Tony’s lips quirked. “Right, well, that would make the queues at Covent Garden less tiresome, but it won’t make this go away. You need a plan.”
“I know.” Oliver glanced at the note again. The precise handwriting mocked him.
Open me!
“I’m thinking on it.”
Tony smiled then. “Good, because I need you.”
“You need me?”
“I assume you know the story. The Black Raven, her dead husband, and a certain financial speculation?”
“What of it?”
“It’s the reason you are in this… situation.”
Tony knew? Well, of course he knew. “Oh, that situation.” He narrowed his eyes then. “How exactly is she the reason?”
“Henry invested in the speculation with Blackhurst, along with others. When Blackhurst died, the scheme was found to be fake.”
Oliver sat down in the nearest chair. “Henry invested in a fake speculation? He gambled the family fortune on aspeculation?It doesn’t sit right. Henry never did risky things.”Except jump fences.
“Blackhurst was known to be very convincing; he managed to persuade many high-profile men into this farce. They all lost out, but Henry…”
Oliver nodded but still it didn’t make sense. He tried to picture Henry but it was getting harder. Perhaps he didn’t know his brother as well as he thought. Perhaps, he let himself become distant from him. How had his life fallen apart so quickly?
“I suppose I should have known you would find out. I suppose everyone knows. Should I start packing for the Continent?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Nobody knows and nobody will if you do the sensible thing.”
Sensible thing? Easier said than done it seems.
“We need you to continue whatever it is you started with the Black Raven. You’re the first, Bellamy. No one else has been able to penetrate her inner sanctum.”
Oliver coughed. “What makes you think Ipenetrated her inner sanctum?”
Tony rolled his eyes. “I mean you were the first to be let in.”
Oliver looked away. “Oh, right.”
Tony watched him. He hated when he did that. Like he knew what he was thinking simply by where he put his hand or moved his eyes. Could he tell he had been very attracted to the Countess of Blackhurst? Under better circumstances, Oliver would not have been opposed to being near her inner sanctum at all.
“This wager has been in place for two years. Two years we have been trying to get someone in with no success… until you.”
Oliver turned back to Tony, his eyes narrowed in anger. “We? Are you saying the Home Office is behind this?”
Tony laughed at the apparent stupidity of his accusation. “No.”
Oliver was beginning to dislike the turn in this conversation. “Then who?”
“A very influential person lost a lot of money in the speculation.” Tony shrugged. “He wants answers. I’m doing it as a personal favor.”
Oliver shook his head but the knocking on his skull was still there and getting louder. “What has it to do with the countess?”
“She was Blackhurst’s beneficiary. Everything that wasn’t entailed went to her. An obscene amount of money. There are persons who think she killed him or had him killed. She refused to repay the investors their capital. It made her very unpopular.”
“I thought she was acquitted of his murder?”
