“No, not at all,” Joseph said. He took a step forward, launching straight into his reason for coming. “We’ve come because Montrose has made a move against Westminster. It was in The Times this morning.”
“Yes, I saw.” Long turned serious, though he continued to bounce the baby in his arms. The boy had quieted, though and was peering at the new arrivals. “Were you able to give Westminster the letter last night?” Long asked.
“I was.” Joseph nodded. “And he arrived at my house this morning, seeking my help.”
Long burst into laughter. “Good for you. I knew the man would come around eventually.”
“I beg your pardon,” Francis interrupted, “but what precisely is going on here?”
Long gaped at him. “What is going on is that your clever brother here has figured out Montrose’s plans and, it would appear, is inches away from eliminating the threat that the man has presented for years now.”
“But I am uncertain how to finish the job,” Joseph admitted with a frown, sweeping right past Francis’s confusion. If his brother wanted to know what was going on, he could damn well listen and catch up on his own.
“It seems to me—” Long started, then stopped as his son squirmed a bit in his arms. “Settle down, Archie,” he told the boy. “Daddy needs a moment to plot the downfall of a very bad man.”
He then kissed the baby’s head, and unceremoniously handed him off to Francis.
Francis looked shocked at being handed a squirming infant, but took the baby into his arms and held him stiffly. Little Archie paused to study the man who now held him as Long turned back to Joseph and went on.
“Montrose believes he’s set his pins up nicely and only needs to knock them down to get his way,” he said.
“Which means, I believe, that we need to knock those pins down first. But how do we do that?” Joseph asked.
“We need to get him to back off of the land deal with Westminster,” Ellen said, her brow knit in thought. “Does that mean bankrupting him so he cannot continue with his scheme or does it mean removing him from the entire endeavor somehow?”
“Why not both?” Long said with a shrug.
“I’m uncertain how to accomplish one thing, let alone both,” Joseph said, rubbing his forehead for a moment. “That is why we’ve come to consult with you.”
“Could you buy out Montrose’s shares in Westminster’s project?” Ellen asked.
Long answered with a lopsided grin. “If I could, I already would have. But as I believe I mentioned before, Westminster and I are business rivals. The duke wouldn’t take too kindly to me meddling in what he likely sees as a rival scheme to a few things that I have in the works.”
Joseph frowned. “Surely, he would understand in this circumstance.”
“One would think,” Long laughed, “but as it turns out, Westminster doesn’t particularly like me. Well, that’s a bit too strong. He doesn’t think I’m worthy of keeping the same company he does.” He shifted his voice to speak in a particularly lower-class accent.
Joseph’s mouth twitched into a grimace. Why was he just now seeing how arrogant so much of the class he had been born into could be? Ellen had known from the start. She had battled against the snobbery of the upper classes from the moment she’d set foot in England, and she’d done so with more grace than he ever would have been able to manage.
And yet, this whole time, he’d been trying to help her become someone she was not so that she could fit in with people who would never accept her and whom he was beginning to see that he disliked.
“Westminster is a duke,” Francis said, fumbling the baby in his arms a bit. “He can choose whom he wishes to associate with and how he would like to manage his business.”
Joseph frowned. His brother didn’t actually share those snobbish high opinions, did he?
Ellen huffed and frowned as well, but for an entirely different reason. She stepped over to Francis, taking baby Archie from his arms. She cooed to him as she stepped back. “What we need your daddy’s help figuring out is how to force Montrose to withdraw from Westminster’s building scheme, and how we can impoverish him to the point where he will never seek to hurt another family ever again.”
Joseph grinned at the infantile way she so clearly and cleverly summed up precisely what they needed to figure out. “Westminster has asked me, asked us, to meet him at his office this morning at eleven o’clock.”
“That’s not much time to come up with a course of action,” Long said, rubbing his jaw. “Does he know I’m involved?”
“He does,” Joseph said, wondering now if it had been such a grand idea to let Westminster know.
Long’s brow shot up. “And he still wishes to meet at eleven?”
“Yes,” Joseph said.
Long laughed. “Then he must be desperate indeed. Still,” he shrugged, “I take it as a good sign that he’s willing to take real action to neutralize Montrose once and for all. We may be rivals, but it sounds to me like he’s willing to collaborate to rid everyone of the menace of Montrose.”