“I am going to London.”
“You will be back.”
Julian strode down the corridor, exited the house and slammed the door behind him. The carriage still waited, as he had asked, and Julian gave instructions for London.
Three days later he stood in front of one of his superiors in the Home Office.
Before anything else, he told them what his father had learned.
“I never told him anything. I wasn’t even aware he knew of my position until I recently returned home.”
“We are aware,” his supervisor answered. “Lord Shorewood had hired an investigator who managed to learn our secrets from someone who is no longer in our employ. Your father decided to hold those secrets until they were useful to him.”
“You already knew about Carlysle?” Julian demanded. Why hadn’t any of them been warned?
“He is no longer with us.”
A chill ran up Julian’s spine. Still, he couldn’t believe that his father had used the same threats against the Home Office as he had his own son.
“Your father does not mind if you retain your position with us, if that is what you wish. However, you must marry. If you refuse to do so, we must terminate your position because we cannot allow more secrets to be told.”
“Why not arrest him for treason?” Julian asked.
“Because knowing secrets is not treason, only revealing them, which he has not done, and we must keep him from doing. We also know, that if he does so, it will be in a manner not linked to him, leaving our hands tied while knowing the truth.”
Julian was surprised nobody had been sent to deal with the matter. If they had, Julian would now be Shorewood and the secrets would be safe.
“One cannot make an earl disappear as easily as Carlysle.”
No doubt Carlysle was now dead because of his treasonous activities, or locked away in Newgate, or perhaps he had been transported.
“If I marry, I can return?” he asked to make certain that he had a choice.
“You could remain a Devil for all we care, and we would prefer not to lose you.”
Julian frowned. “If I continue as I had, it will bring shame to my wife.”
“It will be something you do need to consider,” he said. “If you marry, we will find an area where you will still benefit us without doing damage to your marriage.”
Julian stood. “I understand.” He would give up everything before he put the lives of his friends in danger, or the fate of the Home Office and others that he did not even know.
As Julian settled into the carriage to return to Ashford Place, he knew that his father had successfully ruined his life.
Julian was not one for hate. Extreme dislike of a personality or what someone may have done but he had never hated anyone until he looked once again at his father.
He had been manipulated like a puppet with his father pulling every string. He could walk away, ruin the Devils of Dalston in the process and cause untold damage to the Home Office and somehow learn to survive on his own, or marry the woman his brother had ruined. Either way Cait was lost to him. Without Cait, did it really matter what he did?
“You won father. I hope you are happy because I never will be.”
“Happiness does not matter. Power does. One day you will learn that.”
“I want my position back with the Home Office.”
“You will have it. I am certain they explained.”
“I will marry that woman and give that child my name and we will never ever discuss this again.”
Chapter Eleven
