“I’M STILL A MAN… YOU THINK I CAN’T DO THIS?” THE WHEELCHAIR-BOUND DUKE WHISPERED TO HIS BRIDE

Chapter 18

The ruling came in three parts.

First: the trustees found, unanimously, that the Duke of Thornwick was fully capable of administering the Kensington trusts. The claim of incapacity was dismissed with costs.

Second: the Court referred the matter of the carriage to the assizes, where Lord Augustus Kensington would stand trial for the murder of John Kensington and the attempted murder of Charles Kensington, along with subornation of perjury and fraud. Dr. Benedict Wallace would stand beside him on the charges of conspiracy and grievous bodily harm; he confessed within the month and gave evidence against his employer in exchange for a reduced sentence.

Third: the funds Charles had allegedly misappropriated from the estate were traced, quietly, to a set of transfers made by Augustus’s own hand — the very alteration Samuel had witnessed, executed to create a trail that would ruin James Goodwin and give Augustus leverage over a family he had already decided to buy.

Samuel Goodwin was cleared. Publicly, in writing, by the trustees themselves.

Lily read the letter in the carriage on the way back to Thornwick, and then she folded it, and then she put her face in her hands and cried for the first time since her father’s funeral — not for grief, but for the sheer weight of relief.

Charles said nothing. He simply put his arm around her and let her lean against him the whole way home.