Silas charged at him, knife raised, and Cedric ducked and evaded the first three blows. Fuming, Silas lurched forward, and Cedric sidestepped the attack, jamming his fist into Silas’s side.
With a grunt, Silas staggered but recovered quickly and switched the hold on the dagger to an impaling strike. Acting on pure instinct, Cedric allowed him to come closer, hissing when the blade drew blood against the back of his arm, but it gave him space to jab his fist into Silas's windpipe.
A curse left Silas' mouth as his knife dropped, and using the momentum, Cedric tackled Silas to the ground, pinning hisopponent by the neck. As his fingers squeezed the other’s throat, the dark power of the hulks washed over him.
“Go on,” Silas choked out. “Kill m…me. Le-t me join H-Helena.”
Two decades of fury and hurt burned black inside his gut; violence rippled through Cedric’s blood, and his nails sank into Silas’s skin while his eyes bugged out.
Nothing to be gained from killing Silas. With an effort borne of sheer will, he loosened his death-hold. Silas sucked in deep, ragged breaths.
“You were her lover.” He said flatly.
“Y-es,” Silas coughed.
“For years.”
“Yes, and damn you for getting her with child,” Silas spat.
“Cedric,” Ariadne said. “The constables are here.”
He got to his feet and stepped away from the man lying prone on the ground, while backing away to where Ariadne held the reloaded pistol to Silas.
“You’re not going to shoot me,” Silas said confidently.
“She’s not going to shoot you,” Cedric took the pistol. “But I am,” he said calmly. He pulled the trigger, and Silas screamed as the bullet struck his shoulder.
Grabbing a discarded dagger, he ripped Silas’ shirt and pressed it to the wound, and applied pressure.
“Be grateful I avoided your heart. You won’t die,” he said savagely. “But you’re going to spend the rest of your miserable life behind bars.”
“You should have killed me,” Silas sneered, pain turning his face into a mask of agony.
“So you could get your wish?” Cedric asked as she stepped away for the constables to haul him from the ground. “I’m a beast, remember?”
Epilogue
TWO WEEKS LATER
With the madness dying down, Ariadne finally had a moment to sit with the ladies of her family in her old drawing room. Mama shared the settee next to Ariadne while her sisters sat on a mismatch of armchairs and curricle chairs.
“I cannot believe such an enemy was so close to you,” Ophelia tutted while adding more milk to her tea. “I shudder to think of what he could have done if he had acted earlier.”
“I think…” Ariadne considered her words, “I think he was happy to see Cedric alone for so long, knowing that neither of them was with someone they loved. ‘Tis themisery loves company, and all that.”
“Either way, it's such a relief for this ugly business to be over,” Ophelia tutted. “Thank heavens he is safe behind bars at Newgate and will never be let out again.”
Canting her head, Marigold asked, “How do you feel about it, Ariadne?”
“It's….” She paused. “It’s scary how efficient the two of them were at their affair. I must give it to Lord Stromwell; he does know how to move in the shadows. He confessed to having paid a woman to write all those nasty notes to me.
“Plus, the investigators found that he was the one funding the smear campaign against me in the papers. He paid the editor five hundred pounds per issue.”
“Now that that knowledge is public, the ton has written it all off as lies from a jealous bounder, and they have moved on,” she sighed. “If only they knew how close they had come to the truth.”
“Speaking of the truth,” Ophelia said. “Are you still angry at me about this whole thing?”
“No,” Ariadne said honestly while shifting her cup to the side. “I did feel… blindsided, but knowing how it ended with Uncle Thaddeus and that we finally solved the mystery of Cedric’s past, I think—I think we ended in a better place than when we started.”
