A Murderous Marriage by Alyssa Maxwell

Author:Alyssa Maxwell
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2018-11-12T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

On their way back to their rooms after dinner, Phoebe sent Amelia on to the one they shared, and followed Fox to his. “Why were you rude to Ernest?” she wanted to know, placing herself inside his threshold and crossing her arms to let him know she wouldn’t leave without an answer. She spoke quietly, however. Although the door to their grandparents’ adjoining suite was closed, she wouldn’t risk having them overhear.

He cast her an annoyed look, then shrugged. “I don’t much like him.”

“That’s obvious. Why not?”

“I didn’t like the way he was looking at Julia yesterday.”

The disclosure took Phoebe by surprise. She murmured, “Him too?”

“What do you mean by that?”

She didn’t feel like explaining to him about Curtis Mowbry and his photographs. Instead, she asked, “Looking at her how?”

“I don’t know . . . in a way I didn’t like.”

“As though he liked her?” she suggested.

“No, as if he didn’t like her.”

“I never saw any such thing from him.”

“Then you weren’t looking closely enough. It wasn’t all the time. Just when he thought no one would notice, especially Julia. And he hated Gil. Talk about something being obvious.”

“Hated might be too strong a word.” Phoebe sighed and crossed the room to sit in an armchair near the window. “I suppose he had lots of reasons to resent Gil. Gil wasn’t very nice to him, if that incident in the dining room was any indication. But why should he resent Julia?”

“Because of what we talked about downstairs. Ernest becoming the viscount.” Fox slid his arms out of his coat and tossed it over the foot of the bed and then worked his fingers into his necktie to loosen the knot. “I’m not a child, Phoebe. I understand that married women have babies, although I don’t suppose after one day of marriage Julia is going to. So I suppose Ernest is satisfied that he’ll be the new viscount.”

Phoebe merely nodded and said nothing. She wasn’t about to reveal any part of what had happened on Julia’s wedding night.

“Which gave him the perfect reason to push his own cousin overboard,” Fox continued. He perched at the edge of his bed, his expression challenging Phoebe to disagree.

“Why last night, though?” she reasoned aloud. “Why not sooner, when he and Julia first announced their engagement?”

“It might have been too obvious who did it if Ernest killed him on the estate. Besides, it’s easier to make it look like an accident on a boat. Just one good shove and—”

“Yes, yes, you needn’t be explicit.”

He gave another shrug, then turned more serious than Phoebe had ever seen him—far beyond his years. “All the better for him that Julia is being blamed. He can’t have foreseen that, but didn’t you notice how much confidence he has now, in comparison to just a day ago?”

Fox was right. One might suppose his tyrant of a cousin’s death had been the cause of Ernest’s newfound assurance, but then again, so could having gotten away with murder. An unaccounted-for detail remained, however, and Phoebe decided she had nothing to lose discussing it with her brother.

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