“You have no proof of such a thing,” Wentworth bit out, though his face had gone a little ashen, his control of his own weapon starting to waver.

Damn and blast! Valentine wanted to rattle him, but not enough to make him get a nervous shot off. Bronwyn could get hurt, and after the last half hour of sheer dread, that was something Valentine did not wish to experience again. He did not think his poor traumatized heart could take another scare.

“The French Sûreté offered him leniency in exchange for what he knew. Turns out, he knew a lot, especially about you. What do you think about that, Mr. Wentworth? Or should I call you Mr. Malcolm Sommers? Half brother to Brent Sommers. How long have you been working against the Crown? Going against the oaths you swore to God and country? You were helping your brother, weren’t you, while lining both your pockets?”

Some of this was conjecture on Valentine’s part, based on a decade of extracting information and putting clues together. When the list of names had been read to the boy in Paris by Rawley, on Valentine’s direction, his reaction had been telling. It had only taken a bit more pressure for him to envision the rest of his life in the worst prison in Paris, Fleury-Mérogis, and blurt out that his father was a powerful agent in England. Rawley had tried, but no names had been given. Accusing Wentworth was an educated guess based on all the evidence. He could be wrong, but his gut told him he wasn’t.

Valentine had arrested Brett Sommers and had him summarily deported, but he’d never been able to figure out how Sommers had been a step ahead of them. Well, now he knew. A traitor in the Home Office would have been valuable.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about!” Wentworth growled, but the sweat beading on his forehead and the nervous shift in his eyes belied his words. He’d done an excellent job of covering his tracks but now his son could confirm that his father did, in fact, have an alias…and one tied to a notorious group of criminals.

His career was over, and he knew it.

“You would use your own son?” Bronwyn whispered. “He’s barely out of school.”

Wentworth’s gaze swung to her. “Don’t you dare judge me! That boy was a mistake. Always listening, poking his head in, rifling through my private correspondence. He took it upon himself to go to France and help.” His gaze hardened. “Shooting at the sister of a duke in the middle of Paris? He deserves a stint in prison for his stupidity.”

“At least he had the ballocks to do it himself,” she shot back. “And not hire ruffians to do so to keep his own nose clean.”