Chapter 34

We spent the day being normal.

That might sound easy, but when you are impossibly rich, royal, and live like a fabled playboy of old, normal isn’t always an everyday occurrence. Joan loved the ocean. She was positively captivated by the swells and booming of the waves upon the rocks below my villa. Our day was just as lazy as we wanted it to be, and it was by mutual agreement that we waited to talk about how to deal with Deirdre.

If it were possible, I was in a quite rage about Deirdre having Sheldon killed. How could anyone take the life of such a sweet, uncomplicated, loving, helpless, and damaged soul? To put a plan together and get it in motion meant that I had to accept the truth. Deirdre deeply hated me and would do anything to hurt me.

After lunch, good sex and a long, hot shower, Joan and I took a nap. When we awoke it was time to talk about revenge.

“Your Aunt spent considerable time meeting with a therapist during the last five years.” Joan seemed to know an awful lot about Deirdre’s private affairs. Before I could interrupt and ask why, she answered the question. “According to notes our agents were able to read, Deirdre was suffering from severe depression that was diagnosed as caused, or aided by a bipolar condition. Her depression was being treated with mediations that were described as, ‘a regimen of aggressive drugs, capable of altering her personality dramatically.’

“Deirdre stopped filling her prescriptions a few months before the attack on Castle Wellington.” Joan paused before delivering the final bits of information. “Terry, Deirdre’s psychiatrist was deeply concerned about her mental state and her antipathy towards you. When our agents gained entry into his files, the reports were so outrageous that I asked them to place a monitoring device on his computers to keep us abreast of anything she might confess to that we could head off before people got killed.

“She only admitted to her involvement in the attack after it failed, but nothing we know could be admitted into evidence. If we tried to take her down based on what we know, several very good and loyal agents would go to jail right alongside me.

“We can’t touch her, Terry, and she will try again. We’ve seen that with how she keeps coming after you, and how diabolically she murdered Sheldon.” Joan looked stricken about her news, but I never imagined it getting worse.

“Chief Younger was – how shall I say it – intimately involved with Lady Deirdre.” Joan stopped when she saw the surprise on my face.

I motioned for her to continue.

“Deirdre used her sex as a honey trap, and snared the Chief as if he was a stupid schoolboy, too green to know to zip up his own jacket. They met in several safe houses, which is how we tumbled to it after his body was discovered. If they’d kept their trysts to private dwellings and hadn’t used government facilities we might never have discovered their affair.

“He was hopeless, Terry. From the video and audio files, it was obvious that Deirdre used her sex to turn him into a bumbling idiot. When she got around to asking for his help getting certain assets in and out of the UK, we had it all on tape, but failed to piece things together for some time.