第8章 The Threat

The threats came three days later, not to Thomas but to Leo. He was returning from a walk through the fields behind his lodgings when a man approached him in the narrow street that ran behind Thomas's chambers. The man was tall and broad-shouldered, with a face that was carefully blank and hands that were clearly calloused from work, not from the street. "Mr. Harrington," the man said. "I have a message for you from Sir Julian Pemberton." Leo stopped and turned to face the man. "I am listening." "Sir Julian Pemberton wishes you to withdraw your claim. He is prepared to offer you a sum of money—five thousand pounds—to abandon your efforts. In return, you will swear that you have no claim to the Pemberton title or estates, and you will never speak of this matter again." Leo considered the offer. Five thousand pounds was a substantial sum—enough to secure a comfortable life, to buy a small estate, to never work again. But it came with a condition: silence. Obedience. The surrender of everything he had just begun to understand about himself. "I cannot accept," he said. The man's expression did not change. "Then you leave us no choice, sir. Sir Julian is a patient man, but he is also a man of considerable resources. He has friends in high places, and he is not above using them. If you continue on this path, you will find that the world becomes a very small and very dangerous place." Leo felt the words like stones thrown at him, but he did not flinch. "You may tell Sir Julian that I have considered his offer and declined it. And that I will not be threatened." The man studied him for a long moment, then nodded once and walked away. Leo watched him go, his heart pounding but his expression steady. He had spent his life performing stunts that required absolute concentration and fearlessness, and this was no different. He would not show fear. Not now. Not ever. When he returned to Thomas's chambers, he found the barrister sitting at his desk, a look of concern on his face. "I heard about the man who visited you," Thomas said. "I trust he did not harm you?" "No. He merely delivered a message." Leo recounted the offer and the threat. Thomas listened in silence, his expression growing darker with each word. "Sir Julian is not playing by the rules of the law," Thomas said at last. "He is attempting to purchase your silence. If he believes you will not stand, he will not stop. He will escalate." "Then we must move faster," Leo said. "We must find proof of the marriage, proof that will make the claim undeniable. We must give him nothing to exploit." Thomas nodded. "I have been thinking. There is one avenue we have not explored. The marriage certificate—if one exists—may not be in the earl's papers. It may be with the clergyman who performed the ceremony, or with the registrar, or with the church itself. We must search for it." "Where would they have married?" Thomas thought for a moment. "Marie Harrington was with the circus when she met the earl, but she left the show several months before she gave birth. She was living in Bristol at the time, according to her letter. The ceremony may have taken place there, or in London, or in any number of places. We will need to search." "And if we find nothing?" "Then we have lost," Thomas said quietly. "But we will not lose. Not yet." The threats continued to mount. Leo received them almost daily—anonymous notes slipped under his door, men who followed him through the streets, whispers in the taverns where he and Thomas occasionally dined. But Leo was not a man who could be intimidated. He had spent his life performing dangerous stunts, leaping through flames and walking tightropes over cages of lions. A few threats from cowardly men in dark coats meant nothing to him. What frightened him more was the look in Thomas's eyes when he thought Leo was not watching. The barrister was worried, deeply and profoundly worried, and Leo could see that the weight of the case was pressing down on him. But Thomas was also determined, and that determination was contagious. Leo felt it burning in his own chest, fueling his resolve, pushing him forward even when the path seemed darkest. --- The threats did not diminish after Leo's refusal. If anything, they grew bolder and more frequent. One evening, as Leo returned to his lodgings, he found his door ajar and the room ransacked. Papers were scattered across the floor, drawers had been pulled from their cabinets, and the bedclothes had been torn apart in a search that had clearly been conducted in haste. Nothing of value had been taken, but the message was clear: whoever had done this knew where he lived, and they could reach him at any time. Leo reported the incident to Thomas, who immediately took steps to secure the chambers. He hired a constable to stand watch through the night and arranged for Leo to stay with Miss Pemberton at the cottage in Yorkshire until the matter could be resolved. Leo protested, preferring to face his enemies head-on, but Thomas was adamant. "You are not a fool, Leo," he said. "And you do not need to prove your courage by walking into a trap. There is a difference between bravery and recklessness, and I intend for you to remain on the side of bravery." Reluctantly, Leo agreed. He packed a small bag and left London with Thomas under the cover of darkness, travelling by a series of back roads and private carriages that kept them off the main thoroughfares where Sir Julian's agents were known to lurk. They arrived at Miss Pemberton's cottage just before dawn, and Leo slept for the first time in days, curled on a narrow sofa in the kitchen while the housekeeper's cat curled beside him and the fire in the grate crackled softly. When he woke, the sun was high and the cottage was quiet. Miss Pemberton had left a note on the table: breakfast was in the oven, and if he wished to walk, the countryside was beautiful this time of year. Leo ate heartily and then went outside, breathing in the clean Yorkshire air with something like gratitude. He walked through the fields for hours, thinking about everything that had happened and everything that lay ahead. He thought of his mother, of the woman who had loved a man she could not keep and had raised a child in the sawdust rings and canvas tents of a traveling show. He thought of Thomas, of the barrister who had taken on a case that had no chance of success and had refused to give up. He thought of Sir Julian, of the man who had spent his life preparing for a throne that was not his and who would stop at nothing to keep it. And he thought of the future, of the life that awaited him if he could only hold on to the truth. It was a future he had never dared to imagine, and yet here he was, walking through the Yorkshire countryside with the weight of an earldom resting on his shoulders, and he knew, with a certainty that surprised him, that he was ready for it.