“Greengrass is skulking somewhere in Berkshire. At least the address where I’m to take the money is in Maidenhead. The first letter came from Newbury.”
The mail at Alloway Chase had included a letter from Greengrass responding to Leath’s agreement to buy the diary. The ruffian had changed his point of contact. Clearly he was cunning and wary. He needed to be to escape justice so long.
As Hillbrook leaned back in his chair, a sardonic smile creased his scarred face. “I credit the fellow’s sense of humor in choosing his location.”
“None of this is a matter for jest, Jonas,” Sedgemoor growled. “You saw those letters. Neville Fairbrother used those women and abandoned them to starvation and disgrace. I wish I’d shot the cur myself instead of leaving him to take the
easy way out.”
“I only got the blackmail demand a week ago,” Leath said. “My agents have tried to locate him, with the hope that the law could take him unawares. They haven’t had any luck, despite setting up a watch on the Newbury inn.”
“One wonders what Greengrass has been living on since he fled Little Derrick,” Harmsworth said thoughtfully. “That was over a year ago. It’s odd that he’s waited so long to squeeze you over the diary.”
Hillbrook agreed. “He wouldn’t hesitate before tightening the screws on a victim.”
“Perhaps after Lord Neville’s fall, he was nervous about tangling with the aristocracy,” Sedgemoor suggested.
Harmsworth frowned. “I can’t see Greengrass nervous at the Last Judgment. After failing so ignominiously in Little Derrick, he’d be set on causing mayhem.”
“He and Fairbrother went damned close to finishing you and Genevieve.” Anger resonated in Sedgemoor’s usually calm voice. “We all have scores to settle, not just Leath.”
“We know where he wants to collect the money,” Leath said. “He must be holed up near there. Especially as he’s demanded payment within the week.”
“Leath, you don’t mean to do what the bugger wants?” Harmsworth asked.
He bared his teeth at the man he’d once considered his enemy. “No. I mean to get that bloody diary and destroy it—and in the process destroy Greengrass, too.”
“Bravo,” Hillbrook said drily. “I’m in the mood for a jaunt into the Home Counties.”
“In this frigid weather, anything south of here sounds good,” Sedgemoor said.
“Hear, hear.” Harmsworth raised his cup in an ironic toast.
Leath frowned at this circle of influential men. “I don’t understand.”
“Very simple, my dear Leath,” Sedgemoor said with that superior air that had always irritated him, particularly over the last year when relations between the Fairbrothers and the Rothermeres had been colder than today’s temperature.
Strangely Leath wasn’t as irritated as he used to be. Love must have softened his heart. Or his head.
“Yes, very simple,” Hillbrook repeated. Another superior bugger. Any room Jonas Merrick entered always seemed too small for his dominant presence. But again, Leath’s usual urge to punch that ruined face was absent. “We all owe Greengrass a reckoning and if we can achieve that while getting you out of a fix, we’re delighted to assist.”
Leath stared across to the fire. “I can handle this, although I appreciate your support.”
Sedgemoor laughed and to his surprise, rose to clap him on the shoulder as if they were friends rather than men forced into superficial politeness by a runaway wedding. “Don’t be so damned prickly. Why should you have all the fun?”
Shocked, oddly moved, Leath glanced around the room. The others regarded him steadily, without hostility or equivocation.
“You still should have damn well warned me before making my uncle’s crimes public,” he said, although the words lacked the rage that had prompted him to work against Sedgemoor and his cohorts.
Sedgemoor extended his hand. “Let bygones be bygones.”
Six months ago, if anyone had said that he’d accept Camden Rothermere’s friendship, he’d have laughed. Six months ago, he and the duke had come to blows over Sophie’s elopement.
Yet now, he found himself smiling and taking Sedgemoor’s hand. “A new beginning, Your Grace.”
Gripping his hand with impressive strength, Sedgemoor surveyed him down that long ducal nose. “Well said.”
Leath cleared his throat as Sedgemoor released him. All his life he’d been in essence a lone wolf. Now it seemed he had a woman he loved. And an offer of friendship. A series of friendships, he realized, noticing that Hillbrook and Harmsworth observed him with an approval he couldn’t imagine he deserved.