The Covington Den
The travel from Safehouse, remote woodland lodge to Covington Manor, grand hall consumed the next hour. Headlights cut cold through the gathering dusk.
Valentina turned away. The candelabra on Jasper’s desk cast long shadows across the mahogany, and she counted the seconds by the drip of wax hitting the brass tray. Three beats. Four. She heard the creak of his chair, the rustle of papers.
“You’re asking me to believe that you walked into my house without a single piece of leverage?” Jasper Covington’s voice was silk over gravel. “A woman of your reputation doesn’t make threats without ammunition.”
She faced him again, letting her gaze drift to the painting behind his desk—a hunting scene, hounds tearing a fox apart. “The ledgers in your estate office. The ones that show you siphoned three hundred thousand pounds from the Crown’s northern road fund into shell companies registered in your wife’s maiden name.”
Jasper’s hand stopped mid-reach for his brandy glass. The silence stretched, filled only by the crackle of the hearth.
“You have no access to my office,” he said, but the confidence had thinned.
“I have an excellent memory.” Valentina smoothed the front of her coat. “I also have a friend who works in the Treasury’s audit division. She owes me a favor from the Delacroix shipping scandal. One letter from her to the Minister of Finance, and your son’s inheritance becomes a matter for the magistrates.”
The word *son* landed like a stone in still water. Jasper’s jaw worked, but he didn’t speak.
She stepped closer, close enough to smell the cedar of his cologne and the sour undertone of stress. “I want the original birth record for Finn Blackwood. The one your clerk filed with the parish registry before you paid him to alter it. I know you kept the original—you never destroy evidence, Jasper. You hoard it like a miser hoards gold.”
His eyes flicked to the wall safe behind the painting. A tell she’d been waiting for.
—
Marcus moved through the servant’s corridor with Reid three paces behind, each step measured against the groan of old floorboards. The manor’s grand hall was two levels below, but the estate’s nerve center—Jasper’s private study—sat on the third floor, accessible only through a narrow staircase that doubled as a fire escape.
Reid touched his shoulder. “Two guards at the east landing. One by the study door.”
“Visual?”
“Confirmed. Both carrying.” Reid’s hand drifted to the sap at his belt. “I can drop the door guard silently. The landing pair will need noise diversion.”
Marcus pulled a watch from his pocket—a broken timepiece he’d bought from a pawnbroker that morning. He wound it twice, then placed it on the windowsill at the end of the corridor, its tick amplified by the glass pane. Then he tapped the window frame three times.
A moment later, a cat he’d paid a stable boy to release from the kitchen yowled in the courtyard below. The two guards on the landing leaned over the railing, squinting into the dark.
Reid moved. One hand clamped over the door guard’s mouth, the sap cracked against the temple with surgical precision. The guard crumpled. Reid dragged him into an alcove, bound his wrists with twine, and gagged him with a strip of linen.
Marcus joined him at the study door. The lock was simple—a Bramah cylinder, old model. He slid a pick from his sleeve and worked the pins in the dark. Fourteen seconds. The bolt clicked back.
Inside, the study smelled of leather and pipe tobacco. Shelves lined every wall, crammed with law books and ledgers. The estate safe was behind a false panel in the bookcase, hidden behind a first edition of *Blackstone’s Commentaries*.
Reid took position by the door, one eye on the crack. Marcus turned the combination—he’d watched Jasper’s fingers from a window across the street two nights ago, noting the sequence: left to 23, right to 47, left to 12. The handle yielded.
Inside the safe: stacks of bonds, a pearl-handled pistol, and a leather folder stamped with the Covington crest. Marcus opened it. The papers inside were exactly what he’d come for—forged deeds claiming Blackwood lands as collateral for loans Jasper had never made. Three separate documents, each bearing a notary seal that he knew was counterfeit.
He slid the folder into his coat. Then he saw it, tucked behind the bonds: a yellowed envelope, unsealed. He pulled out a single sheet—the original birth record for Finn, dated eight years ago, naming Valentina Delacroix as mother and Marcus Blackwood as father. Jasper had kept it, exactly as Valentina had predicted.
Marcus folded it into his breast pocket, next to his heart.
—
In the grand hall, Valentina watched Jasper open the wall safe. His fingers trembled as he pulled out a leather-bound ledger and a smaller envelope. He held the envelope out to her.
“The original parish record. Signed by the vicar, stamped with the seal of St. Cuthbert’s. The only copy that shows the child’s true parentage.”
She took it, but didn’t open it. “And the ledger?”
“Proof of your accusation.” His voice was flat, stripped of pretense. “If you give it to the Treasury, I go to prison. If you keep it, you own me.”
“I don’t want to own you, Jasper. I want you to leave my son alone.”
The words hung in the air, and for a moment, she saw something crack behind his eyes—a flash of the man he might have been before the greed calcified his spine.
Then the door to the grand hall burst open.
Victor Covington strode in, flanked by two footmen. He was younger than Jasper but carried the same predatory stillness, the same cold assessment. His eyes landed on the ledger in Valentina’s hands.
“Father. You didn’t tell me we had company.”
“Victor, this is a private matter—”
“I heard her demand from the corridor.” Victor’s smile was thin. “You’re giving her the birth record. That makes her a threat. And threats require handling.” He nodded to the footmen, who stepped forward.
Valentina didn’t move. “Lay a hand on me, and that ledger goes to the magistrate’s office by morning.”
Victor laughed. “You think I’m afraid of a woman who sells silks for a living?”
“I think you’re afraid of the noose.” She held his gaze. “And I think your father knows I’m not bluffing.”
Jasper raised a hand. “Victor, enough. She’s leaving.”
“No.” Victor drew a small pistol from his coat. “She’s not leaving with that ledger.”
The footmen advanced. Valentina’s pulse hammered, but she kept her breathing steady. She had no weapon, no escape route. All she had was the paper in her hands and the seconds ticking down.
The grand hall’s east door swung open.
Marcus stepped through, Reid a shadow behind him. Marcus had a pistol in hand—low, aimed at the floor, but visible. “Victor. Put the gun down before I put you down.”
Victor’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “Blackwood. I thought you’d be cowering in your manor.”
“I thought you’d be better at hiring guards.” Marcus’s gaze swept the room, cataloging positions: Victor at the center, Jasper by the desk, two footmen flanking Valentina. The terrain favored him only if he moved first. “Reid.”
Reid crossed the room in three long strides. The first footman went down with a sap to the kidney, the second with an elbow to the jaw. Victor raised his pistol, but Reid was already inside his guard—a twist of the wrist, and the weapon clattered to the floor. Reid pinned Victor’s arm behind his back and forced him to his knees.
“Tie him,” Marcus said.
Valentina let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She pressed the envelope and the ledger against her chest, anchoring herself.
Marcus walked to Jasper, who stood frozen by the desk. “You’re done, Covington. The forged deeds are going to the Crown prosecutor. The birth record is going to my solicitor. And your son is going to spend the night in the wine cellar while we sort this out.”
Jasper’s face drained of color. “You can’t prove the deeds are forgeries.”
“I can prove they were filed with falsified signatures. And I have a witness who will testify that you paid him to write them.” Marcus pulled a length of rope from his coat. “Turn around.”
Jasper didn’t move. “You think you’ve won? The king already knows the child is a bastard. Your own father’s seal is on the false registry.”