Edward pressed his lips together. “I’m disgusted. I considered ye family, and ye’d have an innocent man imprisoned just for a fuck.”
George flinched. Actually flinched. It was the first honest reaction Edward had seen from him in years.
“That was a mistake,” he said quietly.
“A mistake.” Edward’s voice was cold. “Ye tried to trick me into arresting an innocent man, George. A father. Because ye wanted his wife.”
“I know what I did.”
“Do ye? Because ye are sitting in a barn on my wedding day with a pistol on yer knee, which suggests ye have not learned a single thing from any of it.”
“Which part? The affair or the lie?”
“Both. Neither. I don’t know.”
George looked at his hands. “I got bored with her, truly. I don’t care to be tied to a woman, Eddie. I just want my friend back.” He kept talking. Words that twisted and circled. And then, quiet and sharp: “If you don’t come back, I will kill her. I will put a bullet in that pretty head of hers, and you will have nothing. The way I have nothing.”
The words landed like a blade between Edward’s ribs. Not because of the threat. He had heard worse. He had made worse. The words landed because George meant them.
For the first time in twelve years of partnership, George Turner was not performing. He was not manipulating. He was not running a play from the old playbook. He was a man with nothing left to lose, and men with nothing left to lose were the most dangerous kind. Edward knew. He had been one.
He moved.
He crossed the barn in three strides. His hand closed around the pistol barrel and twisted it free. His other hand found George’s collar and slammed him against the wall. Dust rained from the rafters.
George’s feet lifted off the ground. Edward’s fist flew back. His hand closed around George’s throat and squeezed. George’s face went red. His feet kicked against the wall.
Edward could feel the pulse under his fingers, fast and thin. The old instinct was there, the one that saidfinish it, the one that had ended men in darker rooms than this. His hand tightened. George’s eyes bulged.
“See?” George wheezed, blood on his lips. He smiled through it. “No matter what you do, this is what you are. A weapon. A Hound. You can’t be anything else, old champ. Your bride is in danger with you.”
Edward’s hand shook. The anger was black and hot and familiar. The old anger. The one that had carried him through cellars and alleys and the worst nights of his life. George knew how to summon it. He had always known.
Edward thought about Valeria. About the way she had said,Prove it. About the way she had looked at him in the firelight. About the way she had looked at him in the gazebo, as though he were safe.
He uncurled his hand from around George’s throat and stepped back. Then he pulled a length of cord from his pocket and bound George’s wrists. Quick. Professional.
“Ye don’t deserve my attention,” he said flatly. “I’ll let the Queen decide what happens to ye. Ye’re not my problem anymore.”
George sat on the ground with bound wrists and blood on his face. And grief. The grief of a man who had just lost the only person who mattered.
“You were my brother,” he said.
“Aye, I was.”
Edward walked out of the barn. The morning air was cold and clean. He found his horse and mounted it. His knuckles were raw.
At the gate, he called over two footmen. “Go east. Two miles. There is a barn off the main road. Inside, you will find a man with his hands bound. Send for the constables. Tell them he threatened the Duchess and has used the power given to him by the Crown for selfish motives.”
The footmen went.
Edward sat on his horse. The sun was rising. The house was painted gold in the early light.
George’s words rang in his head.
“No matter what you do, this is what you are.”
But Valeria’s words rang, too.Prove it.The two phrases sat side by side in his chest. George’s accusation and Valeria’s challenge. The weapon and the man. The Hound and the husband.
