Chapter 41

CHAPTER 41

H anna stood in the doorway, her hands trembling, her heart hammering in her chest. The fire in the hearth barely flickered, casting long shadows over the faces of the men gathered in the room.

Edwin sat there, cold and rigid, fixing her with a look that sent a chill down her spine. Martin was leaning against the wall, watching her with a raised eyebrow, while Peter and Thomas Jenkins exchanged knowing glances.

“I need to speak with you at once,” she said, her voice quivering slightly.

Edwin didn’t move. His jaw tightened, and a dark cloud seemed to hang over him as he shook his head.

“What about, Hanna?” His voice was cold, bitter. “I already know everything.”

Her heart sank at his tone.

“Please,” she pleaded, stepping into the room. “I need to explain.”

“You’re too late for that,” Edwin snapped. He stood up abruptly, the letters in his hand crinkling as he waved them at her. “You lied to me, Hanna. You deceived me.”

Her breath caught as her eyes flicked to the letters in his hand—the original letters. Benjamin’s letters. The ones she thought she had hidden.

Her heart dropped like a boulder in her gut. They had found them. But how?

“What did you think was going to happen?” Edwin asked, his voice harsh with accusation. “Did you think you could hide this forever? That you could play both sides and I’d never find out?”

“Edwin, please,” she begged, her voice trembling. “Let me speak to you alone.”

He laughed bitterly, the sound cutting through the air like a blade. “Why? So you can spin more lies? No, Hanna. You’ll explain yourself here. In front of them.” He gestured to the others, his face a mask of disbelief. “I trusted you. And all this time, you were working against me. You knew about your father’s misdeeds, didn’t you? You knew he was behind all of this.”

Hanna’s breath hitched as she took a step forward. “No, I?—”

“Don’t lie to me again!” Edwin’s voice rose, his anger flaring. “You knew, and that’s why you tried to stop me from investigating. All those times you asked me to let it go, to stop digging… it was because you were trying to protect him. Wasn’t it?”

Tears welled up in Hanna’s eyes, her hands clenching into fists at her sides. “Edwin, it’s not what you think. I didn’t know. I only found out the truth when he confronted me after I began looking into things on your behalf.”

“Confronted you?” Edwin scoffed, his eyes flashing with anger. “You expect me to believe that?”

“He told me everything,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. “He admitted it all. That he’d been the one to steal the funds, that he’d deceived Benjamin and used him. He begged me to make you stop.”

“Stop what?” Edwin sneered, shaking his head in disbelief. “Stop uncovering the truth that should have come out years ago? Why didn’t you tell me the moment you found out?”

Hanna swallowed hard, tears streaming down her face. “He threatened me, Edwin. He said he would marry Emma off to Lord Whitcombe. He—he said he’d kill you if I didn’t make you stop.”

Edwin rolled his eyes, his expression cold and unmoved. “I already told you those threats were meaningless. Remember when you told me how your father would threaten you and your sisters with marriage to some doddering old lord? It’s all empty threats, Hanna. You should have known better.”

“This was different!” Hanna’s voice cracked, and she raised her hand in frustration. “There were papers! Documents! He was serious this time. And besides, he didn’t just threaten Emma. He also threatened you . I couldn’t—” She choked on her words, shaking her head in disbelief at how he was dismissing her fears. “I couldn’t let him hurt you.”

Edwin scoffed again, disbelief etched into every line of his face. “You can’t be that na?ve, Hanna.”

Hanna’s face flushed, her anger bubbling up beneath her sorrow. “I wasn’t being na?ve,” she spat, her voice hardening. “I was trying to protect you. I was terrified for you, for Emma, for everyone. You don’t understand—my father isn’t just some scheming old man. He… he is unstable. Unbalanced. He… he told me that he ordered Benjamin’s death.”

The room fell deathly silent.

Martin’s back stiffened, and the Jenkins brothers looked up, their expressions frozen with shock. Edwin’s face paled as her words hung in the air like a thunderclap, shaking the very foundation of everything he thought he knew.

“What?” Edwin whispered, his voice barely audible.

