, trying to reach out to him and convince him that she hadn't done what he'd accused her of.

"Are you listening to me?" James snapped.

Phineas started and stared at his friend. He'd been so lost in his thoughts that he'd completely forgotten about James. To his surprise, his friend's expression was even more furious than before.

"You just behaved like a madman!" James shouted. "Your wife was pleading with you, begging you to believe her, and you continued to berate her and accuse her of betrayal with absolutely no evidence!"

"I never knew you had such a soft heart when it came to someone's lies," Phineas muttered, looking away.

"I have a soft heart when it comes to someone telling the truth when accused of grievous crimes."

"Grievous crimes! Don't be so dramatic. I didn't accuse her of trying to have me murdered."

James tutted with impatience. "You accused her of aiding and abetting a man who did commit a murder! So, yes, I do think that's how your accusation came across. And believe me, it is not lost on her that you would lump her in with a man who hired a man to murder your parents ."

"Well, I can't help it if she is working with her father!" Phineas snarled.

He didn't very much appreciate being lectured by someone who knew so little of the circumstances. After his wife's betrayal, he wanted someone on his side.

James, however, did not look sympathetic. "She isn't working with Carfield!" he shouted, banging a fist down on his seat. "She's innocent!"

"And how do you know that?" Phineas challenged. "It would be very easy for her to have continued spying for her father. And there is circumstantial evidence to prove it. How else do you make sense of how Carfield knew we were visiting the mines? She must have told him!"

"That's it?" James rolled his eyes. "That's the evidence that points to your wife's guilt? Come on, Phineas… anyone could have told him! The people at the inn probably recognized you or the crest on your coach. It hasn't been that long since the Eavestones owned that land. They'd remember you, and if Carfield had asked them to send word if you ever visited—which wouldn't surprise me at all—then they must have written to him right away."

"I didn't use a coach with the Eavestone crest," Phineas snapped. "I'm not an idiot."

James's eyes widened, as if to say, Oh, aren't you?

"Well then," he countered, "one of your servants could have been paid to spy on you. It's not such an unusual thing. They're underpaid as it is."

"I pay my servants very well."

"And Carfield would pay more, now that he knows his daughter isn't spying on you anymore. You don't think he'd just give up on his plan to spy on you, do you? No, of course not. He'd find someone else."

Phineas didn't know what to say to this, so he turned away and stared out the window. Not that he really saw anything. All he could see was the scene at his townhouse playing out in his mind's eye over and over again. He wasn't sure what to believe or think anymore. All he knew was that as he'd been speaking to the Constable, it had dawned on him what might have happened to Iris had she been in the house during the robbery. And as that had hit him, he'd been filled with a blinding rage that he didn't know where to direct.

But do you really believe she was spying for her father? a little voice whispered in the back of his head.

I don't know , he inwardly snarled back at it. It's possible.

But it was easier to be mad at Iris and believe the worst of her than to feel the other feeling that was battering inside of him, trying to force its way out into the world. It scared him too much.

"It was definitely a servant," he heard James say. "How else do you explain how Carfield knew you and Iris were falling in love?"

"What?"

"You told me that when he came to the mines, he said he'd heard rumors of the affection that was building between the two of you. How else can you explain how he knew, if it wasn't a servant spying on you? It's not as if you and the Duchess had been seen in public much together, where others could gossip about you falling in love."

"Don't use those words," Phineas snapped, glaring at him. "We are not… in love."

James snorted, looking completely unconvinced. "Right. And I'm not the cleverest gentleman in the ton . "

Phineas shot him an irritated look. "Well, right now, I'm seriously doubting that moniker."

The carriage jolted to a stop, and Phineas looked out the window. They had arrived at James's accommodation. His friend was currently lodging at the Albany, where he leased a set of apartments for one hundred pounds per annum. It was a large sum for the second son of an earl, but James liked to live in style. And nowhere was more stylish than the Albany. All of London's most fashionable bachelors lived there—as well as a few married men who no longer lived with their wives.

As Phineas stepped down from the carriage, it suddenly struck him that if a man left his wife, he could still rent or buy a fashionable apartment in one of the most exclusive residences in London. If a lady left her husband, however, as Lady Carfield had done, she was ostracized from all of Society and barely even spoken of.

