*
Why the hellhad Hazlitt set the Marquess of Blanden upon him so soon?
Duncan reached the door to the sound of her brother’s irate pounding and escalating threats. He had not yet been ready to say his farewell to her. To let her go. And now, he had no choice.
He must.
With the sinking weight of sick dread in his gut, he unlatched the door. Blanden stood in the hall, fist raised for another round of furious knocking. He hardened his expression, banishing all emotion, all thoughts, save one: his mother’s broken body. He could do this for her. Heowedher this.
“Ah,” he drawled. “The real Blanden has arrived at last.”
“There is no other,” the marquess snapped, rudely attempting to shove Duncan out of the doorway.
He held firm. He was taller, broader, stronger, and a hell of a lot more determined than his lordship. “I do beg your pardon, my lord, for there has indeed been another Marquess of Blanden here at my club nearly every evening for the last sennight. Though he claimed to be you, I saw through his ruse instantly.”
“Are you mad or soused, Kirkwood?” Blanden demanded, his tone sizzling with rancor. “I fail to follow your lunatic ravings.”
“Neither, more’s the pity.” He sneered, looking over the marquess’s shoulder to where Hazlitt stood sentry.
His man of business’s countenance was grim and disapproving. Duncan gave him a nod, indicating he could leave his post. The marquess, in addition to being boring as a stick, was as weak as a stripling. Duncan would mercilessly crush him in any match of fisticuffs. Hazlitt gave him a meaningful look before bowing and silently departing.
“I demand entrance to this chamber at once,” the marquess was ordering.
“Benedict, you must calm yourself.” The quiet, husky voice—the voice that had not long ago wept his name with pleasure—interrupted the impasse. She drew alongside him, pressing a hand to his coat sleeve, her gaze on his part beseeching, part questioning.
Her eyes slayed him. She was so damned beautiful, a black-haired angel he could not keep. He was not a man given to sentiment, but in that moment, something inside him, a fragile piece of himself he had not realized yet existed, broke into ten thousand tiny, splintered fragments.
He wanted to reassure her. To tell her all could be explained. But he could not lie. Could not bear to hurt her any more than he already would.
“Explain what you are doing here, my lady,” growled Blanden, attempting once more to launch himself into the chamber.
Duncan deflected him with ease, his eyes only for Frederica. “Your faith in me was your downfall, my lady,” he warned softly.
“Duncan.” She gripped him harder, tears swimming in the brilliant depths of her gaze, as if she were drowning in the sea and he was the last bit of flotsam to which she could cling. “What is the meaning of this?”
He shook his head. He was not her flotsam. He was not her anything, except for the first man who had known her. Gritting his teeth against the knowledge he was her first but another would be her last, he tamped down the bile and forced himself to speak.
“I arranged for his lordship to be informed of your whereabouts. He has come, I would gather, to take you home where you belong.” Coldly, Duncan turned back to the marquess. “Is that not accurate, Blanden?”
“What the devil is she doing here with you?” His lordship once more threw himself at Duncan with a violent savagery that took him by surprise. “If you have harmed my sister, I will challenge you to pistols at dawn.”
“Ah.” He forced his lips to stretch into a wolfish grin, one that was unrepentant. One that said more than his word possibly could. “I did not hurt her. Did I, m’lady?”
He turned back to Frederica, who looked stricken. The expression on her face was akin to a booted foot to the gut. “Of course you did not hurt me. Not yet.”
She was intelligent, his angel. It was one of the many traits he admired about her. Her boldness, her unassailable curiosity, her determination, her fearlessness. Her mind. He had read the manuscript page she had left behind in his office, a treasure he could not bear to forfeit. Her talent was undeniable.
She knew now what was about to unfold. He could read the devastated acceptance in her eyes. In her voice.
“Not yet,” he agreed softly, regret slithering through him like a deadly serpent. He turned back to the marquess, whose complexion had gone mottled and red in his outrage. “You may enter now, my lord, but only if you promise to behave. I will not have upset or violence in my club.”
Blanden’s lip curled. “Your club will be a smoking wasteland of ash and greed by the time I am finished with you, Kirkwood.”
“You will eat those words, Blanden,” he promised with deadly menace, stepping away from the threshold and away from Frederica, too, as if she was not everything he craved, everything he wanted and needed. As if she was not necessary to him.
Blanden stormed into the chamber, slamming the door at his back, stalking toward Duncan. Duncan recognized himself in the marquess in that moment: bitter, angry, needing to draw blood.
“Benedict, please.” Frederica rushed forward, grabbing her brother’s arm and staying him when he would have been foolish enough to continue forward, intent upon delivering a blow, Duncan had no doubt. “I beg you, do not make this untenable situation any more difficult than it already is.”
