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“You cannot expect me to leave you after what happened, sweeting. Think how shaken you were.”
“Fine. I will go nowhere without you. For now,” she conceded. “Though, perhaps this shall be over sooner than you think. I still have not told you what I discovered.”
If it weren’t for the fact Demeter had been accosted by whoever the blackguards his cousin owed money to were, he’d have forgotten the matter of his cousin entirely. He’d certainly rather be focusing on the problem that was Demeter and her disinclination to marry him.
“What did you discover?”
“Well, it seems he lived in the North originally.”
“That doesn’t tell us much. Do you know where?”
She grimaced. “No. But at the very least we could hire an investigator or two in a few of the counties.”
“It could take forever to find anything out without a firm idea of where he lived.”
“I know, but Charlotte told me when he moved to London he was trying to find someone who wrote letters.”
Blake scowled. “Foster can write.”
“I do not think he was after someone to write letters.” Her face lit with a bold grin. “I think he wanted someone to forge your aunt’s will.”
He opened his mouth then closed it. “He was here before she died,” he said. “My investigator said as much. He would have known the estate was to pass on soon enough.”
“And last year, there was this group of men who forged a will of my friend’s brother so they could gain his land and house. You might recall word of it.”
“Vaguely.”
“What if they were the same men?”
“They were all arrested and tried were they not?”
She pursed her lips. “We assumed so.”
“We?”
She glanced at him from under her lashes. “My sisters and I had a hand in capturing them.”
“Good Lord, woman, you really are something.”
“Something?”
“Something wonderful, something spectacular. Something—or someone—I’d very much like to marry.”
“Blake, focus. We think your cousin has committed fraud remember?”
“Well, how do we prove he has?”
“I would assume the original will has been destroyed.”
Sighing, Blake nodded. His cousin was many things but he didn’t think him a fool, no matter the act he put on.
“So we go to the source. We find these forgers.”
“Who could well be one of the men who attacked you. What if my cousin was going to pay them out of the inheritance but has not paid up yet? That would explain the threats.”
She put a hand to her mouth. “Michael was bruised too, when I saw him! And we know he had no money when he came to London.”
“Would you recognize the man who attacked you?”
