Gerard cocked an eyebrow. “Very well. Twenty pounds.”
“Two hundred pounds!”
Gerard sniffed in disdain. “Impossible. They may well be useless to me.”
Nollworth puckered up his face. “I’m sure there’s others as might be interested. Who might become a duke if your sire proves a bigamist?”
Gerard counted to ten inside his head. “Fifty pounds.”
Nollworth stabbed his cane into the floor. “No. You’ll come with me, this very day, if you want anything to do with those books. I’m not a cheat, but I won’t be cheated by you, either. Tell me now, sir: are you coming to see the books, or am I writing to a lord who might be a duke when I return home?”
They faced each other in silence. Nollworth obviously thought he held the winning hand. The hell of it was, he did. Gerard wanted—needed—to know what was in those books. If he could find some proof that his father’s first marriage hadn’t been fully legal, he could put an end to any danger from the blackmailer. If he found some proof the marriage was legal, all the more need to own it. The only way to know if Ogilvie’s journals could help was to look at them. If they were useless, or Nollworth’s father-in-law wasn’t the William Ogilvie he sought, he could always walk away, but if not . . . Under no circumstances could Cousin Augustus be allowed to know about the registers, let alone possess them.
“I shall be ready in an hour,” he said through thin lips.
Nollworth’s oily smile broke out again. “I’ll await you down at the pub in Avon Street,” he said graciously. He limped past Gerard into the hall, where he took his hat from Bragg and bowed politely. “Good day, sir.”
Bragg watched him go down the steps before turning to Gerard. “Slippery otter, ain’t he?”
“Poisonous as well.” Gerard exhaled, his mind running over the preparations he had to make. “We leave in an hour. He may have something of interest. Send to Carter, and ask if he can come along on an errand out of town for a day or two. Get the horses saddled, and pack for two days.” He paused. “Pack my pistols as well.”
“Aye, Captain.” Bragg hurried off.
Gerard flexed his fingers, cracking his knuckles. The urge to strike Nollworth had left his hands cramped from the tension of not forming fists. If not for the post clerk’s description of the letter sender, Gerard would have suspected Nollworth himself was the blackmailer. The man certainly had the cold calculation and venality necessary. He was all but blackmailing Gerard now. If Nollworth had sent the earlier letters, he might have changed his strategy and decided to make one last bold demand.
But the earlier request for money had been for far more than Nollworth wanted, and no mention was made of it after the initial demand. Nollworth didn’t seem the type to let a ransom demand languish and be ignored. If Nollworth was the blackmailer and possessed unqualified proof of Durham’s marriage, he would have asked for more than two hundred pounds—and Gerard would have paid it.
So he had to go to Allenton and see what the man had, and only an hour to prepare. He glanced at the stairs. What was the bloody rush? He had to see Kate, and talk to her, and try to explain—or rather, understand—but only an hour . . .
He took the stairs two at a time. “Kate!” He threw open the door, but the dressing room was empty. “Kate,” he called again, heading for the bedroom. “Kate, where are you?”
“Madam has gone out.” He whirled around to see Mrs. Dennis standing in the doorway, her face stony. “Is there something you wanted, sir?”
“Where did she go?”
“She wanted a walk.” The abigail’s glare made her feelings clear. “Alone.”
Gerard shoved one hand through his hair. He strode to the window and peered out, but there was no sight of his wife. “When will she return?”
“In a bit.”
“When, Mrs. Dennis?”
The woman jumped at his shout. “In an hour or two, she said.”
He swore. Bragg slipped into the room, no doubt to pack. “Is my horse ready yet?”
“Not yet, sir,” said the startled Bragg. Gerard swore again with greater feeling. Mrs. Dennis gasped, and Bragg leaped toward the door. “I’ll do it myself, this very moment.”
“No, I’ll do it.” He strode from the room and went down to the mews, where the boy was just leading his bay out to saddle. He waved the lad aside and saddled the