Page 99 of A Rogue at Stonecliffe

“He will be,” Nathan and Verity said at the same time.

“Did I hear my name?” Sloane strode into the room.

“You did.” Annabeth rose, smiling, and went to him. She wanted to wrap her arms around him but managed to restrain herself, only taking his hand.

Nathan said lightly, “We were laying bets on whether Lady Lockwood will praise you for rescuing Annabeth or excoriate you for making a mess in her entryway.”

“The day I hear Lady Lockwood praise me is the day I’ll know I’ve lost my mind,” Sloane replied. He strolled back to the sofa with Annabeth, not letting go of her hand.

“Where did you take Asquith?” Annabeth asked.

“The proper authorities.”

“What does that mean?” Annabeth frowned. “Jail?”

Verity snorted. “You’d have to have somebody higher than a magistrate to take care of Asquith.”

“Then what’s going to happen to him?” Nathan asked. “Surely the government won’t just cover this up.”

Sloane shrugged. “They’d certainly prefer this story didn’t get out. It would look rather bad to have had a traitor in charge of one’s spying operation for fifteen years. I’m sure they would have preferred it to be you, Verity, as Asquith tried to convince us.”

“Tried?” Verity cocked an eyebrow. “The way I remember it, you were all quite suspicious of me.”

“You’ll be pleased to hear that Dunbridge didn’t believe you were guilty of any wrongdoing,” Sloane told Verity.

“You defended me?” Verity looked over at Nathan, her expression startled. “Why?”

“Because I didn’t think you were the sort of person to betray either your country or your friends,” Nathan replied. “I could hardly stand by and hear you slandered. Why does that surprise you?”

“Because you’re a ‘gentleman,’” she answered.

Nathan stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. “Clearly you and I have different ideas of what a gentleman is.”

“One of them, I mean—an aristocrat. I—well...” Verity paused, a little flustered, her cheeks turning pink. “Thank you.” Quickly Verity turned her gaze to Sloane, as though eager to escape the present topic. “So are you saying the Foreign Office is just going to bury the whole thing?”

“They can’t let treason go unpunished. I would guess if he confesses to murdering Mr. Winfield, the rest of it won’t be spoken of. We haven’t any evidence proving Asquith was the murderer, just a traitor. Only a confession from him would seal it. But I think they will be able to get that out of him.”

“Why would he confess to murder if he’s already been arrested for treason?” Annabeth asked. “Don’t they hang murderers, too?”

“Yes, they hang for both offenses, but murder is less of a stain on one’s name, and the government can commute a death sentence to a life in prison. If he won’t agree to that...” Sloane shrugged.

“He’ll have an unfortunate fatal accident in jail,” Verity said, completing the thought.

“I see. Did he tell you anything? Why he did all this?” Annabeth asked.

“Greed, I think, was the motivation at the start. As for why he was looking for the confession now, apparently several years ago a former French spy claimed he had it and tried to blackmail Asquith with it, which did not work out well for him.”

“That’s the spy I learned died suspiciously in his cell while under Asquith’s watch,” Verity added.

“Yes.” Sloane nodded. “But when Asquith searched the man’s flat, he couldn’t find any confession. Since he felt he’d gotten rid of the problem, he did nothing else.”

“Until I started clearing out my father’s old things from the town house?” Annabeth asked.

“Then Asquith became worried and decided to send someone to look for the confession,” Sloane finished.

“But why did he hire Verity to find it?” Nathan asked. “She would have found out the truth about him.”

“He didn’t hire me,” Verity answered. “He hired a man outside the agency, and I got the job through him. Asquith was furious, I’m sure.”