It went a long way toward reminding Phineas that Lady Carfield had made big sacrifices to leave her husband. Not only had she given up seeing and speaking to her children, but she had been barred from the society she had spent years being part of. She must have lost all her friends. And all to leave Lord Carfield because he had paid someone to murder Phineas's parents.

For the first time since he'd discovered the truth, Phineas felt a rush of gratitude and admiration toward Lady Carfield. She had given up everything, and all because she couldn't live with a man who would do something so evil. He wasn't sure she had made the right choice, in the end—or that it had been worth it to hurt Iris and her sisters like she had—but it did go a small way toward redeeming her in his eyes. And it explained why she hadn't come forward with the truth earlier. She'd given up so much, and she wanted to hold onto the last vestige of power she could.

Once they were inside James's rooms, Phineas went immediately to the bar. The arrival of Iris's note saying they'd been robbed had sobered him up significantly, and now he needed a stiff drink.

"Pour me one, too," James called as he threw himself down on the sofa in his parlor. "My closest friend is being the world's greatest arse, and I need to drown out some of my anger at him."

Phineas gritted his teeth but said nothing as he poured himself and James two glasses of scotch. He then sat down on the sofa opposite his friend and handed him his drink.

They both sat in silence for a moment, sipping their drinks. Then James set his glass down on the table between them.

"Tell me truly, old friend," he began, his tone less angry and indignant than it had been before. "Do you really think Iris is working for her father?"

"I… I don't know," Phineas admitted.

He looked down into his drink, afraid to meet his friend's eyes. He was sure that if he did, he'd see his own doubt and hurt in them.

"Why did you make those accusations against her if you weren't certain?"

Phineas shrugged, still not looking at James. "I suppose it's easier to think she's spying on her father than to think… that she could have been hurt."

"Been hurt?"

"By the men who had robbed the house. I keep thinking what might have happened if she'd been there. I know she would have tried to stop them. And then they could have beat her. They might have hit her over the head like they did Malloy. That could have killed him, and if they'd done it to her… they might have killed her as well."

He wasn't quite sure why he was admitting this to James, but he suspected it had to do with his revelation about Lady Carfield. He felt a little calmer now, less muddled up and angry.

James considered this. "Would it be easier to accept her being hurt if you believed she was guilty of betraying you? Would you think she deserved it, if that were the case?"

"I'm not sure. Perhaps." But the thought brought such an immediate wave of nausea that Phineas immediately shook his head and looked up. "No, it's not that. There is no circumstance where I would want her to be physically harmed, even if she is guilty of everything I accused her of."

"Well, in that case…" James frowned. "Maybe, if you believe that she was in on the robbery, then you can tell yourself she wouldn't have been hurt by those thugs had she been there when it occurred. Because why would they have hurt someone who was working with them? Maybe they'd superficially injure her, to convince you she wasn't in on it, but they wouldn't cause any lasting damage. And she certainly wouldn't have died."

"I… I don't know," Phineas stammered out.

What James was saying made sense, but Phineas still felt so confused and unsure of everything he was feeling. The image of Iris, dead on the ground, kept filling his mind, making it hard for him to think.

He'd never forget what a dead body looked like as long as he lived. He could remember it like it was yesterday, the day his parents died. The robbery had taken place not far from their castle in Yorkshire, shortly after his parents had left on a trip to London. When they hadn't arrived at the residence of their friends, the Stockwells, that night, a search party had been sent out. And when the bodies were found, they'd been taken to Eavestone Castle, which was closest.

It had been a cold, rainy night when Phineas had heard the clattering of carriage wheels on the gravel of the drive. He'd been asleep, but it had jolted him awake. Somehow, even then, he'd known something was wrong.

He'd run to the window, where he'd seen a carriage bearing the Stockwell crest racing up the drive. Then the butler ran out of the castle, carrying a torch. There were shouts. There were screams. Phineas felt fear go through him like a knife.

He'd thrown on his dressing gown and crept out of his room and down the stairs. In the hall, a sight like nothing he'd ever seen had met his eyes—his parents' twisted bodies being carried inside by footmen. The smell of blood was thick in the air. Some of it still glinted on his father's coat as it caught the light from a torch. And his mother—his beautiful, kind mother—whiter and paler than he'd ever seen her, her lifeless eyes staring at him.

She was the only one who'd seen him, crouched at the bottom of the stairs behind a suit of armor. But she couldn't say anything to him. She couldn't comfort him. She couldn't respond as the hurried cries of Fetch a doctor, at once! filled the hall. She couldn't say that it was too late.

