Chapter 28
Forged Emotions
Two weeks later
“You must excuse me, Leo, but I have to ask about your well-being again,” Edwin said, looking very concerned at Leo.
Leo looked up from the stack of papers on Edwin's desk.
He couldn't see himself, but he knew that if he looked exactly how he felt, his friend’s worry was justified.
It had been two weeks, two long weeks that Leo had focused all his energy, funds, and power on a single goal.
Expose Aaron once and for all. As promised, Edwin was there every step of the way.
“We have more important things to worry ourselves about than my health,” Leo deadpanned.
“I am not worried about your physical health, you seem strong as a bull. But I can tell you’re not well, so tell me so we can move on.”
“This is exactly what we are doing. You are helping me put this nasty chapter behind me.”
“I have to insist on informing you that there is one aspect of this chapter that will remain very much in your life after all this is over.”
Leo ground his jaw and clenched his fists.
Edwin was talking about Prim. And the last thing Leo wanted to talk about was that particular subject.
For the past two weeks had been very grateful that he had a goal, something to focus on that was not his domestic life. Or more accurately, the luck thereof.
“You said you received word from the man we sent to retrieve the evidence,” Leo decided to change the subject.
“He sent me a message that he would be here tonight with everything that we need.”
“We should have done this ourselves.”
“You think it would be prudent for two Dukes, that almost everyone knows, to walk around in these parts of the city, asking questions, demanding answers.”
“I am sure I would have gotten the answers I wanted.”
“I have no doubt that you could have employed all the skills that you had gained in the ring and be very persuasive in your inquiries. I am not talking about the success of this endeavor. I am talking about the consequences.”
“To hell with the consequences!”
“And this is exactly why I didn't allow you to go.”
Leo ignored Edwin and started pacing in his study. It was very late at night and Leo hadn’t slept for a few days, he hadn't slept for two weeks very well, but he felt quite energetic, the agitation giving him the drive that he needed to stay alert.
“Leo,” Edwin dared. “Abigail told me-”
“This is not the moment. Focus on what we have to do.”
“Very well. I have promised I would help you and I will stay true to my word. However, after all this is done, we really need to talk.”
“I am not sure how talking would help solve anything. We will talk, only after all this is over.”
Edwin nodded and, as if the universe expected this conclusion of the conversation, there was a knock on the door. Leo flew, opened the door, and there was the man whom they had sent with instructions to find certain things.
The man, draped in his dark cloak and his hat dropped low, said nothing, just gave Leo a stack of papers, and then said one simple sentence.
“The man was taken at the place you instructed.”
“What did he say?” Leo asked.
“That he was paid to forge the letter, and he revealed the name of the man who bought his services.”
Then he gave Leo a folded paper with a single name on it. When Leo saw that name, he felt vindicated. Aaron Fletcher, Marques of Redfield.
A wild smile spread on his face. Finally, he got what he needed to put a stop to Aaron’s plans. He gave the man a hefty envelope and closed the door. Edwin was already looking through the papers.
“This is definitely a gold mine,” Edwin commented. “The stolen correspondence, the original draft to that first letter...”
“Let me see that,” Leo said urgently.
He studied that letter and his face, perhaps that of peace in the middle of turmoil. This was all definitely Aaron's handwriting. From what it seemed, this was all a plan from the same man, and he acted alone.
“So,” Edwin must have thought the same thing, “your mother had nothing to do with this.”
Exactly like Prim said before he accused her of disrupting his privacy. For a moment, everything else faded into insignificance. His thoughts went back to Prim, how her instincts got her where he was now, way before.
“Finally, Leo, you have what you need,” Edwin said, interrupting his thoughts. “What are you going to do about it?”
A smile spread across Leo’s face. He had plotted and dreamed of this day for quite a while. He was not going to waste any more time.
“You know what, Edwin?” He smiled a smooth, cold, scary smile. “I think it's high time I visited my family for a little chat.”
Leo didn't sleep that night. He stayed up and reviewed the documents again and again, trying to find connections, things that he might have missed. He wanted all the loose ends tied in the perfect little bow. He wouldn't allow Aaron to slither away from this like the snake that he was.
