“Is this true, Mater? You knew all along about Allerton and brought him here anyway?”
“What else could I do, Andrew?” Lady Birks exploded. “I knew that you’d be in danger as soon as you stepped off that boat. I couldn’t let anything happen to you, could I? Any mother would have done the same. I couldn’t know that he would go off and start shooting people—”
“Ho, ho, no you don’t, your ladyship!” Allerton intervened again. “This young man here.” He indicated Edmund with a jerk of his head, “Wanted to know why I was down at the lake on the Fernside estate. Well, I’ll tell you exactly why I was there. Because she sent me, told me what to do and even paid for the ammunition to do it!”
His final words were delivered with a triumphant sneer. Kitty and Andrew both gasped in shock.
“No!” Andrew gasped. “It can’t be true. The man’s talking nonsense, obviously trying to save himself at our expense.”
“That’s not all either, is it, your ladyship?” Allerton carried on, clearly enjoying his revelations. “I was the one you sent to buy the poison you wanted from that apothecary in London. I’ve still got the bit of paper you wrote the name of the stuff on and the receipt, see?”
He produced a crumpled note and a bill which were confiscated and inspected by Mr. Langford as Diana looked over his shoulder.
“Shut up, you fool!” Henrietta hissed, her face now a mass of seething hatred as the mask slipped entirely. “I could have saved us both if you’d held your tongue."
“Tell them it isn’t true, Mater!” Andrew begged; his face utterly confused. “Tell them that none of it is true. What’s the man even talking about?”
Allerton threw back his head and laughed.
“God, this is priceless, isn’t it? His mother is paying someone to help get family enemies out of the way and he’s so befuddled by drink that he hasn’t noticed a thing.”
“Percy was no enemy!” Diana cried then. “He never did anything to anyone, especially not our cousins.”
“Do you want to tell the young lady or shall I, your ladyship?” Allerton said. Lady Birks almost growled, her final layer of disguise cracking and falling away.
“I’ll happily tell the little bitch. What happened to her brother was her own fault, and she deserves to know while she can still hear it,” Henrietta hissed, her face now twisted and unrecognizable with such animosity.
Lady Birks’s bad language and ill feeling were like a bomb detonating in the room, unsettling everyone and creating a truly evil atmosphere that seemed to lower the temperature by several degrees. Edmund came back to Diana’s side and put his arm around her shoulders again, in defiance of the expression on Lady Birks’s face. Andrew and Kitty huddled together like two frightened children.
“How dare you!” Diana’s voice shook with anger. “You sent this man to shoot my brother and now you blame me?”
“I didn’t send him to shoot your brother, you little fool. I sent him to shoot your lover, the Duke of Colborne!” her aunt crowed, her features entirely deranged as she stopped trying to control them. “It’s not only the reputation of the house of Birks that will be smashed in this room, but also that of Templeton!”
“Yes, Diana and I fell in love and will be getting married soon,” Edmund affirmed, pride evident in his voice. “There is no shame on her family name in acknowledging that fact.”
Even in the middle of this storm of accusations and the horror of realizing that it was Edmund who had been targeted, Diana’s heart throbbed at her lover’s words. Still, she couldn’t bear to look back at Kitty after hearing her cousin’s small squeak of surprise upon learning of their happiness.
“Getting married? Getting married?” Lady Birks cackled hysterically as though the idea were hilarious. “What a delightful joke. You think you’re going to get married? Never! I will never allow it. Do you hear me?”
“But why would my mother want to kill Colborne?” Andrew asked slowly, still several steps behind everyone else in the room.
“Because I needed to prevent exactly this from happening, Andrew!” his mother shouted at him in exasperation. “Why should he have Diana’s dowry rather than you? Why should he have Diana? He doesn’t need the money, and she’s yours by right.”
“I don’t understand,” Andrew said again, incomprehension still creasing his face.
“I did it for you! She could not be allowed to marry another man. Diana’s dowry belonged to you and was the only way we could ever pay off your debts and hope to maintain our position in society. I couldn’t let the Duke get in the way and ruin everything, not after I’d already gone so far.”
Kitty’s sobs now became audible as she took in the unveiling of her mother’s evil plotting.
“There’s no point in crying about it, Kitty. It’s on your shoulders too, you little fool,” her mother proceeded cruelly. “To begin with, I thought that your beauty might be enough to lure the Duke away from Diana, and then we might have two advantageous marriages. But you were no match for her wiles and the lustful spell she’s cast on him. You’re nothing but a disappointment!”
“You’re mad,” Diana realized aloud. At a subtle nod from Mr. Langford, two of the hired men had quietly moved into position near Lady Birks.
“You couldn’t keep your eyes off one another,” Henrietta rambled, her voice ever louder and less controlled. “Now you can’t keep your hands off one another either. Look at you! Oh, I could see it all coming. It’s why I had to lock you in your room, Diana, to preserve your virginity for Andrew.”
Diana pulled a face of disgust at her aunt’s words, and Edmund continued to hold her close to him.
“Diana is right,” Edmund said. “You are mad, and I pity you. There is no other excuse for your behavior towards your cousin’s family."