Hanna wiped the tears from her face, her breathing ragged as she finally met his stunned gaze. “He murdered Benjamin,” she hiccuped. “And he’ll do the same to you if you keep pushing him.”

Edwin blinked, his eyes wide, struggling to process what she had just said. His breath came in shallow bursts, the rage that had been building within him suddenly dissipating, replaced by a sickening dread.

“He killed my brother?” he whispered, his voice trembling now, the letters in his hand shaking. “How—how do you know?”

Hanna’s chest heaved as she forced herself to speak through her tears. “He told me. He told me when I confronted him. Benjamin found out about the misappropriated funds, about the lies, and Father panicked. He hired someone from the rookeries who agreed to kill Benjamin while making it look like an accident.”

The weight of her words crashed over Edwin like a wave, threatening to drown him. He stumbled back, collapsing into the nearest chair, all color draining from his face. “No… No, that can’t be true. I always thought his death was strange, but I thought… I…”

“I’ve spent every moment since I found out trying to figure out how to save you,” Hanna cried, her voice filled with anguish. “I never wanted to lie to you, but I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid?—”

Edwin’s eyes searched hers, still wild with confusion and disbelief. He shook his head slowly, unable to reconcile the revelation with the trust he’d placed in her. He wanted to be angry with her, wanted to hate her for keeping this from him. But the truth was too overwhelming, too devastating.

The room was still as everyone processed Hanna’s words. The Jenkins brothers stood frozen, no trace of their earlier amusement on their faces. Martin, usually so composed, looked genuinely shaken for the first time since the investigation began.

Finally, Edwin managed to find his voice again, but it was hoarse. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m telling you now,” Hanna whispered brokenly. “Because I need you to know the truth. I need you to understand that I wasn’t trying to deceive you. I was trying to protect you.”

Edwin’s eyes filled with unshed tears as he looked at her, every word sinking in like a blade. The truth was out now, and the room felt suffocating under the weight of it.

“Benjamin,” he croaked. “He’s dead because of Worcester. My brother…” Then, he raised his eyes, and she saw them harden. Harden against her . “Why are you here now? Did you come because you knew we found the original letters? Did you come to plead your case?”

Hanna was rooted to the spot, her hands trembling, her breathing shallow as she stared at him. Martin and the Jenkins brothers stood around him like witnesses to her downfall.

“I wanted to confess,” she said. “To explain.”

Edwin’s eyes darkened as he waved the letters in his hand. “Explain what, exactly? How you lied to me? Deceived me?” His voice cracked with fury. “You’ve been working against me all this time.”

“I didn’t?—”

“Don’t lie to me again!” He boomed, silencing her. “Not even an hour ago, you went into the study, took Benjamin’s letters, and hid them. And now, suddenly, you’ve had a change of heart?”

Hanna’s voice trembled as she raised the crumpled letter in her hand. “Because of this. Read it, Edwin. It’s from my father. He wrote it to the man he hired to kill your brother. He tried to stop it. Please, read it.”

Edwin glanced down at the letter but shook his head in disdain. “And what of it? He never sent it, did he? Otherwise, you wouldn’t be holding it now. It’s too late.”

Hanna’s heart clenched. “But don’t you see? It means he regretted it. He didn’t want Benjamin dead. The letter makes it clear he was no murderer—cruel, yes, but not a killer. Look at the date, Edwin! He is a rash man, especially when he has a drink, but he would not follow through with it. I would not be surprised if he did not arrange this while bosky.”

Edwin looked at the letter, but his face remained stony. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. You’ve lied to me from the very start. You let me believe Benjamin might’ve been guilty. You made me doubt my own brother. Do you know how that has torn me apart these past months? And especially while I was so torn over using you to help me bring down your father.”

“What do you mean? I offered,” she said.

“He married you to have access to your father, Your Grace,” Peter Jenkins, the redheaded man, interjected.

Hanna stared at Edwin. “You… You did? This was all about getting access to my father?”

Peter let out a chuckle. “Seems you’ve both used each other,” he said with a grin. “How ironic.”

“Be quiet, Brother,” Thomas, the dark-haired man, muttered, shaking his head.

