He turned his gaze, quite mildly, across the lawn.
"I believe I know who did write it."
The crowd turned too.
Gerard Hartley, who had been standing at the edge of the gathering with a glass of lemonade, wearing a face of concerned sympathy, found forty pairs of eyes upon him. The Earl's were among them. They were not stone now. They were something much worse, because they were clear.
"Gerard," said Lucian, very softly.
"My dear fellow," Gerard said, and laughed, a thin, startled sound, "you cannot possibly believe—"
"Where did you find this note?"
"In the wall. I told you. The boy—"
"What boy?"
"I do not recall his name. One of the kitchen—"
"Finch," said the Earl, without raising his voice.
The butler came forward at once. "My lord."
"Find the boy who takes the vegetables to the third stone in the kitchen garden wall. Bring him here."
"At once, my lord."
"Lucian, this is absurd," said Gerard, with rising pitch. "You are taking the word of a servant over your own blood. I have been nothing but loyal. I have only ever wished to—"
"Mr. Hartley."
It was Cecilia who spoke. She had drawn herself up, still holding her husband's hand, and for the first time in eighteen months there was steel in her voice.
"I have kept the household accounts since February," she said. "I took them over from Mr. Pruitt when he fell ill. I have been meaning to speak to my lord about them. There are rents missing from the Hollin Farm and the Lower Mill, a matter of some eleven hundred pounds over three years, which were paid in full by the tenants and never entered in the ledgers. The receipts are in my desk. They bear your signature."