"And I suppose you had nothing to do with his debts."
Cecil shrugged. "I might have steered Phillip in the direction of a game or two. But always at his request."
Charles swore under his breath. He should have watched out for his cousin, realized that his gambling habit was becoming a dangerous problem. He might have been able to counteract Cecil's influence. "Phillip should have come to me," he said. "I would have helped him."
"Don't scold yourself, cuz," Cecil said with a clucking sound. 'There's really very little you could have done for dear Phillip. I have a feeling those moneylenders would have gotten to him no matter how promptly he repaid his debts."
Bile rose in Charles's throat as he realized what Cecil meant. "You killed him," he whispered. "You threw him in the Thames and made it look like the moneylenders did him in."
"Rather clever, don't you think? It's taken over a year to execute; after all, I needed to make certain Phillip's connections with London's underbelly were common knowledge. I laid my plans out very carefully." His face grew ugly. "But then you ruined it all."
"By being born?" Charles asked, baffled.
"By marrying that stupid vicar's daughter. I wasn't going to kill you, you know. I never cared about the title. It was just the money I was after. I was biding my time until your thirtieth birthday. I have been rejoicing over your father's will since the day it was read. Nobody thought you'd actually obey his terms. You've been acting out just to spite him your entire life."
"And then I married Ellie," Charles said in a dull voice.
"And then I had to kill you. It was as simple as that. I saw it coming when you began to court her, so I tampered with your curricle, but all that gave you were a few bruises. And then I engineered your fall from the ladder—that was difficult to do, I'll tell you. I had to work very quickly. I wouldn't have been able to do it if the ladder hadn't been in a bit of disrepair to begin with."
Charles remembered the searing pain he'd felt when his skin had been sliced open by the splintered ladder, and he shook with rage.
"There was quite a bit of blood," Cecil continued. "I was watching from the forest. I thought I had you that time until I realized you'd only cut your arm. I'd been hoping for a chest wound."
"I'm sorry to have disobliged you."' Charles said in a dry voice.
"Ah yes, that famous Billington wit. Such a stiff upper lip you possess."
"Clearly I need it at times like these."
Cecil shook his head slowly. "Your wits won't save you this time, Charles."
Charles stared his cousin hard in the eye. "How do you plan to do it?"
"Quick and clean. I never intended to make you suffer."
"The poison you fed my wife did not precisely sit gently in her stomach."
Cecil let out a long-suffering sigh. "She is ever getting in the way. Although she did cause that nice kitchen fire. If the day had been windier she might have done my job for me. I understood you fought the flames yourself."
"Leave Ellie out of this."
"At any rate, I do apologize for the virulence of that poison. I had been told it would not be painful. Clearly I was misinformed."
Charles's lips parted in disbelief. "I cannot believe you're apologizing to me."
"I am not without manners—just scruples."
"Your plan is going to fail," Charles stated. "You can kill me, but you won't inherit my fortune."
Cecil tapped his finger against his cheek. "Let me see. You have no sons. If you die, I become the earl." He shrugged and laughed. "It seems simple to me."
"You'll become the earl, but you won't get the money. All you'll get is the entailed property. Wycombe Abbey is worth quite a bit, but as the earl, you will be legally barred from selling it, and it costs a bloody fortune to keep it up. Your pockets will feel even more pinched than they do right now. Why the hell do you think I was so bloody desperate to get married?"
Beads of sweat appeared on Cecil's brow. "What are you talking about?"
"My fortune goes to my wife."
"No one leaves a fortune like that to a woman."
"I did," Charles said with a slow smile.
"You're lying."
He was right, but Charles didn't see any reason to inform him. In all truth, he'd planned to amend his will to leave his fortune to Ellie; he just hadn't gotten around to doing it yet. Charles shrugged and said, "That's a gamble you'll just have to take."
"That's where you're wrong, cuz. I can just kill your wife."
Charles had known he would say that, but it made his blood boil all the same. "Do you really think," he drawled, "that you can kill both the Earl and Countess of Billington, inherit the title and the fortune, and not be a suspect in our murders?"
"I can ... if you're not murdered."
Charles narrowed his eyes.
"An accident," Cecil mused. "A terrible, tragic accident. One that takes both of you away from your loving relatives. We shall all grieve terribly. I will wear black for a full year."
"Very sporting of you."
"Damn, but now I'm going to have to send one of those idiots"—he flicked his head toward the outer room—"back out after your wife."
Charles began to struggle against his bindings. "If you harm a hair on her head ..."
"Charles, I just told you I'm going to kill her," Cecil said with a chuckle. "I shouldn't worry too much about her hair, were I you."