Argyll’s squeezed his eyes, sharpening his hearing, forcing himself to listen to his wife’s joy mingled with another man’s.
That effervescent, laugh belonged to Argyll…
But you didn’t appreciate it enough to protect and keep close…
A low ache opened up Argyll’s chest, stripping him raw, breaking him up into his most primitive form. Within him sorrow and rage flipped places; both unrelenting; one always had Argyll in its hold.
She despised being calledDuchess, didn’t she? And yet when another man spoke to her so—whenthisman did, a bloody, far-too-handsome-for-anyone’s-good Rothesby—she giggled like a schoolgirl.
“And why is that,Duke?” Daria asked, her voice carrying the same playful note.
Argyll wanted to clamp his hands over his ears.
“…Well, you see, Duchess…” Rothesby purred, like a bloody panther.
My God, man. Go there.Storm over like the savage you are and tear him in two.
But grief locked him in. Is this how so many gentlemen had been made to feel? He remained trapped in a hell where his worst sins were revisited upon him.
“As much as I pride myself on being a gentleman…”
He had uttered something similar in the game of seduction, but those were other men’s wives.
Argyll stared unseeingly.
They weren’t Daria.
No one on this earthwas.
Argyll rubbed a fist against the burning ache in his chest—to no avail.
“…all is fair in the art of love and war….”
A woman versed in seduction would have giggled or bantered back.
Daria gave a non-committal little huff.
Of course she did. His eyes burned. Argyll’s wife was pure. And this bastard, this notorious rake and seducer, sought to sully that.
Argyll’s heart labored.
The Devil mocked Argyll for past transgressions. The men Argyll made cuckolds of now Satan’s minions, rejoicing in this long overdue comeuppance.
This was the Lord’s punishment then.
Daria gasped. “You are the worst, Duke!”
Blood rushed behind Argyll’s eyes, blinding his vision.I will kill him!Fire burning through him, Argyll stumbled from the shadows.
“By God, I will ki—”
The rest of the threat died on his tongue.
His wide-eyed bride and the man she kept company with looked up at him from—the scattered
…cards of whatever game they played.
Unable to look at her, Argyll stared emptily at the stone floor Daria and the Duke of Rothesby had made into their private parlor.
