A Risk Worth Taking by Laura Landon Page A

requirements. Looks weren’t a concern. Neither was a title. All that concerned her was that the man she married had enough wealth to provide Becca with a Season. And that he wouldn’t be a drunkard like her father.
    Like Griffin Blackmoor.

Chapter 10

    G riff had no intention of following Adam’s orders to remain in the house and retire early. He refused to give up his search for the man who’d killed Freddie.
    Griff waited until Adam’s carriage drove away from the house, then took his greatcoat from the cloakroom and left by a side exit. He kept to the shadows as he left the house, hoping to lose the man following him but knowing that wasn’t likely. Any of Fitzhugh’s men were too good for him to escape their notice.
    Griff walked to the nearest corner and hailed the first hackney he saw. He gave the driver an address several blocks away, then stepped inside. The second the cab lurched forward, he relaxed against the squabs and breathed a sigh.
    He was still bloody weak. More than once during the last week he thought he might not survive. Ridding his body of the liquor he’d consumed over the last several months was a hell unlike any he thought possible. Only the soft voice urging him to stay with her had kept him from giving up.
    He closed his eyes until the cab slowed, then got out when the cab stopped several blocks from his intended destination.
    When the horse and driver pulled away, Griff wrapped his fingers around the pistol in his pocket and made his way through the dusky darkness of London’s narrow backstreets. He kept in the shadows until he reached a hidden doorway at the end of an alley that very few in the city even knew was there. After a cautionary glance over his shoulder, he leaned forward to work the lock. A few seconds later, he turned the handle and let himself into the building that housed the secret offices of British Foreign Intelligence.
    The entryway was unlit, and he stood in the darkness until his eyes acclimated to the lack of light. When he could make out vague shadows, he made his way down the dim hallway. He stopped in front of the third door on his right and stepped inside.
    Except for the faint glow from beneath the door on the far wall, this room was as dark as the rest. Griff listened, then walked to Colonel Rupert Fitzhugh’s office and turned the handle. He came face-to-face with his former commanding officer.
    “I must be losing my touch,” Griff said, closing the door behind him. “There was a time you wouldn’t have heard me until it was too late.”
    “You haven’t lost anything, Griff. I’ve been expecting you.” Colonel Fitzhugh walked around his desk and relaxed into his chair. “Come in and sit down.”
    Griff crossed the room and sat in a worn leather chair in front of Fitzhugh’s desk. “Which one of your men is following me?” he said, crossing the ankle of his right leg over his left knee.
    “Johnston and Turner.”
    Griff lifted his eyebrows. “Both of them?”
    “Just a precaution. It’s been well over a week since you’ve surfaced. They didn’t want to miss you.”
    Griff’s breath caught. “I’ve…had things to do.”
    “I’m glad. You look a damn sight better than you did the last time I saw you.” Fitzhugh shuffled several papers on his desk, then focused on Griff. “Now, why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”
    Griff leveled a pointed glare at Fitzhugh. “As you know, I don’t believe the Marquess of Brentwood was killed by a robber. He was killed by a sniper. Someone I think was after me.”
    Fitzhugh removed his spectacles and laid them on the desk. “That’s what you told me several months ago. What proof do you have?”
    Griff shook his head. “Just a gut feeling that tells me the shooting was intentional. Since Brentwood didn’t have an enemy that would want him dead, my instincts tell me that I was the one the killer wanted. Not Brentwood.”
    Fitzhugh rose from his chair and walked around the corner of his desk.