“Careful,” Rees said, his voice low enough for only Sterling and perhaps a few closest observers to hear. “You destroyed yourself, living beyond your means for years, gambling away money you do not have, and maintaining a facade of wealth through increasingly desperate measures. The fact that your house of cards has finally collapsed is entirely your doing.”
“You turned Hartwick against me,” Sterling snarled, spittle flying with the force of his accusation. “Filled his head with lies—”
“With truth.” The interruption came sharp. “I told him about Miss Winters. About the merchant’s daughter. About Lady Richmond—Victoria—and how you deliberately damaged her reputation when she refused your advances. The truth, Sterling. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Sterling’s face flushed an alarming shade of purple, veins standing out at his temples. “She wanted it. They all wanted it. These women throw themselves at men of our station, then cry victim when things do not proceed according to their designs—”
“Is that what you tell yourself?” Rees stepped closer, close enough to see the bloodshot whites of Sterling’s eyes, to witness the way his pupils contracted and dilated with barely controlled rage. “That helps you sleep at night? This fiction that innocent women you have cornered were somehow the aggressors?”
The room had gone silent around them, every ear straining to catch the exchange while eyes politely averted. This was real drama unfolding in their sanctuary, scandal being dissected and served fresh.
“Victoria is not ruined,” Rees continued, his voice gaining strength without rising in volume. “She is respected. Welcomed. Valued. While you—you are finally being seen for what you are. A predator who targets innocent women because you are too pathetic to win them honestly. A parasite living off inherited wealth you have squandered. A coward who destroys what he cannot possess.”
Sterling’s hand moved toward his pocket—for a moment, Rees tensed, wondering if the man carried a weapon—but he merely pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead. The gesture seemed to deflate him slightly, desperation replacing rage.
“You think you have won?” His laugh held no humor, only bitter edges. “You think destroying me protects her? You do not understand what you have done, what you have started.”
“Enlighten me.”
Sterling leaned in close enough that Rees could see the broken blood vessels in his eyes, could smell the decay beneath the brandy and cologne—the scent of a man rotting from within.
“You will regret this, Harcourt. Both of you will. When everything you have built comes crashing down, when your wife’s reputation lies in ruins again, remember that you brought it upon yourselves.”
The threat hung between them, promising violence without declaring its shape. Rees felt the room’s attention sharpen, members cataloging every word for later dissection.
“Is that a threat, Sterling?” Rees kept his voice conversational. “Because if you are threatening my wife, I should remind you that I hold forty thousand pounds of your debts. One word from me, and you will be in debtor’s prison before the week is out. Or perhaps transported to Australia—I understand the colonies always need laborers.”
Sterling’s face went white beneath its flush, the weight of his powerlessness crashing over him. He stood frozen for a moment, jaw working as if words fought to escape but found no purchase, then turned and strode toward the exit with the exaggerated dignity of the intoxicated.
The door slammed behind him with enough force to rattle the paintings. For a moment, silence held the room, then conversation resumed with explosive force. Rees sank back into his chair, accepting the fresh brandy that materialized at his elbow—the staff at White’s understood that certain scenes required fortification.
“Trouble?” Rafe’s voice came from behind, and Rees turned to find his friend had witnessed part of the confrontation.
“Sterling just declared war,” Rees replied, taking a measured sip of brandy. “Desperate and drunk, but dangerous for all that.”
“What will you do?”
Rees considered the question, his mind calculating probabilities and preparing counters to moves not yet made. Sterling would strike at Victoria—that much was certain. His pride demanded it; his desperation required it. The only questions were when and how.
“I will be ready,” he said finally, the words carrying the weight of determination. “Whatever he attempts, I will be ready.”
Desperate men made mistakes, yes. But they also made dangerous enemies, capable of unexpected violence. Rees would need to be vigilant, anticipating every possible avenue of attack. Sterling might be destroyed financially, socially, romantically—but a wounded animal was often the most vicious.
The game had entered its final phase, and Rees intended to win it, whatever the cost.
Chapter 19
The opera glasses trembled against Victoria’s palm, their mother-of-pearl surface slick with perspiration despite the December chill seeping through the Thornbridge Theatre’s tall windows. She forced herself to maintain the perfect stillness expected of a lady while poisonous whispers circulated through the private boxes like smoke from snuffed candles. The plush crimson velvet beneath her mocked her rigid posture; here she sat in the Harcourt family box, dressed in midnight blue silk that caught the gaslight, yet she might as well have been naked for all the protection such finery provided against society’s renewed assault.
“Did you see them?” The voice drifted from the Ashford box to their left, Lady Ashford’s tone pitched to carry despite its pretense of discretion. “The letters are quite damning. Her own hand, arranging that garden meeting, practically begging Lord Sterling for his attention.”
Victoria’s fingers tightened on the opera glasses until her knuckles ached beneath her white gloves. She knew those letters were forgeries—knew it with the same certainty that she knew her own innocence—but knowledge meant nothing when weighed against scandal’s seductive whisper. Through her peripheral vision, she caught the deliberate turn of Lady Pemberton’s back, the flutter of her fan like a door closing. Mrs. Winthrop, who just last week had brought her daughter for music lessons, now studiously avoided looking in their direction.
The stage below blurred into meaningless color and movement, the soprano’s aria washing over her without significance. How quickly they had turned, these arbiters of society who had begun to accept her back into their glittering fold. One set of forged documents, cleverly crafted to seem authentic, and all Rees’s public defense of her crumbled like ash.
A warm hand settled over hers where they lay clenched in her lap, Rees’s fingers threading through her own with gentle insistence until she loosened her grip on the opera glasses. She glanced at him, finding his profile carved from stone as he stared straight ahead, but his jaw worked with barely contained fury.
“They are forgeries,” he murmured, his voice low enough that only she could hear beneath the swelling orchestra. “Obviously forgeries. No one who knows you could believe otherwise.”