Phineas had never forgotten that face. He sometimes saw it, from time to time, out of the corner of his eye. And he'd seen it again at Eavestone House when Iris had looked at him with her big, round eyes, so full of fear.

Across from him, James sighed, and he was pulled out of his thoughts. To his surprise, James was smiling, if a little sadly.

"Well, I think I do know," he said. "Because listen to what you just said, Phineas. ‘ I know she would have tried to stop them .' Deep down, you trust her. Deep down, you know she wasn't working with her father, that she would have tried to prevent you from being robbed by her father—again—and from losing the evidence that would have allowed you to finally seek justice. Deep down, you know she's innocent."

Phineas blinked. He hadn't even realized that he'd said this. The words had just come out, instinctively. But James was right. Deep down, he knew that Iris would have defended his home— their home—and tried to stop anyone who wanted to steal the evidence that would allow him to get justice for his parents' deaths. Which meant that he did believe she was on his side.

"But then why am I accusing her of working with her father?" he wondered out loud. "Why did I subject her to the barrage of slanderous accusations?"

James opened his eyes wide and sighed. Phineas frowned at him. He knew James had his theories for why he'd done what he'd done, but Phineas didn't want James's theories. He wanted to figure out why he would inflict so much pain on his wife.

"If Iris had been home when the robberies had taken place," he began slowly, "then the men easily could have killed her and made her look like it was an accident. And yes, it does seem like they waited until she was gone to ransack the place. She could have come back early, of course, but that isn't the point…" He frowned.

What was the point?

Across from him, James sat back and took a long sip from his scotch. He had a half-amused smile on his face, and Phineas got the impression his friend was enjoying watching him piece together his feelings. After all, piecing together and admitting emotions was not something Phineas normally did. He wasn't very experienced at it.

"The point is, we're dealing with Carfield. He's already proved over and over again that he's dangerous. That he would do anything to get his way. I mean, look at what he did to my parents! He and my father were best friends! I can't believe all of that was disingenuous. They used to hunt together every week since they were teenagers. But somewhere along the way, Carfield realized that my father being alive was less useful to him than my father being dead. His greed became so great that he was willing to kill him, and my mother, in order to achieve his aims."

Phineas looked up at James, who was watching him closely. Realization was dawning on him. Fear was flooding him. All of a sudden, everything made sense.

"And if a man can kill once to achieve his aims, then he can kill again," he whispered. "Especially someone whom he has already grown to hate, like the daughter who betrayed him. He wouldn't hesitate to kill her if it allowed him to recover the evidence that he had my parents killed. He might even do it just to take revenge on the two of us."

Phineas stood up. He was suddenly so restless that he needed to be moving, to try and get rid of some of the stagnant fear inside of him.

"I realized all this—albeit subconsciously—when I was talking to the Constable. I realized that letting Iris be part of my life is dangerous for her. Not only does it put her at risk of being killed if she gets in the way of Carfield's plans, but it tells Carfield that she is precious to me. And this man has made it his life mission to take away everything that is precious to me—my parents, my land, and now maybe even my wife. If I allow Iris to live with me, if I love her like I want to, then she will always have a target on her back. Carfield will use her to get to me."

"Bravo!" James said, setting his glass down on the table and clapping his hands together. "I must admit, I didn't think you'd get there that quickly. That was some excellent bit of insight into your own tortured mind, my friend. Your wife must have taught you how to do that."

"She has made me more in touch with my feelings than I ever thought possible," Phineas grudgingly admitted. "But tell anyone that?—"

"Yes, I know. You'll have me killed. A la Carfield and his closest friend."

Both of them sobered up. Phineas suddenly felt very tired. All the restless energy left him, and he slowly sank back onto the sofa.

"What am I going to do?" he murmured. "Just because I understand now why I pushed Iris away doesn't mean I know how to fix this. I almost wish I had accused her of those things because I actually believed them, or in order to protect my own heart. If that were the case, I could simply apologize to her and beg her to take me back. But now that I know the truth… going back and apologizing wouldn't help. She would still be at risk from Carfield."

James sat forward and looked at him very seriously. "I think you know what you have to do to protect your wife, and hopefully, if it's not too late, earn her forgiveness," he said. "You have to take down Carfield once and for all."