He missed her. He loved her. But loving her wasn’t enough. Needing her wasn’t enough. When he had followed her to the dingy rooms above an apothecary where she had gone to meet John Mahoney, he had been terrified for her. Terrified he would lose her.
But in the aftermath of what had happened that day, a cold realization had struck him. She had betrayed him by seeking out Mahoney, had even given the man a cipher key she’d thieved from Leo’s own waistcoat, and he could not trust her.
Not now. Perhaps not ever again. He had been wrong about her, and nothing had illustrated that painful fact more than the sight of her standing in those rooms, colluding with a Fenian plotter, instead of trusting Leo. He had not known what to do with her, and his initial fury had been so great, the only solution he could settle upon was sending her to Harlton Hall. Away from him.
He had taken her there, left her with his mother and his brother. Turned his back on her. But she had remained with him even as his carriage had rumbled away that day. Even as he had boarded the train bound for London. Even as he had thrown himself into his work for the League with an unprecedented, grim abandon.
For the first three days of her absence, he did not sleep. He had killed a man, and though it was not the first time he had done so in the name of duty, there had been something different about this man. It was not enough the man was dead. Leo wanted to know all there was to know about him, and he had given himself over to the instinct to dig deeper, to unearth the buried secrets of Mahoney before it was too late.
He had scoured London. Interviewed everyone he could find who had a connection to John Mahoney, or Reginald Palliser, the alias he was known by. Using his and Griffin’s sources, he had gleaned a great deal of information. The picture Leo had begun to place together had been stunning.
In Mahoney’s rooms above the apothecary, a treasure trove of evidence against him and a dozen others had been discovered: false beards, revolvers, addresses of fellow plotters, telegrams, a map of London, and packages of lignine dynamite. With the new information they had gathered, he went to the Home Office, and a fresh wave of arrests occurred.
Interviews with the newly incarcerated men had added the final details in proving Mahoney had been the ring leader who had plotted the Phoenix Park murders. And further, that he had been actively plotting to lay bombs at railway stations in London at the time of his death.
In the wake of the arrests, another undeniable truth had emerged. Cullen O’Malley had not been an active conspirator in the plot to kill the Duke of Burghly. He had been a pawn, manipulated by John Mahoney. The conspirator who had turned Queen’s evidence and implicated Bridget’s brother had also been acting under the influence of Mahoney. The charges against Cullen O’Malley in relation to the murder of Burghly had been dismissed, and just yesterday, he had been released from Kilmainham gaol.
Leo’s carriage stopped outside Blayton House.
Like an automaton, he alighted and walked up the front walk. Ordinarily, today would be a cause for celebration. He and Griffin had managed to see another dozen dangerous men stopped before they could do harm to civilians. An innocent man had been released. A villain was cold and dead, moldering in the ground.
But these victories were bittersweet, because the one resolution he wanted more than all others would forever elude him.
The door opened, and there stood Hargrove, waiting for him as always, ready to take his hat, gloves, and coat. “You have a visitor, Your Grace.”
For a moment, his heart thudded into a gallop, daring to believe it could be her.
“Mr. Ludlow is awaiting you in your study,” Hargrove continued, dispelling the notion in the next breath.
His brother Clay had come to London. If he had left his new wife and son behind in Oxfordshire…
Leo’s heart beat even faster.
Bridget.
Was something wrong? Had she taken ill? Left him?
“Christ,” he muttered.
He did not even recall handing off his garments to Hargrove. One moment, he was standing in the entryway, and the next he was stalking into his study. Clay stood at his entrance, his expression unreadable. Like their shared father, and like Leo, Clay was tall and broad. The scar on his cheek gave him a menacing air, but beneath his harsh mien, he had the heart of a kitten.
Under ordinary circumstances, Leo would be thrilled for his brother’s company. But these were no ordinary circumstances. “Clay. What the devil are you doing here? Is it Bridget? Is she well?”
“It is good to see you too, brother,” Clay said grimly, lifting a brow. “I was beginning to think you had forgotten you had a wife. How heartening to realize I was mistaken.”
He deserved that jibe, and he knew it, but that didn’t mean he liked it. Leo raked his fingers through his hair. “Damn it, don’t play games with me, Clay. Answer the question.”
But his brother did not seem at all inclined to take pity upon him. “Which question?”
“You know which bloody question,” he growled. “My duchess. Is she well?”
“Well enough,” Clay said mildly. “She has been experiencing some illness recently. Mother is quite pleased by it. You might be also, but I cannot be certain. That is also the reason I have come.”
Bridget was ill. Fear squeezed his heart.
“What ails her, and why would Mother or I be pleased she has fallen ill?” He longed to smash his fist into something. The wall, perhaps. He could send crumbles of plaster raining down. Make a hole so large it would require patching.
Yes, perhaps some damage and destruction would be just the thing to cure the darkness inside him.
