“She did not look like she wished to be controlled when I saw you confront her in the ballroom. It is imperative Challoner’s papers are found and handed back to me.”
One man was Renton. He’d know that weasel’s voice anywhere. The man had been insulting him for years. Monty had a list of people he’d one day like to punch. Renton and his late brother had been near the top.
The bastard had been hurting Iris when Monty had reached her. He’d not overheard the discussion between her and Renton but had noted the body language. Iris had been furious, but there had been fear, too, in her lovely brown eyes.
Monty’s leg trip had worked, forcing the man to the floor in humiliation as repayment for hurting his sister-in-law.
“She will be no problem and knows nothing,” Renton added. “Nothing will jeopardize what we are.”
“Make sure she isn’t. We had to go underground once. I have no wish to do so again. You told us you would have access to your late brother’s affairs and find those papers. See that you do so at once. Your brother has been gone over a year now.”
“They were in mourning, and my brother always kept his study locked. The room will not have been disturbed, and I will find what we need,” Renton said. “I have told her I will guide her and Henry from now on, as my late brother would have wished. She will present no problem. I will control her as Sydney did.”
“And yet she stopped you and us from entering the house in Sussex.”
“They had just come out of mourning. Give them time. I will see it done,” Renton said.
“Go to his place in the country now she is no longer in residence,” the other man said. “I want those papers found. Challoner kept them bound with a black silk ribbon.”
“I will leave soon.”
“Deal with this, Renton, or I will. Your brothers will be watching you and your sister-in-law. Ensure she presents no threat to us. I will have no one stopping us now.”
The sound of rustling had Monty moving. He hurried back along the path and then slipped behind a tree. Soon Renton appeared with a man at his side, but Monty could not make out his features in the dark as Iris’s former brother-in-law shielded him.
Did he know that other voice?There was something that niggled at his memory.
Waiting until the men disappeared back inside, Monty followed. Was Iris in danger? First Renton had threatened her in the ballroom, and now this. The man had mentioned brothers, but Monty knew Renton and Challoner were the only siblings in their family. What had that conversation been about?
“Is there a reason you are lurking out here?”
A shadow before him morphed into Michael Deville. He sat under Nathan in the brother lineup.
“Hardly lurking, just taking air.”
“Is there no air inside, then?”
“Amusing.”
“Mary actually sent me to find you. She said something is off with you, and she can’t send Zach, as he would stop to talk with seven people on the way.”
“Only seven?”
“Gabe is doing his host duty, and Nathan is deep in conversation with someone about something, so she was stuck with me as I was standing looking handsome in all my manliness,” Michael added.
“I’ve always thought Gabe the most handsome,” Monty said. He was getting the hang of this brothers’ teasing thing. Not that he wanted to, he reminded himself. No connections. He was leaving London soon.
The only problem with that if he was honest, if only to himself, was that he would miss these people who only recently entered his life. They’d accepted him without question and even protected and defended him when required. And then, of course, there was Mary. His sister in every way but blood.
He’d tried to keep his distance and failed.
“What’s going on, Monty?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s a lie. I know you have only recently encountered your old friend Lady Challoner, so it cannot be her entirely, but clearly seeing her has unsettled you,” Michael said.
“I have no wish to discuss this further, as anyone could chance upon us here.” He went for his cold, hard tone.