The sun was up when Leo gathered the evidence and called upon his carriage.
He said nothing to Prim since he didn't know what was going to happen, how his family was going to react, or what the implications of what he was about to do would be.
On the way to the Covington Estate, Leo could barely contain his anger and his resentment. It was one thing to have your suspicions and another to see so clearly laid out that his half-brother would even conceive such devious plans. Let alone go through with them not once but four times.
When the butler answered the door, Leo simply pushed through, and then he walked down the corridor under the surprised looks of the staff. He followed the voices in the house till he burst into a drawing room.
Even if he had planned for the three of them to be at the same place at the same time, he wouldn't have done it in such great coordination. In this drawing room, there were Bridget and Winston, and of course, his prey, Aaron.
“Good morning, everyone,” Leo said, with a voice so fakely chirpy.
“Leo?” Bridget’s teacup rattled. “What is the meaning of this?”
“How dare you enter my home unannounced?” Winston’s face mottled with outrage. “Have you forgotten all courtesy?”
“But if I were to announce myself,” Leo said, strolling into the center of the room, his smile a razor’s edge, “it would ruin the surprise. And I have such a delightful gift to share.”
The only one that didn't have any kind of response was Aaron himself. He just kept looking over the newspaper he was reading as if he saw a ghost. It was here in his family's house that he had dared Leo to find evidence against him.
“Leo?” his mother asked. “Why are you here?”
“I am here for clarification. It would be a pleasure for me to enlighten you on what filthy vermin you have been nurturing all these years.”
Without any pretense, Leo’s eyes fixed on his half-brother. Aaron must have felt that there was something different that morning. He would love to drag this on to make it a totally humiliating experience, but Leo realized that he had better things to do.
“Let's see. I didn't come empty handed in the house.”
Leo reached into his jacket and procured the documents that he needed to corner Aaron, to prove to Bridget and Winston that their son was not as innocent as they loved to believe.
“Perhaps we should start from the beginning. Who is the mysterious person who wrote that first letter?
Leo took out a thick, expensive paper in ivory color and just placed it on the little round table that sat between the members of this family. Winston was the first to react. He took that paper in his hands and stared at it for a few minutes.
“The letter that was reprinted in the sheets, that was the hardest one to track down. But if you're stubborn enough, rich enough, there is almost nothing in the world that you cannot obtain.”
Leo looked upon his half-brother and found him studying Leo, already plotting the next twist.
“These,” Leo pointed at the sheet of paper that Winston was passing to Bridget, “are your clear instructions to the author of that article about what it should say and how to word certain aspects of my alleged relationship with Miss PJ.”
Bridget took that sheet of paper, and she didn't even have to read. The blood drained from her face, and she slowly turned to her son.
“I see that you recognize the handwriting, Bridget,” Leo continued. “After all, what kind of mother would you be if you didn't recognize your own son’s letters?”
“I have quite the collection here. I even managed to find the note that the Duke of Greyhaven got at that garden party, and that led him to a secret meeting with Prim at the maze.”
Leo took one piece of evidence after another and left them on the table as if she were dealing gambling cards.
“And yet I think the beginning of the end started with this,” Leo said and pressed one last paper on the table.
Winston was the one who moved faster and grabbed that piece of paper with him. The more he read, the more his eyes widened.
“That is the leaked correspondence between Prim’s family and me.”
Winston was the first one to snap out of it. His face was red by the evidence and the story they so clearly painted.
“You became smug, Aaron,” he said. addressing his half-brother head-on. “And arrogance is usually how thugs and criminals are punished.”
Aaron got up and looked over his father's shoulder to look upon that piece of evidence himself. He too got pale.
“Do you recognize that paper, Aaron?”
Aaron showed a remarkable sense of self-restraint at the mounting evidence in front of him.
“I know you ordered a batch for your bachelor's pad here in Mayfair. Oh, I know what you will say, it is just a piece of paper, it proves nothing. I thought the same thing, too, until I started contacting people. And what would you know?”
Leo paused for dramatic effect.
“There were three batches that were sold in the whole of London,” Leo said maliciously.
“I want you to take a wild guess on where one of those batches is. In Aaron’s study, of course.”