The Duke's Affair

XXV

"And do you think it is safe?" said Marcus, his fat belly pressing against Henry as he leant towards him to whisper.

"Of course. That's what we pay for. Secrecy. Discretion. Security." Henry pulled a pen from his pocket and signed the papers spread out on the table in front of them, then handed the pen to Marcus, who took it and signed his own name beneath Henry's. The sharp-suited man on the other side of the desk smiled and collected the papers up, tapping them on the desk to straighten the pile.

"That's everything," he said. "Do you have any questions?"

Henry and Marcus exchanged a glance, and determined that they did not. They were satisfied.

Outside the bank it was still dark, the place having opened out of hours specifically for them. They had simply driven Henry's Bentley into an underground secure parking area, where all the papers that Henry had collected late last night from the club had been piled, crammed into every part of the car. Marcus had had to sit with boxes on his lap. "Would it not be wiser just to destroy the lot?" he had asked, his exhalations spluttering into loose papers, blown in his face by the air conditioning.

Absolutely not, Henry had responded. There were people out there, always trying to get one up on you. They never knew when they might need the information. Marcus had suggested the hoarding of personal data was probably not legal, but Henry had shrugged. Recently what was legal and what was not had come to mean less and less to him. If he could bend the rules to his own advantage, then he would. And after what had happened with the tape, he wasn't taking chances again.

God, the tape. He felt bad that he hadn't told Marcus. That he had kept it from him. Even now, as they drove from the bank, it could all still fall apart around them. He didn't like to lie to Marcus, so he chose not to mention it at all. If he could just get to Marbedon, get to Aurelia, he might stand a chance. Lydia might be talked round...hell, who was he kidding? She could never be talked round. She was the most stubborn woman he had ever met, perhaps with only Lauren to rival her.

At the thought of Lauren Henry let the car drift across the road as he began to daydream, and only Marcus' squeal and his fat hand reaching to pull at the steering wheel brought Henry back to his senses. "Sorry," he said, securing his hands on the wheel and pulling the car straight.

"What's wrong with you?" asked Marcus.

"Nothing. Tired. Got to get down to Marbedon. Shut up the London place for Christmas." Henry let the words trot out his mouth with barely a thought behind them. If he didn't hand everything over to Aurelia, then Lauren's reputation would be destroyed. And the press would start sniffing about the club, asking questions, trying to find out who the members were. It would be an unmitigated disaster. Henry pressed his foot down on the accelerator and the car surged forward, shaking Marcus' belly as it did so.

Henry dropped him at his door and bade him an absent-minded goodbye, unable to think of anything but the other things he had to deal with that morning. He had to get back to the house. John would be there, waiting.

He sped through the slush, the blackened remains of the snow, the streetlights still spilling their orange light across the ground. It seemed as though he were the only person awake in the whole of the city. The calm before the storm.

He jumped from the car and skipped up the steps to be met by Arthur Wright on the other side of the front door. "Gentleman in the drawing room for you Sir," he said by way of greeting. Henry thanked him and strode into the room, pausing when he saw John standing there, his hands in his pockets, wrapped up as though it were just as cold inside the house as it were outside.

"I want to go down first, myself," said Henry. "To Marbedon," he added in explanation. "But I want you to come with me, and some of your men, but you have to stay out of the way. If I need you I will phone. And if I phone, it means I need you to get rid of her. The blonde. Nothing happens to my sister. And nothing happens to the house. No damage, no sign of a struggle, nothing."