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“Why did you try to have me killed in Paris?”
“That was before I learned that Larry here lost the list.”
Bronwyn’s frown deepened. Something wasn’t adding up. Wentworth was turning his back on everything he’d ever worked for, everything he’dstoodfor. He also wasn’t lacking in fortune, even with Sesily’s depleted dowry. In fact, in the year she had known him, he’d always been impeccably dressed. He could be up to his ears in debt, she supposed, but her instincts were firing. No, there was something else…something more than money.
“Why do you want the list so badly? Tell me the truth and we’ll talk about a deal.” She was playing with fire now, but confidence was the biggest part of this game. That and a whole lot of bluster.
Wentworth wasn’t a man used to being questioned. She’d seen it when he’d interacted with Sesily, and also with her on occasion, but she had always put it down to the usual male arrogance and power posturing when a female’s intelligence was involved. But now, she looked at him with fresh eyes. He loved power. He loved his position. What was threatening either of those?
“The shooter in France is on that list. He is linked to me.”
She swallowed, her arms beginning to ache from holding up two small but heavy guns. “Linked how? Was he like me? An operative.”
“Not exactly. A…relative.”
Bronwyn blinked. He’d sent an assassin who was family to kill her? That wasn’t it though. Her senses were still buzzing. “How is that related to an arbitrary list of names of American spies? You’re wasting time here, Wentworth.”
His face went dark. “You stupid, vain, puffed-up—”
“I’ll stop you right there. Save you getting a bullet in your mouth for your efforts,” a mocking voice drawled as the Duke of Thornbury sauntered into the mews with his own gun cocked and ready. “She’s a marvelous shot. Seen her in action myself. Anyway, the lady can’t give you your precious list because she doesn’t have it. I do.”
***
Valentine had the most untimely half erection ever. If there was anything more magnificent than the sight of Bronwyn Chase with a mass of glossy, wild ringlets tumbling down her back and over her shoulders, in that gold-threaded, rose-colored ball gown and holding two guns wide at twelve and six, then he didn’t know what it was.
Because by God and everything holy, this woman took every breath of air in his lungs. She stood like a commander on a field of battle, stance wide, cheeks red, and eyes sparking with fire. She put on a good front, but Valentine could see the strain in her shoulders in the barest tremble of her hands. And if he could see it, he knew Wentworth could as well.
Valentine had overheard quite a lot of the conversation, and he, too, had been hoping that Wentworth would expose his reasons. The big brute, Larry, shifted and redistributed his weight to the balls of his feet as though about to launch himself in an attack, and Valentine tutted, moving the barrel of the gun into the man’s side. “Don’t even think about it. You and I have unfinished business. I’d hate not to get any fun in before I turn you in.”
“Go fuck yourself,” the man snarled.
Valentine made a shocked sound. “Such language, good sir, and in front of a lady no less. Wentworth, what kind of riffraff are you surrounding yourself with these days? Didn’t your mama ever tell you that if you lie with curs, you’ll get fleas.” He sniffed. “I suppose not.”
“Fuck you, Thornbury. You always thought you were too good for everyone else.”
Valentine perused the man, pretending to falter in memory even though he knew exactly who the bastard was. “I remember you. The courier who fetched the newssheets and took the reports to the filing chambers for the senior staff.”
“I worked my way up. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Yes, but there are ways—honest ways—of climbing the ladder and yours were rather questionable, weren’t they, Mr. Wentworth? Then when you decided to steal confidential files and sell them to the highest bidder, that kept you flush for a good long while.” Valentine nodded, even as he could see Bronwyn goggling at him from the corner of her eye. “Your son is awake by the way.”
Bronwyn gasped. “Son?”
“The relative he mentioned,” Valentine explained helpfully. “And the one who knows all of his big brother’s aliases, including one on my very list.”
“You have no proof of such a thing,” Wentworth bit out, though his face had gone a little ashen, his control of his own weapon starting to waver.
Damn and blast!Valentine wanted to rattle him, but not enough to make him get a nervous shot off. Bronwyn could get hurt, and after the last half hour of sheer dread, that was something Valentine did not wish to experience again. He did not think his poor traumatized heart could take another scare.
“The French Sûreté offered him leniency in exchange for what he knew. Turns out, he knew a lot, especially about you. What do you think about that, Mr. Wentworth? Or should I call you Mr. Malcolm Sommers? Half brother to Brent Sommers. How long have you been working against the Crown? Going against the oaths you swore to God and country? You were helping your brother, weren’t you, while lining both your pockets?”
Some of this was conjecture on Valentine’s part, based on a decade of extracting information and putting clues together. When the list of names had been read to the boy in Paris by Rawley, on Valentine’s direction, his reaction had been telling. It had only taken a bit more pressure for him to envision the rest of his life in the worst prison in Paris, Fleury-Mérogis, and blurt out that his father was a powerful agent in England. Rawley had tried, but no names had been given. Accusing Wentworth was an educated guess based on all the evidence. He could be wrong, but his gut told him he wasn’t.
Valentine had arrested Brett Sommers and had him summarily deported, but he’d never been able to figure out how Sommers had been a step ahead of them. Well, now he knew. A traitor in the Home Office would have been valuable.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about!” Wentworth growled, but the sweat beading on his forehead and the nervous shift in his eyes belied his words. He’d done an excellent job of covering his tracks but now his son could confirm that his father did, in fact, have an alias…and one tied to a notorious group of criminals.
His career was over, and he knew it.
