Heatherbrook glanced up from a stack of papers with ill-concealed annoyance. “Lioncroft. I wondered if you would drop by.”
With the sweep of an arm, Gavin knocked the contents of the desktop to the floor, papers and inkwell and all. Both hands splayed on the now-bare surface, he loomed over the desk until his face was inches from Heatherbrook’s. “I expect you didn’t wonder long. From the moment you struck my sister, you knew you’d have to answer to me.”
“Did I?” Heatherbrook leaned back in Gavin’s chair, but made no attempt to reclaim the scattered pages. “I’m afraid there you’re mistaken. I answer to no one.”
“Because you’re a peer?” Gavin infused the word with mockery and contempt.
“Not because I’m a peer. Because she’s my wife.” Heatherbrook smirked. Gavin itched to smash his fist through it. “I own her, Lioncroft. She’s my property. And as such, I can do with her what I will.”
Gavin’s fingers spasmed as he vaulted over the desk. Within seconds he had Heatherbrook by the throat. He lifted the earl by his worthless neck, kicking the chair out from under him and sending it spinning perilously near the fireplace. As he tightened his hold, Gavin contemplated slamming the whoreson’s head into the rock solid table.
“Watch yourself,” Heatherbrook choked out, his pallid face empurpling. “Whatever you do to me, I can do to Rose.”
“Not if I kill you,” Gavin growled. He gave Heatherbrook a violent shake, and smiled when his brother-in-law’s hallmark smirk twisted into panic.
The blackguard’s continued violence to Rose, however, was a valid threat. Unless Gavin took Heatherbrook’s life, right here and now, there was little he could do to protect his sister from further abuse.
He glared at the arrogant earl, for a moment aware of nothing but the blind fury thrumming through his veins.
Slowly, he loosened his grip just enough to allow the saucer-eyed tyrant to draw in a shaky, wheezing breath. Damn. Gavin had to let him live. But he didn’t have to tolerate thoughtless cruelty. Just because the courts would not address Heatherbrook’s use of physical strength against his helpless wife didn’t mean that Gavin couldn’t wield his fair share of raw power while the knave was here in his home.
A knave who, above Gavin’s unyielding fingers, continued to smirk.
“Rose hasn’t forgiven you for killing her parents,” Heatherbrook rasped after several gasping breaths, “And even you must realize she’d hardly forgive you for murdering her husband in cold blood.” His smile was pure malice. “The father of her four children.”
Gavin gave Heatherbrook’s throat another taunting squeeze before hurling him at the nearest wall in disgust. Gavin’s favorite oil painting tumbled down after, scraping the side of Heatherbrook’s face with its heavy gilded frame.
After touching his cheekbone, Heatherbrook’s fingertips came away wet and crimson. “I knew you’d never do anything to hurt your darling sister.” He fingered his bruised throat with trembling fingers before adding in a sly voice, “On purpose, that is.”
Gavin’s fists twitched. Heatherbrook wouldn’t be able to do much smirking with a broken jaw, or much slapping with broken fingers.
“My sister,” Gavin said over the roaring in his ears, “had better receive no more wounds by your hand. You will answer to me before you answer to the law. The courts may be on your side, but I am on hers. And you,” he spat as he straightened to his full height, “are in my home, imposing on my ever dwindling goodwill.” He rolled back his shoulders. “Stand up, collect your things, and return to your quarters immediately. Rose and the children are welcome to remain as long as they please, butyouwill be gone by first light.”
Hate and wounded pride warred in the blue of Heatherbrook’s eyes as he struggled to a kneeling position in order to gather up his scattered belongings. Although his lip curled, he made no attempt to strike out with his fists.
Gavin stood beside the kneeling earl, arms crossed and feet spread, half-tempted to plant his boot on Heatherbrook’s arse. Only a coward would beat someone who couldn’t fight back. And after being vilified and feared for over a decade, Gavin had no further patience for cowards.
“You crumpled my papers,” Heatherbrook muttered, sending Gavin a black look.
Gavin shrugged and arched a brow. “You bloodied my painting.”
Heatherbrook slapped a sweaty palm against the side of Gavin’s desk. Unimpressed, Gavin knocked him face down with a well-aimed boot to the shoulder.
“Get up,” he commanded the still-writhing snake. “And be gone.”
“But I haven’t all my things.” Heatherbrook’s scratchy voice was more petulant than malevolent. Typical of a pampered peer more used to giving lashes than receiving them.
Gavin glanced at the papers. Copies of Nancy’s betrothal contract to Teasdale. That’d be a marriage made in hell.
“I will burn whatever remains.” Gavin gave a slow, deadly smile before gesturing toward the open doorway. “Remove yourself from my sight. Now. Before I regret allowing you to leave alive.”
Cheeks pale and throat purple, Heatherbrook rose to his feet with an armful of ruined parchment. He cast a last livid glare over his shoulder before lurching from the room and careening down the hall.
Chapter 9
The first doorway Evangeline stepped through in her search for the loose-tongued Ginny was the one Mr. Lioncroft had pointed out earlier. The men’s after-dinner room turned out to be a large, well-stocked library, with a half dozen wingback chairs, a smoldering fire, and row after row of leather-bound volumes.
The maid wasn’t there. Nor was Edmund Rutherford, who’d mentioned returning for his glass of port. The only person present besides herself was a tall, sallow footman silently refilling a decanter on the sideboard.
