Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty

" P hineas!" Iris couldn't help exclaiming as she took in the sight of her husband.

Phineas had never looked so handsome, and her heart swelled at the sight of him, standing in the doorway, his hair tousled, his eyes blazing, and a fiery look on his face. For a moment, she just gazed at him, taking him in. She couldn't believe that he was here, that he had arrived just in the nick of time to save them.

"Your Grace," Lord Carfield snarled, "I see you have arrived at last. Not drinking yourself into a stupor at your club anymore?"

"Oh, I was at my club," Phineas said, smiling softly. "But only to keep you from knowing what I was really up to."

Lord Carfield blinked. "And what was that?"

"For one, getting your daughters to safety. Well, not me, but my associates. I believe you remember Lords Bolden and Goldwin? They paid a visit to your friend, Lord Redfield, recently."

Lord Carfield's face paled. "What did they do with my daughters?" he hissed.

"They removed them from your residence so that even if you return there before you are arrested, you will not be able to harm them."

"What?!" Lord Carfield roared, and he took a menacing step towards Phineas. "You would dare to take my children from me?"

"I would dare to do the thing you should have done from the moment they were born—protect them. It's an unfortunate state of affairs, in this country, that women and children have little to no legal protection from the very men who are supposed to be watching out for them." Phineas cocked his head. "I'm half inclined to petition Parliament to amend the coverture laws, after dealing with you, Lord Carfield."

Lady Carfield stepped forward, her brow creased with worry. "Are my girls safe?" she asked. "Are they well?"

"Yes," Phineas replied, nodding to her reassuringly. "Lords Bolden and Goldwin are keeping them safe. They will not be in harm's way, even if it takes time to bring Lord Carfield to justice."

"There will be no bringing me to justice!" Lord Carfield shouted. "These letters that my daughter insists prove my guilt are fakes! All of them!"

Phineas frowned, then turned to Iris, a questioning look on his face. "What is he talking about? Weren't the letters stolen during the robbery?"

"Yes, but…" Iris took a tentative step towards her husband, her heart beating rapidly in her chest. The fact that he was here and that he was turning to her for answers—without even a single accusatory look—made her hope that, perhaps, he finally believed she hadn't been spying on him for her father. "Violet got them back for us. At great personal risk to herself, I might add."

"You see!" Lord Carfield interrupted. "These documents were stolen from me!" He turned to Mr. Hargrove. "Doesn't that render them invalid if they were stolen from me?"

"Not if you obtained them illegally," Mr. Hargrove replied, frowning. "These documents belonged to Lady Carfield, and they were in the home of His Grace before they were stolen by hired ruffians. We have a report of everything that was stolen, including the letters. The fact that they were in your possession and that so many can testify to that fact, is already damning enough, My Lord."

For the first time that day, Lord Carfield looked slightly afraid. His eyes widened, and a bead of sweat slid down his brow. He opened his mouth, as if he wanted to argue, then closed it again. He took a step back, his eyes darting all around him.

"I won't allow this!" he finally shouted. "I am an innocent man!"

"You are innocent of nothing," Phineas growled, and the attention of the room seemed to zero in on him. "You had my parents murdered. And now you are going to pay for your crimes, once and for all."

"We will see about that," Lord Carfield retorted, although his voice sounded a little weak. "I can still recall my wife to my home. I can still take her money. I can still?—"

"It's too late!" Lady Carfield interjected. "You can recall me home if you want, you can beat me, you can lock me in a cupboard, you can even kill me. But I have signed the letter, and nothing will now keep you from justice!"

"And I will be going straight to the authorities with the definitive proof that you ordered my parents' murder," Phineas added.

"He's been saying that they won't arrest him right away," Iris said, hurrying forward. "He's been scaring us, making threats…"

"He is lying." Phineas snorted, his eyes blazing.

He looked at Iris, and for a moment, the expression on his face softened. Iris's heart skipped a beat in response. Was it possible that he believed her? Then his expression darkened again, and he turned back to Lord Carfield.

"He will be arrested the moment we bring these documents to the authorities."

"You can't threaten me!" Lord Carfield seethed. "I am a viscount! I have rights!"

But there was a desperation in his voice now, and Iris had to work hard to keep hope from flaring inside her.

"Oh, but I can." Phineas advanced slowly on him, and the Viscount shrank back. "Did you know, Lord Carfield, that a peer accused of assassinating another peer can be stripped of his titles? That not only will he suffer the indignity of a ruined reputation and spending the rest of his life in prison, but he can have his lands taken from him, his heirs disinherited, and his family name blotted out from the peerage?"

Phineas laughed softly at the way Lord Carfield's eyes bugged out of his head. "Now, I won't recommend that the prosecutors follow this action, as it would deleteriously affect my wife and sisters-in-law, but I want you to understand that what you have done is serious enough to ruin even the most powerful man in the world—the British peer."

Phineas took another step forward, and Iris couldn't keep her eyes off him. He had never looked so tall and splendid, nor her father so small and pathetic. She was sure that when Phineas spoke again, it would be to shout at her father, to threaten him again, or to order him out of the solicitor's office. So she was surprised when, after Phineas had backed him into a corner, he spoke softly.

"There was a time when you were my parents' closest friend," he continued, and although his voice was quiet, it was also powerful. "A time when they trusted you more than anyone else in the world. You were the person with whom they shared their secrets, their innermost fears and hopes. My mother once told me that when they realized I would be an only child, you were the one who comforted them in their grief at being unable to have more children."

Something flickered in Lord Carfield's eyes, but Iris couldn't quite place it.

