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“So it seems.” Nathaniel squared his shoulders.

“Your Grace.” Cumberlea’s voice was smooth as silk, almost pleasant if not so serpentine. “I confess I didn’t expect to see you at an event of this size. I’d heard you’d retreated from Society these past years.”

“Cumberlea.” Nathaniel’s voice came out even, though Laura could feel the effort it cost him in the tight clench of his arm against her side.

“And this must be your new wife.” Cumberlea’s gaze flicked to Laura, assessing, unhurried. Something in it made her skin crawl. “I confess I was surprised when I heard. An unexpected match, I’d say. I wonder under which circumstances you two⁠—”

“The circumstances are of no concern to you,” Nathaniel said coldly.

“I am just saying how very practical of you, Your Grace. My belated congratulations to you both.” Cumberlea inclined his head to Laura. “I do hope marriage has proved a happier arrangement for you than it did for the last Duskwell woman who entered into one.”

Laura felt Nathaniel tense, and she instinctively reached for his hand to calm him.

“I understand that you lost your sister some years ago,” Cumberlea continued, entirely unbothered, his tone as light as if he were remarking on the weather. “A tragic business, that. Grantham never could manage his affairs properly, God rest his soul, though I suppose some women simply aren’t suited to the strain of a difficult marriage. It’s a pity, really. She was a lovely creature, as I recall. Delicate. I did try to tell Grantham more than once that a firmer hand⁠—”

“Do not,” Nathaniel bit out, “say another word about my sister.”

Something in his voice had gone beyond cold now, beyond the control he had maintained through months of brandy and business in Alden’s study.

Astonishingly, Cumberlea only smiled at his warning, a thin curve of his mouth that looked cruelly satisfied.

“I only meant to offer my condolences, Your Grace,” he said. “Belatedly, I grant you, but sincerely meant. Grief does strange things to a man’s temper, I understand. One ought to make allowances.” His eyes flicked to Laura again. “Though I do hope, for your wife’s sake, that whatever temper runs in your family hasn’t found its way into this marriage as well. I understand the rumors about you have always run rather⁠—”

He never finished the sentence. Nathaniel’s fist struck his jaw before Laura had even realized he’d moved.

The crack echoed through the ballroom like a gunshot.

Cumberlea staggered backward into the small crowd that had gathered around them, sending a tray of champagne crashing to the floor in a bright mess of glass.

The room erupted in chaos.

Someone screamed. Several gentlemen surged forward, some clearly meaning to intervene, others simply crowding closer for a better view.

Cumberlea, recovering himself with a hand pressed to his jaw, came up snarling. He lunged toward Nathaniel like a snake.

Everett was there in a moment, hauling him back by the shoulders, before two other gentlemen she didn’t recognize threw themselves between them.

“We need order in here,” one of them shouted as he pulled Nathan back.

“Someone fetch the host!” the other hollered.

“Let me go, you brute,” Cumberlea snarled, straining against Everett’s grip, blood welling at the corner of his mouth. “You struck me, Duskwell! In front of half of London. You’ll answer for that, I promise you.”

“I should have struck you three years ago,” Nathaniel snapped back. “I should have put you in the ground for what you did to her, and I am only sorry Society’s rules will keep me from finishing what I started tonight.”

A wave of scandalized whispers and sharp intakes of breath rippled through the room. Someone near the back was already repeating the words to someone who hadn’t heard them clearly enough the first time.

In the end, it took five men to separate them.

They hauled Cumberlea off toward the far side of the room. Nathaniel's chest was heaving, his knuckles split and bleeding. His eyes remained fixed on Cumberlea’s retreating figure the whole time.

How could such a perfect evening shatter in a heartbeat?

The ballroom fell quiet in that terrible way that meant everyone in it had witnessed something they would be discussing for weeks.

Laura felt every eye in the room shift slowly from Cumberlea’s departing figure to Nathaniel. He was a mess, standing amid shards of glass with blood on his hand, breathing hard, entirely undone in front of the whole ton. Then the eyes shifted to her, something resembling pity flickering in them.

“The Beast of Duskwell,” someone murmured, not bothering to lower their voice. “I always said the stories had some truth to them. Punched a man clean in the face in front of the whole room, over nothing more than a few words!”