“I have other business interests. They don’t pay as well, but they’re more respectable. I could use a good man to help me manage them.”
Langdon scoffed. “You don’t understand what it is to be a gentleman. You’ve never understood. We don’t work.”
“Tell me, Langdon, if I cut off your allowance, how would you pay for the solicitor you’ve hired to represent you in court?”
The man remained silent. Luke knew he was pushing him—and that he was unwise to do so. Yet he seemed unable to stop himself. “The next time I meet with my man of business, perhaps you should come with me, so you’ll see exactly what you will inherit if you meet with success in the courts. I assure you that the income you’ll derive from your estates will not be nearly as generous as I am. Consider that.”
He gave them each a mocking bow before seeing himself out. He’d barely made it into his coach before the pain tore through his head. The head pains came whenever he confronted them, no doubt a result of guilt because he knew they were right and he was wrong. He was holding on to that which didn’t belong to him. God knew why he refused to give it up. Perhaps because he thought some good could come from his being considered a peer.
Or perhaps it was simply because the old gent had believed so fervently that Luke belonged here, and for some reason that Luke failed to grasp, he didn’t want to disappoint him.
“You tried to have him killed?” Marcus Langdon asked as he paced in front of the fireplace.
“It seemed the most efficient way to achieve my ends.”
“But as I explained, I wanted to go through the courts. I want everything legal.”
“That could take years.”
“I want there to be no doubt that I am the true Earl of Claybourne.”
“There’s no doubt now. All of London knows he’s an imposter.”
Marcus despised the calm voice, the absolute absence of emotion.
“I don’t want to be party to this—”
“It’s far too late to have misgivings now.”
Marcus shook his head.
“Why do you have such qualms? He murdered your father.”
“That was never proven.”
“He’s never denied it.”
“Quite honestly, he doesn’t seem like a killer.”
Dark laughter echoed through the room. “But then, neither do I.”
Marcus had always thought of hatred as a heated emotion, but looking into the dark eyes of the person standing opposite him, he realized it was cold, very cold—and very, very dangerous.
Chapter 10
Not tonight.
—C
Catherine studied the missive that had been delivered earlier in the evening. Then she compared it to the one she should have burned. It was incomprehensible that they were written by the same hand. The latest was more scribble than anything else, looking like something her father in his infirmity would have written.
Not something that the bold, strong, and daring Lord Claybourne would write.
Unexpected dread filled her. He’d been fighting the ruffians long before she’d stepped out of the coach. He’d disappeared into shadows, only to reemerge. She’d assumed he was unscathed, but her assumption could be wrong. He could have been wounded.
Seriously. And it would be just like him to worry over her wound and allow his own to go untended—to strive to be so amazingly brave and sacrificing.
This very moment, he could be fighting an infection, shivering with a fever, writhing in pain.
