Page 62 of A Deal With a Notorious Devil
“Lord Garvey?”
“Ah. Thatone goes to the Home Office,” Chris said. “Don’t know that they’ll have enough evidence to prosecute,” he added, “but there’s enough bits and pieces there to suggest that Garvey advanced his inheritance.”
“Advanced his—you mean to say he killed his father?”
Chris shrugged. “Hard to say.” But he’d paid up, suggesting he had something worth concealing.
“And you didn’t go to the authorities?”
“What for? There was nothing to suggest he’d done it before or might be inclined to do it again. And to all accounts, his father was a right bastard. Probably he did the world a favor.” Though Chris was not above capitalizing upon it. Or at least, he hadn’t been. “And these,” he said, separating a few more stacks. “To the Home Office, all.”
“What did they do?”
“You’re better off not knowing,” Chris said. “Suffice it to say, if they receive a visit from the Home Office, they’ll have earned it.”
Brooks heaved a longsuffering sigh. “Statham?” he inquired.
Statham. Chris’ fingers clenched around the papers he held in his hand. Blast it, he’dknownhe’d heard the man’s name before! “What did he do?” he asked.
Brooks unfolded a letter, long-yellowed with age, scanning the lines contained therein. At last he folded it back up with a roll of his eyes. “It would appear he’s illegitimate,” he said blandly.
Hell, half the damnedTonwas probably illegitimate, given the number of affairs that Chris had learned of during his long tenure of collecting information. Statham wouldn’t even be disinherited for it, given that his title suggested he’d been born within the bonds of matrimony. Didn’t matter who his father truly was, so long as his mother had been married at the time of his birth.
But it would still embarrass the man if it were brought to light, and it satisfied Chris’ vengeful soul to know that whatever aspersions it pleased Statham to toss at him, they were just the same, the two of them. Bastards, even if Statham put on the pretensions of better. “I’ll keep that one,” he said. Just to have,for his own personal entertainment. Perhaps to rub Statham’s nose in from time to time, should the man continue to prove himself worthy of it.
“And here’s—” Brooks paused, his fingers crumpling a sheet of paper on reflex as he read the name. “Lymington?”
“Ah.” Chris gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “Thought I’d let you decide what’s to be done with that one. Whether it goes back, or…” He let his voice trail off suggestively. Lymington’s crimes had not, as such, been actual crimes. The Home Office would be less than concerned in a man who’d made a habit of debauching innocent young women in his employ, nor would they be particularly interested in the man’s peculiar sexual peccadilloes.
But a butler whose sister had once been ill-used by the man might well be.
“You have information onLymington?” Brooks asked, incredulous.
“For all the good it’s done me,” Chris said, and he had, in fact, paid out a decent sum to acquire it without return on the investment. “He had a sizeable fortune once. But he’s all but exhausted it in the pursuit of some unsavory activities—and in paying to keep them quiet. You won’t get money from him,” he warned. “He hasn’t got it to spare. But you could publish the letters.”
“He’d be humiliated,” Brooks said, with a note of ruthless satisfaction.
“Worse than humiliated,” Chris said. “He’d never be welcome in polite society again. A pariah in the truest sense of the word. Probably he’d have to flee the country.” And to a man of Lymington’s position, that would be worse even than extortion.
“And you’re giving this to me?” Brooks’ brows pinched together, and a long swallow bobbed in his throat. “Why?”
Ah, hell. That wasgratitudethere upon Brooks’ face, Chris thought. Perhaps even a begrudging respect, for having the means for vengeance set into his hands. “Figure ye got more reason than I to ‘ave it,” he said gruffly. “Ye wouldn’t be the first person I offered a bit o’ revenge when the opportunity arose. And ye been a decent butler, even wiv that stick up yer arse.”
Despite the tightness of his jaw, Brooks managed a laugh. “How the hell would you know? You’ve never had one before.”
But he didn’t have to have prior experience to know that Brooks had done his job admirably, even if his manner had been something less than what would have been expected.Significantlyless. Probably Brooks had been aggrieved to find himself employed by a man possessed of a reputation so far beyond the pale that good, upstanding people tended to cross the street rather than find themselves in his path. But his general antipathy had, at least, been honest. And that sort of honesty—and the loyalty he’d displayed despite it—couldn’t be bought.
Brooks tucked the packet of letters within his coat pocket. “I still think you’re a damned fool,” he said.
“Don’t pay ye fer yer friendship,” Chris said. But damned if he didn’t suspect he’d earned a sliver of it anyway.
Chapter Eighteen
If you’ve got something to say,” Chris said, flicking a page of the book held open across his lap.Ivanhoe, which he might have found himself enjoying, had Phoebe not peppered the silence of the library with a melody of sighs. “You might as well out with it.”
Phoebe peered at him from above her own book.Frankenstein. He’d seen her reading it before on a number of occasions, but apparently she was taking her time with it, for she’d never once replaced it upon the shelves. Which was a damned shame, because he’d have liked to get a peek at it to see for himself what had so held her interest.
“Can’t a woman simply sigh without the need to explain herself?” she asked.
