“You aren’t my nephew,” the man spewed, his aunt nodding along. “You’re nothing but an imposter!”
Bishop arched a brow. “Will you truly deny the heir’s existence before the very heir himself?”
He thought he’d be angrier, be furious. However, a rare form of calmness had settled over him the moment he’d stepped foot into thehouse. Old wrongs were being righted here today, and these people before him, they did not even deserve a sliver of his anger, much less anything else. Hell would settle the scores with them.
His uncle paled. “You cannot prove—”
“Actually,” Crane cut in, stepping forward. “I am the one who found him twelve years ago. Half-dead.” His gaze pinned Bishop’s uncle. “I am the Duke of Crane, if you were wondering, and I back Bishop’s claim. Anything to protest to that?”
Color mottled the older man’s cheeks.
“I thought not,” Crane said smoothly.
“I back his claim as well,” Knox added, voice sharp. “You might pretend to have forgotten his face, but I, his childhood friend, remember it clearly.”
“As do I,” Alyssia announced, clasping his hand and weaving their fingers together. “He was, after all, my betrothed and,” she glanced at him, “my first and only love.”
Bishop blinked at the woman. “Now? You wish to confess this now?”
“I love you,” she said simply.
“Christ, Liss. I love you, too.” He wanted to lift her up and drag her off somewhere private.
“You!” his uncle sputtered. “You cannot simply barge in here and—and...”
“And what, Uncle?” Bishop snarled, squeezing his wife’s hand. “Take what has always been mine? Tell me, why have you failed to have the title transferred after all these years? After all, I’ve been gone longer than seven years. You already know, don’t you? Even if everyone believed I was dead, they didn’t believe in your claim.”
“Or they simply didn’t want him to claim the title, and the power that comes with it,” Knox muttered. “Like me.”
His uncle finally lost all color.
Enough of that. “You and aunt have two choices,” Bishop said. “You either face a lifetime of imprisonment, or you face a short imprisonment while you, Aunt, and your offspring wait for a ship to dock bound for Australia.”
“Absurd! It would take weeks, months, to prove your claim.”
Bishop nodded. True. They needed to file a petition and then the committee would call witness, assess claims and all that drama. However, “Since you’ve proven yourself a threat to my wife and my livelihood, Bow Street will keep you in irons until they are finished. It will all be so very... public.”
The words landed like a hundred satisfying lashes. For a moment, his uncle’s mouth worked and found no shape for denial. His face took on all shapes of rottenness. His aunt clutched her throat, and they shared a look, one filled with degrees of panic, and in that flash, Bishop saw every last thing he had wanted: dread of what was to come.
Ah.There it was.
Not the hot, animal hunger of blood. Not a clumsy form of revenge. This—a slow, public unmaking—was cleaner and much more exquisite. He felt the pleasure of it in his bones, a satisfaction so complete that torturing them in a cellar would have felt petty by comparison. To watch the man who’d taken his parents’ lives and names shrink beneath his gaze with no hope—this was a justice that would last.
He smiled as Bow Street stepped forward.
Public, final, undeniable.
The end of a chapter.
Chapter Eighteen
Alyssia sat perchedupon the edge of the pianoforte, her legs locked around Giles’s hips, his hands firm at her waist as his mouth moved hot and hungry over hers, when an urgent knock interrupted their moment.
She groaned aloud.
Truly, could they not have one blessed moment of bliss-laden peace?
Giles drew back a fraction, breathing unevenly, but she caught him by the collar and dragged him forward for one more lingering kiss. She’d waited far too long for this. All the nightmares were finally laid to rest. His uncle and aunt, along with their son, were in Bow Street’s custody. Rafferty should have slinked off somewhere—though that remained to be seen—and their marriage had become a true and binding thing indeed.
