“Lord Lovell,” Tristan snapped. “Where is he?”
The footman pointed dumbly, and Tristan strode off in that direction.
James was sitting on the mezzanine, chatting with a dandy in whose company he was often seen. He glanced up briefly as Tristan approached, then pointedly looked away, picking up a glass of brandy. The snub was pointed, and Tristan was conscious of a rush of anger.
He strode toward his cousin, his fist flashing out before James even bothered to glance up.
Crack.
The blow caught James squarely on the chin. Tristan heard his teethclacktogether. He went flying backward, toppling off his chair, with the glass of brandy flying out of his hand. Liquor sloshed onto the floor. The glass shattered, sending pieces flying everywhere.
James sprawled on his back, dazed and shocked.
“I say!” exclaimed the dandy, half rising to his feet. Tristan did not look at him, but merely lifted a hand.
“I suggest you leave us alone, Sir Jack.”
“I really can’t…”
“Leave now,” Tristan interrupted, “or I’ll see to it that all of your creditors call in your debts by morning. Do you understand?”
Sir Jack visibly paled. He glanced over at James and winced, offering a helpless shrug.
“Sorry, old boy.”
He scuttled away, throwing fearful looks back over his shoulder. His departure left Tristan and James alone on the mezzanine.
“You have poor quality of friends,” Tristan remarked after a long stretch of silence. “No threats would have coerced Isaac from my side if I had just been attacked in such a manner.”
James glowered at him, wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. He dragged himself into a sitting position, but made no move to get to his feet.
Wise, if cowardly,Tristan thought grimly.He knows I won’t hit him again if he stays off his feet.
“Are you going to explain why you attacked me, cousin, or shall I guess?” James snapped.
Tristan narrowed his eyes. “Blood will out. What a curious thing to say to my wife.”
“I said no such…”
“She told me,” he interrupted. “And what is more, Juliana told me all about your involvement in all this. She told me how you encouraged her to win me back and how you plotted together to separate me from Madeline. Of course, in Juliana’s case, she hoped to regain her status. You had a more prosaic motive, didn’t you?”
James tilted his chin up. “I have no idea what you mean.”
Tristan crouched down in front of his cousin.
“If I have no children of my own, you would inherit the dukedom after me,” he whispered. “Accidents happen, and life is cheap. Anything could befall me. A carriage accident or a fall down the stairs, perhaps. Of course, there is the problem of Adam, but again, children die so easily. Why, it would be well believed that after his fever, the baby was weak. If he were to go to the country, for example, without any ducal protection, anything could happen.”
James paled. “How dare you, Tristan? How dare you imply any of this? You can prove nothing. You think that I would kill you and have ababykilled?”
“I don’t know,” Tristan responded, dropping into a crouch to force his cousin to look him in the eye. “But I know that you have tried hard to separate me from my wife. You were not pleased when I married, were you? I suppose you would not have to do anything terrible to Adam. If I were to die, you could legally wrest guardianship of Adam from Madeline. And then you would have full control of everything. A baby, after all, cannot be adukein anything but name. All of my money, all of my lands—they would be yours. You could pay off your creditors and go on a spending spree, couldn’t you?”
“You are a terrible liar. None of this can be proved.”
“No,” Tristan answered briskly. “It cannot. But youaregreatly invested in separating me from my wife and nephew. You were clever not to tell her the full truth, by the way. You told her justenough to make her wary, to make her pry for the truth. You knew that I would not tell her about my past, not aboutthat, and you knew that it would drive a wedge between us.”
James scowled, folding his arms. “This is all lies. Falsehoods.Nonsense.”
“I can prove little, to be sure,” Tristan agreed, rising to his feet. “But whatcanbe proved is the extent of your debts to other club members. Once it is revealed how much money you have wheedled away from other members, with no means of paying it back, you’ll lose your membership. You’ll lose protection, and once it’s known that I am no longer paying your debts, your creditors will descend quickly.”