Edwin’s face hardened further. “It doesn’t matter now. It’s over. I know the truth. You may as well. Yes, I married you to get close to your father, that was all. I meant to tell you, but I could not bring myself to because I thought you were so kind and gentle and would be… I did not want to lose what we had. But I was a fool, for you played me for one. It matters little now. Where is your father?” His voice was as cold as ice.

Hanna swallowed hard, realizing at that moment that nothing she said would change his mind. He had already cast her as one of the villains, along with her father. And he? Edwin? He was not the man she had thought he was, after all. He wasn’t honorable or kind. He was… duplicitous. Just as she had been.

She should have felt heartbroken, should have been overcome with sorrow or even panic. But instead, she felt only a cold numbness settling over her, and an overwhelming desire to leave. To escape this house that had never brought her anything but misery.

“I suppose you’ve no further use for me, then?” she asked bitterly, her voice flat.

Edwin’s eyes blazed. “Use? Don’t you dare pretend this is my fault! As if I am the villain here, when you’ve been scheming behind my back the entire time. I am no angel, Hanna, but neither are you.”

Hanna pressed her lips together, her composure finally breaking. Without another word, she turned on her heel and rushed out of the room, leaving the four men standing in silence.

She raced through the house, her eyes frantically searching the ballroom for her sister. If Edwin was going to confront her father, she couldn’t allow Emma to be caught in the scandal. Her eyes scanned the crowd until she finally spotted Emma standing near the edge of the room, holding a wine goblet.

“We must go,” she said breathlessly as she grabbed Emma’s arm.

Emma blinked, startled. “What in the world has happened to you? You look dreadful.”

“We must go, now,” Hanna repeated urgently, pulling her sister away from the crowd and into the hallway.

Once in the dimly lit corridor, she forced herself to slow down, taking deep, steadying breaths.

Emma frowned, her confusion deepening. “What has happened, Hanna? What is going on?”

Hanna pulled her into a quiet alcove and quickly explained, recounting the entire sordid tale from the beginning—how she had agreed to help Edwin prove that their father was not being entirely truthful about the ledgers, how their father had found her snooping and manipulated her into working against Edwin, how she had feared for Emma’s future and Edwin’s safety.

When she reached the events of this afternoon, Emma interrupted, incredulous. “But you told Edwin about the letter, didn’t you? The one where Father tried to call off the… murder of the former Duke of Ashford?”

“Yes, I told him,” Hanna said, her voice cracking. “But it didn’t matter. Edwin found the other letters—the ones Benjamin wrote to Father, confronting him. He thinks I was working with Father all along, that I lied and deceived him.”

Emma’s eyes widened as the realization dawned on her. “He thinks you’re guilty as well.”

Hanna nodded, biting back tears. “Yes. And now he’s going to confront Father. I don’t know what will happen, but it won’t be good.”

Emma furrowed her brow. “Did you explain that Father blackmailed you?”

“I tried,” Hanna whispered. “But Edwin doesn’t care. Turns out that he only married me to have access to my father. I should have known. He never loved me. None of this was ever about me.”

Emma squeezed her hand. “You knew that, Hanna. You knew he didn’t marry you for love.”

“Yes, but he should have told me the truth,” Hanna said bitterly. “I allowed myself to develop feelings for him, Emma. And now…”

“And now he thinks you’ve been in cahoots with Father all along.” Emma finished, her voice soft but resigned. “What are we going to do?” she asked, worry creasing her brow.

“We have to leave,” Hanna replied, her mind racing. “Edwin and his men are about to confront Father, and once they do, Father will be arrested. It’s going to be a disaster.”

The two sisters stood in silence for a moment, their thoughts racing, when Emma suddenly clicked her fingers. “Arabella and Harry! They’re not home, but their servants know us. We can go there.”

Hanna nodded quickly. “Yes. But we can’t take a carriage. It will draw too much attention.”

Emma’s eyes widened. “You want to ride? In our evening gowns?”

“It’s the only way,” Hanna insisted, her resolve hardening. “We must go now before it’s too late.”

With that, the sisters hurried through the house, their hearts pounding as they made their escape into the night.