“You can’t go there in a fit of rage,” Victoria advised, sounding desperate. “You are playing into his hands. Into his game. He wants you to be mad. He wants you to appear unstable to everyone else. We have the truth. We have Martha as the witness, and the grave of Sophie Bramer if needed be.”
“We are not going to reveal Melody’s identity if we don’t have to,” Richard declared. “That’s what everyone would want to do. To feast on her story. To find out that she was a child of rape. I will see what I can do before we resort to such desperate measures.”
“Oh,” Victoria sobbed. “I hate to say that you are right in this matter. But please be careful. Take some of your men. Penwike is a deceitful man.”
“You are right, Victoria,” he murmured. He could not believe the frost in his voice. “I will see what I can do with Penwike. Let him feel safe before I strike. Isn’t that what he did to us? I’m on my way to his house.”
“No!” the duchess pleaded, but to no avail.
Richard had already made up his mind.
Staying at home, idle, while Penwike threatened his family, was no longer an option.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Did you think I would not come for you, Penwike? Did you think that I would sit in my study and let you destroy my reputation?” Richard demanded.
“Face it, Hawksford. It is already destroyed,” Penwike said with a smirk on his face. “I didn’t know it could be this easy.”
“It’s been tainted, yes, but once people realize that you were spreading the lies out of, let me see, jealousy or simply pure resentment, what do you think will happen?”
Richard did what he threatened to do—storm into Penwike’s house without waiting for the marquess’s butler to announce him. No footman could contain him, either. Each was trembling at the sight of his size and state. He kept his voice low, but he could not help the growl that came with it. His anger simmered and was in danger of exploding right there in front of his enemy’s crystal decanters.
When he encountered Penwike, the marquess seemed strangely calm. No, he was merely a bastard, one who was used to doing ill to others. A confrontation was nothing to him. He was at his desk, drinking what looked like brandy. His surroundings smelled of tobacco and dust.
“People will think what they want to think,” he said simply, his eyes somewhat glazed and focused on something behind Richard. “I was expecting you earlier, but I guess family men have to make arrangements before they can leave the house. And what slowed you down, Your Grace? A bastard? Your uninteresting wife?”
Uninteresting? That was the last word anyone could use to describe Victoria. She was a beauty with a sharp tongue who had only mellowed because of Melody. Her choice to stay inside the house was not because she cowered among the ton; she hated them.
“What did you say?” the duke asked.
Again, he held on to his anger. He didn’t grab the man’s throat. Instead, he remained standing a few feet away from the oily marquess.
“You know what I said, unless your hearing has been affected by the pressures you seem to be feeling at home,” Penwike jeered, before he finished his drink with one gulp.
“Enough! I am not here to trade insults with you, Penwike,” Richard groused. “I know I cannot fight with men who hide behind scandal sheets.”
“Me? You think it was me who sent a tip to the scandal sheets? You are the man who thinks you can end decades of bloodshed with a conversation and land. That is pure arrogance or stupidity; it could be both!”
“Then, have at me. You don’t need to use my family as a pawn to continue this ridiculous game of ancestral tally marks,” Richard retorted, feeling his jaw hurt at the pressure of containing his anger. “Call off your men. Withdraw or change your statement for the scandal sheets. Let us end this here. You may not see the benefit of this now since you don’t have a family yet.”
Richard wanted to continue saying that with family you care about, one becomes more afraid of consequences and threats. Yet, he mentioned family to see what Penwike’s reaction would be to the idea of having a child.
Penwike merely laughed.
“Ah. But it isn’t my fault you decided to have a bastard,” the marquess drawled, shaking his head in disbelief. “Now, you’re bargaining with me. A duke of your status pleading for his bastard. So, I was right. Wasn’t I? You brought your little girl to your home to have your wife discover her. I thought the duchess was a smarter woman than that, unless you two are covering for each other for the sake of reputation. She wants to stay with you now that you are a duke, even after you’ve made a child withsome whore in God knows where. Why wreck your life for some bastard? I know I’ll never do that. Never.”
Richard froze. The words might be meant to hurt him, but they also alerted him to the fact that Penwike did not seem to know that he was talking about his own child. His suspicious interest in them was nothing more than the result of his desire to bring Hawksford down.
There was nothing to suggest guilt or pain. Then again, Penwike was not the sort of person who would feel guilt about any of this.
He doesn’t know. He truly thinks he had a son who was sent to an orphanage.
The realization was still jarring, although he had considered the possibility that Penwike had no idea. The marquess might have thought that he himself had a bastard somewhere—a son—but he considered Melody as Richard’s sin.
“You think the child is mine,” Richard said in a monotone.
“Who else can she be?” Penwike yelled, the first one to let go of his emotions.
