“It’s not the new duke,” came a voice behind Wiggins, and Elise stiffened. She pushed to her feet when the owner of the voice forced his way past her servant and entered the room without invitation.
“Gray,” she whispered.
“Your Grace?” the butler queried, shooting Gray a long look.
“It’s fine. Leave us.”
He did so, and she drew a long breath as she stared. Stenfax’s younger brother, Grayson Danford, had once been a great friend of hers. She’d spent many days as a girl playing with Felicity, Gray, Stenfax and the son of one of their servants, Asher. She remembered Gray’s wide grin and his bright, mischievous eyes.
Today he looked at her like she was trash that had been deposited in his path, and her heart hurt.
“May I get you tea?” she asked.
He shook his head without speaking and she pressed her lips together. He wasn’t going to make this easy. “I heard of your marriage late last year,” she said, forcing her voice to be bright. “And I saw you with the lady when I was at the Swinton ball last week. She is lovely, Gray. And rumor says you are very happy, so I am happy for you.”
Gray’s face didn’t soften even a fraction. “I’m not here to discuss Rosalinde,” he said, his tone clipped. “This is not a social call, so you may drop the pretense. We both know we are not friends.”
“We were once,” she said, hoping her pain wasn’t utterly obvious. It felt like it was slashed across her skin in that moment.
Gray barked out a laugh, and it was harsh. “That was before you broke Stenfax’s heart. And Felicity’s.”
Elise caught her breath. What he said was fair, especially given what he knew of the circumstances. But oh, how it burned inside of her. She hated that she’d hurt both her best friend and the man she loved with all her heart.
She moved toward him, a hand lifted in a sign of surrender. “It isn’t so simple,” she explained. “It’s far more complicated.”
He shook his head slowly. “Do you think I give a damn about any lie you’d tell to save yourself?”
“Save myself?” she murmured. “What do you mean?”
Gray’s dark eyes narrowed. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing, Your Grace?”
She blinked. “What am I doing?”
“Very well, if you want to make me say it. I know that you are looking for a protector,” he said. When her eyes went wide, he said, “Oh, don’t worry, no one is speaking of it in Society, at least not yet. But I have my ways of finding out.”
She straightened her shoulders despite the deep humiliation that made her limbs feel heavy and almost numb. “Do you intend to threaten me with that knowledge, because as you say, no one is speaking about ityet. But we both know my position in Society is so precarious that nothing you say or do will change it now.”
His brow wrinkled. “This is not a threat, Your Grace. I am not the kind of man who would blackmail you.”
She stared at him a long moment and remembered his kindness as a boy. She shook her head. “No, I know you are not. Then whatdoyou come here for?”
“Your situationmustbe precarious if you would go to such desperate measures,” he continued. “You turned to Stenfax from that desperation, did you not? Perhaps you hope he will marry you out of the danger you’re in. Or at the very least, make you his mistress so that you can escape.”
“That isn’t true!” Elise burst out. “I didn’t orchestrate anything between Stenfax and me.”
Gray rolled his eyes. “Oh yes, I believe you, the ultimate liar and actress. You forget that I know what you are capable of doing to obtain whatever you desire.”
She turned away. She was so low in his estimation that nothing she said would be believable to him. And what was worse was that Stenfax felt the same way. He was not so hard as Gray, but he had said he couldn’t trust her.
There was nothing she could do or say or explain to change any of their minds. This family that she had loved and longed to be a part of was lost to her. And she grieved that loss all over again, just as she had three years before when she’d turned away from it the first time.
“So you came here to call me a mercenary and a whore,” she said softly. “Now that you have done so, are you finished, Gray?”
“Not quite. I came here to tell you to stay away from my brother.”
She spun to face him, surprised by those words. Stenfax and Gray were best friends as well as brothers. Obviously Gray knew of their affair, but in three days Stenfax apparently hadn’t told him about ending the affair. Why?
“I don’t care about your desperation, I don’t care about your lies, I don’t care aboutanythingexcept that you stay away from Stenfax,” Gray continued, his gaze cold and even.
