But he had not been entirely honest with her, allowing her to believe she had chosen to marry him and he had simply accepted her suggestion, when in fact, it had been what he had wanted, what he had maneuvered them toward, from the minute he had realized it was the only means of procuring himself more time. He was a selfish bastard, and he knew it, because he had wanted his freedom, and he had wanted Violet too, and he had been determined to do whatever he must to secure both.
And it went without saying he had not been honest with her about what he intended to do to remove the suspicion from himself once and for all, which was ruining Arden and laying him low. Nor had he told her about the plan he, Carlisle, O’Malley, and Ludlow had hatched together from the day of their arrival at Harlton Hall when plans had been made and a course of action had been settled upon.
Griffin had sent a taunting message to Arden, letting him know his exact location. Letting Arden know he intended to marry Violet. The message had been well-timed so Arden would not receive it until the deed had already been done. When Arden arrived at Harlton Hall, thinking he was saving his sister from marrying Griffin, he would discover he was too late.
Ludlow and Carlisle were prepared to make a united front with him, and their support, coupled with the fact Griffin had married Violet and his seed could be growing in her womb, would be enough to keep Arden at bay until they could work together to find the man truly responsible for the leaks of privileged League information to the Fenians and bring Arden down.
In the end, all should work out accordingly. He would have Violet, the guilty man would be sent to prison in his stead, and Arden would be forced to step down as League leader in the wake of his erroneous assumptions and Griffin’s false imprisonment.
But no one knew better than he did that, what seemed a sure bet, was all too often sent straight to hell. He could only hope and believe this time would somehow be different, for the stakes were higher, the highest they had ever been.
“I am as ready as I shall ever be,” he said at last, hating his tenuous situation.
Hating he would have to use the woman he had come to care for, the woman he had made his wife…hell, the woman he had just spent the better part of the morning deep inside. He could only hope she would forgive him when he explained.
“Does Lady Violet know her brother is on his way?” Carlisle asked, in that canny way he had of reading a man’s thoughts from the expression on his face.
“No,” he admitted. “I will tell her. There simply hasn’t been time.”
Ludlow grinned at him. “I daresay there was time for otherconversations.”
“Go to hell,” he growled, the skin over his cheekbones going hot. He was grateful for his well-trimmed whiskers, which shielded a great deal of his face.
“One fact is irrefutable,” Carlisle interrupted then, his tone stern, his expression carved in marble and ice. “There is a traitor within the League. Mahoney knew of the manner in which League members secret sensitive communications. He also knew when raids were being held, and he was able to incriminate innocent men because of that knowledge. These are all facts he could not have obtained from anyone but a member of the League who was privy to these secrets.”
“Precisely,” Griffin agreed, “and that very traitor is responsible for planting the evidence in my study. Arden used the supposed communications between myself and various Fenian aliases, along with the similarity between Mahoney’s contact The Gryphon and my own name, as the means to incarcerate me at Lark House.”
“Mahoney was a braggart,” O’Malley said. “God rest his black soul. He made no secret of his connection to the League, but he refused to divulge who it was. He claimed the man had connections to the top tier of the League. A man practically in the waistcoat pocket of the Home Office, he said.”
Having a Fenian in his midst and looking to the man for aid was deuced strange for Griffin. He knew Carlisle had worked to get O’Malley released because he was family to him now, but Griffin was not entirely certain he dared trust the fellow.
“Did you ever see him?” he asked.
O’Malley shook his head. “I was not privy to much. When I joined Mahoney, I had no inkling of the depths of his depravity. After I caught wind of some of the campaigns he was funding and organizing—murder plots and bomb factories—I tried to steer us in a new direction. A peaceful one. That was when he started plotting against me, laying the foundation for my arrest.”
“A man practically in the waistcoat pocket of the Home Office,” Griffin repeated, the words seeming to have a deeper meaning.
“Has it not occurred to you,” Ludlow said then, his tone one of deep musing, “that Arden himself could be the traitor?”
The notion gave him pause, for indeed, it had not. He had never once imagined the Duke of Arden, the man who had supplanted the Duke of Carlisle as the leader of the Special League, could possibly be the villain attempting to orchestrate its—and Griffin’s—downfall.
“There is no love lost between Arden and myself, but I do not think him a traitor, Clay,” Carlisle said, before Griffin could respond. “My distaste for him aside, I cannot fathom a man as intelligent as the Duke of Arden doing something as bloody stupid as selling his soul to the Fenians. What could he possibly hope to accomplish?”
Ludlow raised a brow at his brother, and the similarities between the two men in that instant was uncanny. Both were massive in stature, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and deadly. “Far more intelligent men than the Duke of Arden have committed far more witless sins over the course of history, Leo. He would not be the first, and nor would he be the last.”
While it was tempting indeed to lay the blame entirely upon the Duke of Arsehole’s shoulders, Griffin remained unconvinced when he turned the fact about in his mind, considering them from all their jagged angles. “Arden has been desperate to be League leader for years. Why would he risk all he has attained now by doing something so foolish?”
“Perhaps what he has to gain is more significant than what he has to lose,” Carlisle pointed out. “Is he in need of funds? From the details we have been able to stitch together, Mahoney was in control of a massive portion of American-raised Fenian funds. He would have been capable of paying handsomely for the secrets, and now that he is dead, someone else within their ranks will have taken his place at the purse strings.”
Griffin considered what he had seen at Lark House. “I cannot say he is. Lark House is in fine fettle and staffed abundantly. The chef hails from France, and his epicurean delights are unparalleled.”
Lord knew he had consumed his meals sparingly for fear of losing his muscle and the boxer’s reflexes he had honed over the years with a great deal of effort. He needed to be capable of striking first and matching any opponent with his fists and his brute strength.
“Some men commit such sins for other reasons,” Ludlow pointed out. “For the forbidden. It grants them a sense of control over those around them. It becomes a dark, twisted secret inside them that inflates them with a false sense of superiority.”
Carlisle considered Ludlow, his countenance unreadable. “Ought I to be concerned, brother?”
Clay threw back his head and laughed, the sound so loud, it echoed off the walls of the old study, in part because of its sparse furnishings and bare walls. “Concerned about what, old man?”
