But Edward didn’t react well to his challenge. The arm he had locked around Clara’s neck tightened and she cried out in pain. “Stay where you are, goddamn it.”
Julian stopped, willing his mind to remain calm, to find some way out of this. “Let her go, brother. Your quarrel is with me.”
“Damn right my quarrel is with you.” Edward’s face curled into a sneer that was so reminiscent of their father that for a moment Julian’s body recoiled at the remembrance of the earl’s fists connecting with his flesh. It was almost like staring at their father’s ghost. An even more vicious, deranged ghost.
Julian raised his hands in a slow, placating gesture. “Tell me what you want from me. I’ll do anything you ask as long as you release my wife. She is an innocent in all this.”
“Your wife, innocent?” Edward laughed. “Best bloody joke I’ve heard in some time,brother. From what I hear, you’ve spent the last fifteen-odd years fucking your way through theton. Any bride of yours would be tainted the instant you touched her. She’s likely already carrying your heir. And that makes her dispensable indeed, for I have no wish for competition.”
The air seemed to leave the chamber. Or Julian’s lungs. He couldn’t be sure. All he could be sure of was that his brother meant to kill him and claim the earldom for himself. More than likely, he intended to kill Clara as well.
Julian wasn’t about to allow Edward to carry out whatever evil plan he’d hatched. No one would harm so much as a hair on Clara’s head ever again. Not even over his dead fucking body.
“She’s not carrying my heir,” he denied, hoping to deflect some of his brother’s attention away from Clara, perhaps even to release her. “I haven’t touched the chit.”
Edward’s gaze narrowed to reptilian slits. “You expect me to believe you didn’t bed her? A young, innocent beauty like this?” He relaxed his hold on Clara’s throat to cup one of her full breasts in his hand. “Don’t tell me you could resist such pretty tits.”
A guttural sound tore from him and he lunged forward, blinded by rage and the need to defend Clara from being manhandled. Edward sprang backward, dragging Clara with him as though she were nothing more than a helpless heap of skirts.
“Not another step closer, damn you,” Edward warned, once again tightening his hold on Clara’s neck. “Or I’ll choke the life from her. I almost managed last night. This time I won’t fail. The choice is yours.”
“Julian,” Clara spoke for the first time. Her tone was hesitant, starved for breath. A plea. “He’s mad. He means to kill you.”
“Shut up,” snarled Edward, tightening his hold until Clara made a choking sound.
Julian just barely restrained himself from launching himself at his brother. The only thing that kept him planted to the spot was the gun Edward kept trained to Clara’s head. “Let her go. She has nothing to do with what’s between us. She’s leaving for Virginia in two days. Her passage is already secured. Release her and you’ll never hear from her again. Your quarrel is with me.”
“Quarrel.” Edward spat the word as though it left a bad taste in his mouth. “This is not a quarrel, goddamn you. This is about righting a grievous wrong. Now you’ve landed yourself a fat dowry and I mean to collect what’s owed me. I’m the rightful Earl of Ravenscroft, and I’ve wasted too many years waiting for you to drink yourself to death.”
He flinched. Perhaps a bit too close to the truth, that last statement. But Edward had been so mired in his bitterness that he’d failed to notice Julian advancing another half step nearer. If he could distract his brother with idle talk, inch close enough, there was a chance he could knock the gun from Edward’s hand.
His gaze met Clara’s for just a moment, long enough to spy the fear in the glittering depths of her eyes. Jesus, how he wished he could promise her he’d spring her from this hell safely. He wanted to allay her every fear, to kiss the beloved rosebud of her lips, the soft curve of her cheek, that wayward eyebrow. But he had to focus on the task at hand. A deadly one.
He wrenched his gaze back to Edward. “You’re the rightful heir?” he demanded, his tone mocking. “Pray tell me, brother, how can that be when I am indisputably the first born?”
Edward’s jaw tensed. “Our mother was a bloody whore. Little wonder you turned out in her mold. She came into the marriage to Father unchaste, a bastard in her belly. She never would tell him whose by-blow he’d accepted as his heir.”
“You lie,” Julian growled, creeping closer.
“I speak truth. Father confessed everything to me on his deathbed.” Edward smiled, resembling the previous earl more than ever. “Our mother pretended to be an innocent, tricked Father into marriage. Then you were born far too early, a weak and pathetic babe by all accounts. Father knew at once you could not have been of his blood. He wanted to smother you but our mother begged to keep you safe and he was merciful. When I was born a year later, he never forgave himself for giving in. He wished to his dying day that he could have ended you, removed your false claim upon the Ravenscroft line. At long last, I’ve decided to be the one who does.”
The story sounded like the sort of rot the old earl would spew. Then again, it could explain a great deal. He and Edward had never shared a resemblance. The earl had relished in beating and scorning him while he’d only ever heaped praise and adulation upon Edward. Their mother had undeniably taken lovers—Josephine and Alexandra were proof of that.
In truth, none of it mattered any longer, for their parents were long gone, and he couldn’t afford to be distracted. His entire being needed to be focused on freeing Clara, even if it meant getting himself killed in the process. He didn’t give a damn what happened to him, as long as she lived.
He’d inched closer yet again during Edward’s ramblings but stood still now as his deranged sibling’s eyes scoured him, looking for even a hint of forward motion. “If your aim is sending me across the River Styx, let Clara go. She’s done you no harm.”
Edward cocked his head, considering him in a shrewd manner that belied his lunacy. “I’ll strike a bargain with you, brother. As long as you swear she’s not carrying your get, I’ll let her go free.”
Julian swallowed. He would say anything to save her. Lie or truth, it didn’t matter. “She’s not. I swear it.”
“This won’t end well for you,” Edward warned grimly, almost as if he had a conscience. “I’m afraid you must die so that I can become earl as I ought to have been from the first. It’s the only way. I waited on the Continent for so long, you know. Waited and did the honorable thing, hoping you’d drink or whore yourself to death. But then word reached me that you were courting an heiress, and I couldn’t allow an heir to supplant me and take the earldom that’s been mine all along, now could I? Her fortune is, of course, a boon.”
Julian’s blood went cold to hear his brother’s casual confession. Jesus, he made it sound as if his greedy bloodletting was a natural step in the process of regaining what he felt was rightfully his.
“Of course you couldn’t,” he said easily, not daring to step closer with Edward’s attention pinned on him. “But neither could you realize that she and I reached a bargain. We have a marriage in name only, in return for my portion of her dowry, while she goes home to Virginia. She’s not a threat to the earldom, Edward. She’s not carrying my child.”
Edward appeared to be relenting. “I’ll strike a bargain with you. There’s a vial of poison in my pocket. Drink it, and I’ll let her go.”
