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“Venus sought to test not only Psyche but her own son, forcing them both to endure the consequences of disobedience.”

Lucius Apuleius, Metamorphoses

Isla’s drawing room occupied the corner of the house, with a wide bank of windows overlooking the garden where the servants had gathered earlier, and two smaller windows along the adjoining wall which faced the same direction as Simon’s bedchamber, toward the creeping ivy that climbed the trellis outside.

Considering the chill of the day and the stiff draught blowing in, there was no sensible reason for the window to be open. Simon was certain it had stood ajar when he and Trafford had first entered to search for his mother, though he had paid it little heed at the time.

Crossing the room, he leaned out to look about. The breeze tugged at his hair, carrying the faint scent of damp earth. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the glare of daylight, but then he saw him. The footman clung to the trellis like a man besieged by a storm, his face chalk-white against his dark hair, his limbs trembling violently.

Simon stared in disbelief. He surmised his mother had ordered the footman to climb down to John’s bedroom to end his life. She must have known about John’s collapse in the study, but had not come to discover his condition, which was rather telling that she had been expecting it.

The full horror of her intent crashed over him. She had sought to murder his older brother to clear the way for Simon to inherit. Was she so lost in her delusions that she had forgotten the heirs from Italy altogether?

Staring into that madness, Simon’s stomach turned. His mother had conspired at death for years—intercepting letters, sowing deceit, and spreading poison—while he had remained blissfully unaware. At least her final scheme had failed. Roderick, thank heaven, was too terrified of heights to descend.

“Do you need assistance to come back inside?” It was not the time to interrogate the petrified manservant despite the horrifying revelations of the past couple of hours.

Roderick shook his head with vehemence, his grip so tight around the bars of the trellis that his knuckles shone white even through the pallor of his skin.

Simon cocked his head, struggling to decide his next move. They were at a stalemate, Roderick frozen just a few feet away, their gazes locked in an uncomfortable challenge.

The footman finally spoke in a tremulous voice. “Where’s Isla?”

Trafford chose that moment to lean out beside Simon, jostling him in his impatience to see what was going on. “You seem the right height and size. Are you the one who stabbed me outside my home?”

Roderick grimaced without responding. Trafford took it as an assent.

“What about Miss Bigsby? Did you poison her tea earlier?”

Still no response.

“What of Lord Blackwood? Have you been administering poison to the baron?”

Trafford paused, but no reply was forthcoming.

“Did you, perchance, help Lady Blackwood to kill Lord Filminster?”

Shutting his eyes tight, Roderick’s mouth moved as if he were praying.

“Damnation, you scoundrel! Give me an answer! What about hastening Mr. Scott’s father to an early grave?”

Roderick’s eyes flew open in shock as he exclaimed loudly, “That was an accident!”

Simon’s stomach dropped, his breath catching as he whipped around to stare at Trafford, aghast. The lord simply shrugged, his expression nonplussed. “I was only guessing, old chap. With the creeping shroud of death haunting this house, I thought I would toss it out there. I fully expected him to deny it, I swear.”

When Simon turned back, Roderick had crumpled again into a shivering terror. “Where … where is Isla?”

Trafford snarled, his voice dripping with contempt. “Lady Blackwood is dining with the devil in the depths of hell, answering for her sins. If you hurry, you might just catch her there.”

“Trafford!” Simon sputtered, turning to meet Trafford’s strange green-brown eyes again.

His companion shrugged once more without a hint of remorse. “What? It is this or a public hanging for the murders of not one but two barons. And three more counts of attempted murder. Not so, Roderick?”

The footman declined to address the question, instead concentrating on the one thing he seemed to care about.

“Isla is dead?”