The impact sang through his knuckles, sharp and satisfying. Drakeston’s head snapped back. His grip on Sophia released. He stumbled, arms windmilling, and crashed to the floor.
Edward stood over him, breathing hard, his fist still clenched. Blood roared in his ears. Every muscle in his body screamed for him to hit the man again, to pound him into the floor until he stopped moving.
Drakeston raised himself on one elbow, his hand pressed to his jaw. Blood trickled from his split lip. His pale eyes blazed with fury and humiliation.
“You fool!” Drakeston spat blood onto the carpet. “You have no idea what you have done!”
“I knowexactlywhat I have done.” Edward’s voice came out low and dangerous. “I have stopped you from assaulting a woman in my house.”
“Assaulting?” Drakeston laughed, ugly and sharp. “Ask her what she owes me! Ask her about her family’s debts! Ask her how much she has paid me over the past three years to keep her father’s disgrace a secret!”
Edward went still.
He turned to look at Sophia. She stood pressed against the wall, clutching the torn edges of her bodice together, her face pale as marble. Her eyes met his, and in them he saw the truth.
Shame. Fear. The weight of secrets she had carried alone for far too long.
Drakeston pushed himself to his feet, swaying. “She is mine, Heatherwell. She has been mine since her fool of a father gambled away everything and came crawling to me for help. I own her. I own her mother. I own every pitiful shred of respectability they cling to.”
Edward shrugged off his coat. He crossed to Sophia and draped it over her shoulders, covering the torn gown, shielding her fromDrakeston’s leering gaze. She flinched at his touch, then stilled, her fingers curling into the lapels.
“And when I tell the ton what I know,” Drakeston continued, his voice rising, “she will befinished. Her mother will be finished. No one will receive them. No one will speak to them. They will be outcasts, ruined, destroyed?—”
Edward turned and punched him again.
Drakeston had barely risen to his full height. The blow caught him square on the cheekbone and sent him sprawling. He hit the floor with a grunt, his head cracking against the wooden leg of the pianoforte.
Edward stood over him, his chest heaving. “Get out of my house.”
Drakeston stared up at him, hatred burning in his eyes. Blood smeared his chin. His silver hair had come loose, hanging in disarray around his face.
“Now.” Edward raised his fist again. “Before I forget that I am a gentleman and give you what you truly deserve.”
Drakeston scrambled backward, his dignity abandoned. He lurched to his feet and stumbled toward the door, one hand pressed to his bleeding face.
“This is not over.” He paused at the threshold, his voice thick with venom. “You will regret this, Heatherwell. Both of you. I will?—”
Edward took a step toward him, his fist clenched and ready for another blow.
Seeing that, Drakeston fled out of the room.
His footsteps echoed down the corridor, growing fainter, until finally they disappeared. Silence settled over the music room, broken only by the distant strains of the ball and the ragged sound of Sophia’s breathing.
Edward turned to face her.
She stood where he had left her, wrapped in his coat, her arms crossed over her chest. Tears tracked down her cheeks, though she made no sound. Her hair hung in tangles around her face.
She looked shattered. Broken. And still, somehow, unbowed.
“You have made everythingworse,” her voice cracked on the words, and Edward almost winced at the pain in them. “He will tell everyone. He will destroy my family. Everything I have worked to protect.” She pressed her hands to her face. “Three years. Three years I have paid him, kept him at bay, kept his hands from—” Her voice broke. “And now it is all for nothing!”
Edward stood motionless.
She was right. He knew she was right. He had acted on instinct, on fury, on a desperate need to protect her, and he had not considered the consequences.
“Is this why you became Lady Fairhart?”
Sophia lowered her hands. Her eyes met his, red-rimmed and exhausted.
