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“No. It’s your half brother. He’s been released.” James took her coat and hung it on the hook next to his own.

Gabriella had a feeling he would be.

It was the day after her brother’s attack on her, and she guessed her father wouldn’t allow him to stay in holding for too long.

She was suddenly very glad she was here with James, in his flat, rather than her own.

“How does Layman know this?” she asked, suddenly realizing he must have taken a special trip to give James the details.

James led her gently to the couch in his sparse living room and she sat down beside him.

“Layman offered to interview him, because I couldn’t.” Although he would have loved to, anything that might be considered interference was to be avoided.

“And what did Arnold say?” She had found out her half brother’s name when he’d been arrested.

“He’s claiming your father never sent him to kill you. That it was all his own idea.”

Gabriella shook her head. “He’s too young and unorganized to have done it by himself. And how did he get my details if not through my father?”

She had found out Arnold was seventeen, six years younger than her. Which meant he’d been born less than a year after Gabriella had last seen her father.

Her father hadn’t even tried to come back.

He hadn’t even considered it, to have married and had a child so quickly after leaving.

“Your father may have told him about you,” James said, and ran a gentle hand over her hair. “He’s young and obviously feeling incredibly threatened. He may have taken that knowledge and decided to go off on his own.”

“Maybe.” She didn’t know what to think. “What’s going to happen to him?”

“He’s been charged with carrying an offensive weapon.” James hesitated for a moment before he spoke.

She twisted her head to look at him. “What’s bothering you about that?”

“He meant to kill you, but because he didn’t touch you, carrying an offensive weapon is the only charge that will stick, and my guess is your father will hire him a good solicitor. The usual consequence for the charge is three months in prison or a 50 pound fine. Given who he is, and the circumstances, my guess is he’ll get off with the fine.”

She let her head rest on his shoulder. “At least there’s a lot of camera shots of his actions. There’s solid proof he did it but you’re right, he was going to kill me, and he’d already tried twice before when he pushed me into the traffic. Havelock tells me that because there’s no way to prove he’s behind the traffic incidents, it’s best we let that drop.”

“I don’t like that at all,” James said.

She could hear something in his voice, a really hard edge.

“Havelock contacted my father by phone this morning. Told him we suspect that he was behind the plan to kill me and that if anything else happens to me that we think he might have had a hand in, we’re going straight to the press with the whole story.”

Havelock had been shocked at what had happened. He and Ben had come to see her this afternoon, to update her on what was going on and to assure her that her father was now aware that his problems couldn’t simply be eliminated. Both of them had seemed shaken by the turn of events.

“Havelock’s wife also heard through the grapevine that my father’s wife has left him. I feel sorry for her, because she had no idea she wasn’t actually legally married this whole time.” But that didn’t mean her mother should have to forego her own happiness. The only person to blame here was her father.

“The police in West Sussex could arrest your father for bigamy.” James didn’t know if they would, given he was a viscount, but if the law was even-handed, then he should be.

“Havelock has threatened my father with that possibility, too.” She wished he’d just do the right thing, but that was unrealistic. He hadn’t done the right thing since he’d stepped onto that ocean liner nearly eighteen years ago and left her and her mother behind him without so much as a backward glance.

“Let’s talk about something else,” she said. “He doesn’t deserve to be taking up so much of our time. Tell me if you ran Ted Jackman to ground.”

“Layman found him,” James said. “He was exactly where Robby Jameson said he would be.”

“So is Robby going to get credit for that?”

“Probably.” James sounded resigned. “We’d have spent a lot longer looking for him without the information, so it’s a win for both sides.”