James went rigid. “You are lying.”
Lady Whitcombe’s expression did not change. “Am I?”
James’s mind rejected it instantly. His father had been many things. Strict. Proud. Controlled. Not the sort of man who kept mistresses. Not the sort of man who would risk scandal.
“No,” James said, voice tight. “You are mistaken.”
“I am not mistaken about the man who held me,” she said.
James felt heat rise, sharp and dangerous. “Say his name.”
“The late Duke of Langford,” she said smoothly.
Roderick stepped closer. “If you repeat that outside this room, you will regret it.”
Lady Whitcombe laughed softly. “Threats. How familiar.”
James stared at her, searching for cracks. For fear. For any sign she was bluffing.
He found none.
Instead, memory flickered. Not clear, but present. A night years ago. Raised voices behind a closed door. His father’s tone angry in a way James had rarely heard. His mother’s voice, sharp and strained.
He had been young, standing at the top of the stairs, listening because he did not yet know how not to.
His father’s voice had carried.
“You will leave,” the Duke had said. “You will be gone by morning.”
A woman’s laugh. Low. Unbothered.
“You cannot send me away after you have had what you wanted,” she had replied.
James’s breath caught.
The memory sharpened.
His mother’s voice, then, brittle with pain. “Get out.”
And his father again, furious, not with his wife, but with the unseen woman. “If you speak of this, I will ruin you.”
The flashback lasted only a heartbeat, but it landed like a blow.
James’s gaze snapped back to Lady Whitcombe.
She watched him with knowing satisfaction. “You remember,” she murmured.
James’s throat tightened. “That was you.”
Lady Whitcombe leaned back in her chair. “Yes.”
Roderick’s expression was tight with disgust. “You are claiming the late duke had an affair with you. For what purpose?”
Her eyes gleamed. “Purpose? It was a night of excellent entertainment.”
James’s voice was hoarse. “My father would not.”
“Oh, but he did,” she said. “One night. That is all it was. And then, like so many men, he decided he did not want the consequences.”
