The library was a good-sized room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves covering much of the walls; halting in the middle of the room, he surveyed the books filling them. “Randall?”
“Yes. Not that he ever read them.”
He glanced at Letitia. “He bought them, but didn’t read them?”
She shrugged. “He didn’t read. He could read, of course, but he never read a book, not that I saw.”
Christian glanced again at the shelves. Many of the Vaux were bibliophiles. Most read voraciously; even Letitia would occasionally be found with her nose in a book. The idea of a total nonreader marrying into the family seemed…odd. And while it wasn’t unheard of for a gentleman to set up a library just for show, there were a lot of books in that room.
As if sensing his thoughts, Letitia said, “Perhaps he saw them as an investment.”
Walking past him, she went to a wing chair by the fireplace. A book had been left open on the small table beside it. She picked it up, then softly snorted. “Justin. This is what he was doing while he waited for me to leave Randall.”
He’d followed her and looked over her shoulder. “Seneca—Letters from a Stoic.” His lips quirked. “Appropriate reading for a male Vaux.”
She laid the book aside and turned to face him. “What else did you want to know?”
He gestured to the wing chair; she sank into it as he waved Hermione to its mate. Once they were both seated, he looked down at them. “If we want to shift suspicion from Justin, we need to reconstruct the crime and demonstrate that someone else had the opportunity to kill Randall.”
Step by step he took them over what they knew, from the time Letitia returned home through the chaos of the following morning. The exercise got them nowhere.
He grimaced. “Barton’s right—the most obvious suspect is Justin.”
“Perhaps,” Letitia grimly conceded. “But he didn’t do it.”
“The key,” Hermione said. “Don’t forget that. You said it yourself.” She fixed Christian with large eyes. “Why would Justin do such a thing? It makes no sense, not if he were the murderer. So he can’t be the murderer.”
Christian looked into her eyes, and wondered, not if but what she was hiding; that wasn’t the first time she’d spoken in Justin’s defense.
He glanced at Letitia; after spending a few hours in her and Hermione’s company, he felt increasingly certain that the Vaux temperament was as he remembered it. They hadn’t changed. Letitia’s betrayal of him aside, loyalty, especially of the familial variety, was ingrained. Letitia had—he felt certain with no real thought for herself—walked across the gulf between them, braving whatever wrath he might seek to visit on her—whatever price he might ask—to gain his help in clearing Justin. Hermione demonstrably felt the same. The question in Christian’s mind was whether she’d acted on that feeling, and if so, how.
He fixed Hermione with a direct look. “Do you know anything more about what happened last night?”
She blinked, slowly, then shook her head. “No. Only what I told you.”
He didn’t believe her. From the corner of his eye he noticed Letitia was also now regarding her sister with a slight frown. But she said nothing.
Both, he felt perfectly certain, would lie through their teeth if that’s what was needed to protect Justin, even though the Vaux rarely lied…and family loyalty worked both ways.
It was very possible Justin was acting to protect…
He looked at Letitia, waited until she felt his gaze and raised her eyes to his. He studied those eyes, eyes he knew very well in all their green and gold splendor, eyes he’d in the past always been able to read. “Tell me you didn’t kill Randall.”
She blinked, but continued to return his steady regard. He saw her make the connection, her mind following the path his had trod. Her brows rose fractionally. “I didn’t kill Randall.” An instant passed, then she grimaced and added, “I often felt like killing him, but no, I didn’t. I wouldn’t. No more than Justin would.”
And that, Christian reflected, was the right answer. In contrast to Hermione, he had no doubt whatever that Letitia was telling the truth.
He nodded. “Very well. That leaves us with one large and immediate question. Where is Justin?”
Chapter 2
After dining alone and reviewing and digesting the conversations and interactions of that afternoon, Christian—much to the disgust of his more vengeful side—felt compelled to call again at Randall’s house.
/>
Not that he had any interest in the house; it was its mistress who drew him.
He’d thought he’d understood where he and she now were vis-à-vis each other, yet there were undercurrents between them he couldn’t explain. When he’d taken his leave of her that afternoon and she’d given him her hand, he’d grasped it—and felt her pulse leap, her breathing tighten.