Page 7 of When the Rogue Returns
“The point is,” he said curtly, “I have no stomach for this life of parties and such. I need a change.”
He also needed to learn the tricks of finding people, something for which Dom was famous. Victor had gleaned a few from his cases with Tristan in Antwerp, but not enough. And now that he had financial resources, he could widen his search. The half brothers might even help him, if he proved himself useful to them.
“We do have that one case you were about to turn down,” Tristan said to Dom.
“Why would you refuse a case?” Victor asked.
“Because it’s odd,” Dom said. “Pays well, but I don’t know what to make of it. And it’s going to take some time, not to mention travel.”
“Victor would be perfect for it,” Tristan pointed out. “He speaks Dutch, he’s lived in Belgium... and he’s good at picking out a lie from the truth.”
“Tell me, what do you know about Edinburgh?” Dom asked.
Victor blinked. “It’s a city in Scotland, filled with damned fine soldiers who make damned fine whiskey. Why?”
“How would you like to sample that fine whiskey straight from the still?”
Victor’s blood quickened. “I would if it means you’re offering to send me to Scotland on a case.”
“Does your cousin know you want to do this?” Dom asked intently.
“Does it matter?” Victor countered.
Tristan laughed. “Dom isn’t eager to involve the duke in our affairs any more than is absolutely necessary. He’s still smarting over how everyone insists on calling the agency ‘The Duke’s Men,’ even after all these months.”
Max had been forced to give the press a rather convoluted tale of how he and Lisette had found Victor, and in the process the press had conflated Dom’s agency with Max. Which annoyed Dom exceedingly.
“And how wouldyoufeel,” Dom snapped at Tristan, “if the business you’d worked so hard to build were credited to a duke who did nothing?”
“Nothing?” Tristan countered. “He gained us the favorable press that is bringing us all these new clients.” A sudden gleam entered his gaze. “Not to mention, he provided us with a free clerk.”
“Don’t let Lisette hear you call her a clerk,” Dom shot back, “or you’ll find yourself doing investigations at the back of beyond.”
In addition to being Max’s duchess, Lisette was Dom’s half sister and Tristan’s sister. The daft female enjoyed organizing their office as a sort of hobby.
Manton’s Investigations was a family business in every sense of the word.
Victor ignored their usual sparring. “Let me take care of Max. I assure you, he won’t interfere with my involvement in Manton’s Investigations. He has his life; I have mine.”
Dom looked skeptical, but Tristan said, “Come now, Dom, what will it hurt to give Victor a chance? You were going to turn down the case anyway, and now you won’t have to.” When Dom looked as if he was wavering, Tristan added, “We do owe Victor, you know. If not for him and the duke, I’d still be back in France, wishing I could come home.”
A long sigh escaped the older brother. “Fine. But only one case to start with. Then we’ll see.”
“Thank you,” Victor said, a weight lifting from his chest.
“You won’t thank me when you see what the case is.” Dom hunted through a stack of files, then handed one to Victor. “It’s the sort of unsavory work that I hate doing: investigating a man’s prospective fiancée for his meddling mother.”
Victor noted the signature on the letter on top. “The client is a baroness?”
“A dowager baroness, Lady Lochlaw. She isn’t pleased with her son Rupert’s latest love interest, a Dutch-speaking widow named Sofie Franke, who claims to be from Belgium.”
Franke? That was the maiden name of Victor’s mother. How odd.
“Apparently, her ladyship thinks that the widow is suspiciously lacking in a knowledge of Belgium,” Tristan said. “Given your long sojourn there, you ought to be able to tell if she’s lying.”
Victor skimmed the letter, and his heart began to pound. “And this Mrs. Franke makes her living designing imitation diamond jewelry?” Surely not. How could it be?
“That’s right,” Dom said. “You can read through the entire file later, but the main points are that according to the records at Customs, she entered Scotland from France with her business partner, another jeweler, nearly ten years ago. And when we put Eugène Vidocq on the case in France, he discovered that the Paris address listed for her at Customs never had a tenant. Indeed, we can find no record of any Sofie Franke living in Paris before this woman got on a boat in Calais to go to Edinburgh. So you can see the problem.”
