The two of them climbed back up, and as they reached the landing, Julian caught a flicker of light from the corridor to the right, the one direction they had not yet tried.
“What lies down there?” he asked Arabella.
“I am not certain. I was never taken that way.”
“I will check it.” He turned to her. “Take the keys back to Nathaniel and see whether Clara is behind that door. I will join you both shortly.”
They parted, and Julian made his way down the corridor alone. From somewhere in the distance, a door banged shut. He turned back, wishing his friends did not cause such a ruckus while searching, but then pressed on.
Outside the door from which the candlelight flickered, he stopped and looked through the gap where it stood slightly ajar.
Sitting there, with a glass of what looked like whiskey in one hand, was Sebastian Devereau.
Julian’s hands curled into fists. One went automatically to the dagger at his belt. He wished, fiercely, that one of his friends were here with him; it would have made for a far better ambushthan going in alone. He could go back for Nathaniel or one of the others who had to be somewhere on this floor by now. He did not.
He was not going to lose this chance.
He steadied his breath and with one swift kick, sent the door swinging open.
CHAPTER 39
Sebastian Devereau did not have time to so much as scramble to his feet before he was flung to the ground. Julian had kicked the chair from beneath him with as much force as he could muster, and the man pitched forward. Julian seized him by the collar and hauled him up.
“You weasel. Do you imagine you can come into my house and abduct my family and walk out again? You must be utterly cocked in the knob if you thought I would ever allow it.”
The man stared at him, eyes wide. The cocky, smirking ease he had carried at the ball was wiped clean away.
“How did you find me?” he said.
“It does not matter how I found you. Only that I did. And your scheme ends here. You will not endanger my cousin or her child a moment longer.”
“You meanmychild. I shall take this matter to the Court of Chancery, and they will most certainly decide in my favor. Your cousin will be jailed. She stole my son.”
“If you thought you had a chance at winning, you would have gone that route from the start. You know you do not. Not with what you did to her. You have entirely lost your mind, have you not? You lured my cousin from her home with promises you never intended to keep, married her under false pretenses, and planned to steal her child. That is fraud. Your marriage was never valid, and you know it perfectly well. That is precisely why you wanted her to admit to an adultery she never committed.”
“The child isstillmine.Iam his father.”
“Once we prove you defrauded my cousin into marrying you, he may still be your son by blood, but he will not be your son born within wedlock. I know little of Italian law, but here, that means he is no legitimate heir which I rather think will diminish your uncle’s interest in him considerably.”
“He is still my blood. She will never have him. I shall see to that.”
Julian rushed forward, forcing the man to stumble backwards until his back struck the wall.
“You think you will be free to do any of that?” he said. “You kidnapped my wife, a titled lady of the realm. Even if we could not have you on the matter of David, we can have you for that, and we will. And you imprisoned my cousin, the niece and cousin of a duke—his ward. You must have lost your mindentirely if you think you will be walking these streets freely after today.”
As with so many bullies he had encountered over the years, hearing the truth set out plainly seemed to inspire a shift in the man. He wetted his lips and raised both hands.
“We can talk about this, surely. We can come to an understanding. Let me go, and we can discuss it like reasonable men.”
“There is nothing to discuss. We are done here.”
He turned his head and called over his shoulder. “I have him. I have the rat. Fetch the constable.”
Then it was his turn to smirk. He noted that the man had not even attempted to claim he didn’t have Clara which told him she was, in fact, behind that locked door. They had won. They had won, and it had been so much easier than he had feared.
Now the biggest hurdle remaining was convincing her that he had not meant a word of what she had overheard. Because the honest truth was that he had not.
“No,” he said. “You are going to sit here, and I am going to tie you up, and you are going to wait quietly for the constables to arrive.”
