Primrose stared at the man who watched her closely with those sharp, silvery blue eyes and the lies she was composing in her head died a swift death. He would not believe any of them. She would just embarrass herself by even trying to divert him with lies. Somehow she had given herself away and revealed her desperate need to find Simeon.
The question was, could she trust him with the truth? Perhaps he was working for her aunt. Even as those thoughts ran through her mind, she discarded them. Her judgment of people may have failed now and then, but the feeling she had was that Sir Bened Vaughn was just what he seemed to be—an honest, decent man who only wanted to help her.
“Staying at Willow Hill without my brother taking his place as the baron would not have been wise,” she said.
“Ah.” He nodded. “Someone stepped up to try to fill the gap left by your father’s death and your brother’s absence.”
“Yes. My aunt and uncle. Papa had allowed them to move into the dower house when Uncle lost all his money. Bad investments he said, but I have since discovered it was from gambling losses. Papa found out shortly before he died and he was furious. He intended to cut my uncle off from any connection to him, Willow Hill, and Wootten funds if the man gambled again. I think Uncle Rufford was gambling again. Some items of value had gone missing and each report only angered my father more.”
“And then your father died.”
She slowly nodded as she fought to push aside her grief again. “And within a day my aunt and uncle were fully moved into the manor.”
“Do you think they may have killed your father?”
“I think it but I cannot prove it. One moment they are all arguing, the next Papa is clutching his chest and falling to the floor. By the time I reached his side, he was already dead. He was not a young man but he had always been healthy and there had never been any sign that his heart was causing him any trouble.” She clenched her hands into tight fists as she remembered that night, all the soothing words her aunt had spoken even as the woman’s eyes had gleamed with triumph. “I checked my supplies of foxglove, both in my herb room and in my garden, and found none missing. I tried to examine what Papa had eaten or drunk but my aunt had already had it all disposed of.”
“So they killed him because he was about to toss them out to fend for themselves.”
It made her heart ache with sorrow to hear that truth stated so clearly. “I fear so. I should have seen it, should have been able to see something that warned me.”
“Why? Your father did not and he knew his brother better than you did. Had many more years of experience with the world as well.” He reached across the table to pat one of her clenched hands, her grief so deep and real he could almost feel it. “Few see the threat when it is family, even when it is family they have never much liked or trusted.” Finding that he liked the feel of her small, soft hand beneath his a little too much, he removed his hand from hers and sat back in his chair again. “The closer the connection the less chance the victim will think that person can ever be a true threat to them.”
“I still find it difficult to believe Uncle Rufford could be part of it but he must be. His own brother, one who was always willing to help him.” She sighed and shook her head.
“Something that undoubtedly ate at the man. But, your aunt was not blood. She may be the strong one in that marriage.”
Primrose thought about that for a moment and nodded. “I believe she is. I first thought her just a foolish, mean-spirited, vain woman but had recently begun to see that she is actually very cunning, greedy, and cold. But, as I said, I found no proof to use against her. ’Tis but a feeling I have, one that is a certainty that she had a hand in my father’s death. It is possible she got some foxglove from some other garden or what she needed from some physician.”
“You know your herbs and medicines.”
“A hobby. And when you learn about what can help heal, you also learn about what can also harm or kill.”
“But she would have to know what to get and how to prepare it.”
“Any of the many books I have would tell her that and everyone knows it is a poisonous plant, just not always how and why.”
“Do you think she might try to be rid of you next, if only because you have the knowledge to guess what she has done?”