"When I was a boy, you were like a father to me," Phineas admitted. "You would play with me, teach me how to ride horses and fence, comfort me when I scraped a knee or stubbed a toe, and bring me gifts whenever you visited. You were my favorite of my parents' friends, and most of all because you treated me like an equal, even though I was only a child. You never talked down to me or made me feel small. Which is how, I realize now, you were able to manipulate me so well. And in doing so, to betray my parents even more deeply than you already had."

Phineas cocked his head. "I've been wondering all these years, My Lord. Did you ever really love them?" His eyes bored into Lord Carfield's. "Or was it all a ploy to get their land?"

"Of course, I loved them," Lord Carfield barked.

"Then why?" Phineas murmured. "Why did you do it?"

"I…" Lord Carfield's face reddened. "I don't have to answer this. Nothing has been prov?—"

"Why?!" Phineas roared. "Why did you do it?!"

"Because they had everything!" Lord Carfield screamed. His face was contorted in his rage, and for a moment, Iris thought he looked like some medieval statue of a gargoyle. "Why should they have gotten everything—wealth, a happy marriage, a son and heir—while I had nothing? I had a title and an old name, yes, but lands that had been sold off to cover my forefathers' debts, until our estate was so broken up that there was nothing left. I had a wife, yes, but one who was obstinate and disobedient. And only daughters. Three daughters, with an estate entailed away from the female line!"

"How can you call a wife and three daughters nothing?!" Phineas yelled. "You had four wonderful women in your life, and instead of caring for them and loving them, you only ever tried to hurt them."

"You wouldn't understand," Lord Carfield snarled. "You're just like your father—arrogant and unsympathetic to my plight."

Phineas scoffed. "You disgust me, Carfield. You killed my parents because you were jealous of them? You killed them and then betrayed me because you wanted to take from them what you believed you ought to have as well?!"

"I wouldn't have had to take the land if your father had just sold it to me!" Lord Carfield screeched. He looked demented by rage. "He knew I was flailing, that I needed money to save my family seat. But no, he wouldn't sell me his land, or even lease it to me, because he believed the mines I wanted to build were dangerous. It was pathetic. He was more concerned for the well-being of some penniless coal miners than for the survival of my family name and estate!"

Now it was Iris's turn to scoff. Her father rounded on her, and she drew herself up. "If you had actually met any of the ‘penniless miners,' as you call them," she hissed, "then you would know they are more worthy of help than you have ever been!"

"My father was an honorable man," Phineas said, and Lord Carfield turned back to him. "He wouldn't sell you the land because he wanted to do right by his tenants. Perhaps he had even started to realize your villainy. I shall never know. But I am sure he could sense that your heart was becoming as blackened as the coal you wanted to mine."

Phineas paused, and to Iris's surprise, a small smile spread across his face. "You know, all these years, I always thought it was the theft of my parents' land that had dealt me the severest blow. Yes, my parents' deaths hurt more, but that was something I couldn't prevent. The theft of the land, though—that was my fault. And it filled me with such shame to think I'd let my parents down. So getting back the land became my focus, my obsession, the wound that informed every one of my decisions. And I told myself that if I could just get it back, if I could just take my revenge on you and the others who tricked me, I would be happy. But it was never about the land, I realize now."

He glanced at Iris, his eyes blazing. "The severest blow you struck wasn't taking my land, but taking my ability to trust. Because after everything you did, I thought that's all I deserved from people. And I assumed no one in this world was trustworthy. If you could turn on me like that, then what would keep someone else, who had less reason to care for me, from turning on me?

"So I closed off my heart. I made a cage around myself, and I never let anyone inside of it. Some days it was so lonely that I thought I might die. But I couldn't see a way out of the cage. I thought I would spend my whole life alone, unable to form a strong attachment to anyone, because they would only hurt me, like you had.

Lord Carfield's mouth was open again, but no words were coming out. The look on his face was inscrutable, but if Iris had seen it on anyone else, she might have called it stricken.

"And then Iris came into my life," Phineas murmured. His eyes were locked on Lord Carfield's, but Iris still felt his attention on her like a ray of light. "And to say that she saved me is an understatement of the highest magnitude. Because of her, because of your daughter, I finally understand that I don't need to shut people out. I don't need to be so distrustful. I don't need to stay in the cage. Because you were the one who broke my trust. It was never a reflection on me or what I deserve."

Iris wanted to cry. She wanted to throw herself into her husband's arms and weep for what felt like days. And she might have done that, had her father not still been standing there, gazing up at Phineas with a strangled look on his face.

"And I think," Phineas continued, "that if my parents were alive today, they would be proud of me for realizing this."

"Why are you saying all this to me?" Lord Carfield asked after a long moment, and the way his voice cracked sent a chill down Iris's spine. She had never heard her father sound so defenseless and uncertain before.

"Because you need to know," Phineas said. "When you are arrested, as you will be, and tried for the murder of my parents, you need to know that you didn't just kill my parents, but you also almost took away my life—not my physical life, but any chance I had at a full, happy life." He blinked, then smiled softly again. "And you also need to know one other thing. While I will never forgive you for what you did to my parents, I also have to thank you. Because you brought me the best thing in my life. You brought me Iris. Now…"

The smile slipped from his face, and he drew himself up and pointed at the door. "I want you to leave my solicitor's office and never come back. From now on, you will never speak to me, Iris, Lady Carfield, Miss Violet, or Miss Rosalie ever again. And when you are arrested in the next few days, I want you to remember that it wasn't me who brought you down, but the women you have wronged."

And with that, a defeated Lord Carfield slunk, like a dog with its tails between its legs, out of the office, and out of Iris's life.