My only consolation was having Kitty as my wife—a divine twist if there ever was one. I would never regret her.
Nausea and rage bubbled at the knowledge that we had been intentionally misled.
A startled cry echoed through the cavernous storage area and pierced my chest. I dropped the ledger, my heart nearly stopping at the sound of Kitty in distress. I rushed from the room and pulled out a pistol, then forced myself to slow and tread carefully.
There, at the end of a row of stacked crates ready for delivery to the docks, stood my wife, her chin raised as she stood before Julien ... and my grandfather.
I raised my pistol and took aim, my pulse hammering in my throat as Julien held a gun pointed at Kitty.
“I know you’re there, boy,” Lord Sinclair called. “Come forward, Sebastian. We shall handle this as a family matter and discuss it as gentlemen ought.”
“Gentlemen?” I couldn’t keep the irony out of my voice. “Is that what we Sinclairs are? Gentlemen?”
My grandfather stepped into Kitty’s candlelight, a pistol in his hand as well. “Good heavens, I insist you put that gun down immediately.”
I hesitated.
He motioned with his own gun. “I won’t let my grandchildren hurt each other. Down, both of you.”
Julien also hesitated, hatred flashing in his eyes before his hand dropped and he handed his pistol over to Lord Sinclair. I placed mine on the ground and moved forward.
How brave Kitty appeared. My pulse sped as I considered how to remove her from the situation.
“You and Colonel Grenville have been siphoning from the Company,” I accused when I halted beside her.
“All men come to India for their fortune. As a second son, I had no inheritance waiting for me in England. Same for Katherine’s grandfather.” My grandfather spat the words like a justification. “I built an enterprise over decades. Tea, indigo, opium—legitimate exports. But the ledgers had to balance, and the Company never asked too many questions if the profits flowed. Do you think we are the only men of the Company to take what we need?”
He cast a glance at Julien, who watched in silence, his jaw tight.
“I never meant for Grenville to know of my operation. Somehow that blasted man stumbled across one of my transport manifests—one I never intended anyone to see.”
“So he blackmailed you,” I said coldly.
“Henegotiated,” my grandfather corrected, lips thinning. “He was no fool. A soldier with no prospects, no title, but ambition as strong asany Parliament man. I gave him a portion in exchange for his silence. He could do what he liked so long as he stayed in the dark. And he did. Richard Grenville bought land in England, wed an heiress, and fathered a son who proved ... problematic. The wife died soon after, which left him free to pursue other ambitions. The son, however, refused to fall in line.”
Kitty gasped beside me and my gut roiled.
“Youkilled my father!” my wife cried out, sounding strangled.
“Aye. He no longer held to our interests. Developed a conscience and threatened to expose us to the nizam and the world. It was all too easy to slip him poison, despite Colonel Grenville’s protests that James could be turned. I knew better. Everyone assumed it was simply another act of war between the French and the British.”
“And then,” I said quietly, “Grenville demanded his grandchildren.”
My grandfather didn’t flinch as he met my wife’s gaze. “He said they would be kept hidden, away from scandal. But when you began asking questions here in India—I knew you would ruin everything no matter how many years had passed. Asking for your mother in Hyderabad proved a mistake, child. My spies tell me everything, and I could not have the nizam assume I was responsible.”
A slow dread chilled my bones. The stranger following us in the market, the rifling through our home had been ordered by the man I had most tried to please.
I shifted closer to Kitty, my gaze on Lord Sinclair, who held a gun on me. “You were willing to marry her off to me to keep the bloodlines quiet and keep the money flowing between the Sinclairs and the Grenvilles.”
“It was your chance at redemption,” my grandfather snarled. “You were an embarrassment. This arrangement gave you a path forward. Clean hands, and a wife with a massive dowry to bring into our family. The money I gave Grenville returned home at long last.”
I stared at him, revolted.
“She was never your pawn,” I growled. “Nor am I. I will expose everylast lie and send reports to the governor—unless you bribed him too. I will formally apologize to William Wilberforce and return to Parliament and share what I’ve seen directly if no one will hear me.”
“I told you Sebastian would prove incapable of stepping into the next director’s role,” Julien said as he edged forward.
“I have no desire to be director,” I said.
