Chapter Twenty-Seven

I believe you’ve had enough satisfaction for one night. Gregory had caught those words clearly as his wife hurtled around the corner of the hedgerow. He’d found her in a rumpled state, her cheeks flushed with feeling, her hair wild from the hands of another. Without offering an explanation, the woman had gone past him with a wail, disappearing into the night.

In every way, she and Campbell made the perfect scene of a romantic tryst thwarted.

Except that Gregory knew his wife well enough to understand that she’d never run away in shame from a bad situation. Julia would stand her ground against anyone. She’d left in visible disgust. With him? Very likely.

But Gregory doubted that he was the only man who’d offended her tonight.

“What the devil were you doing to my wife?” he asked Campbell.

“Oh? Are you certain that’s the question?” The odious man smirked as Gregory approached. “Perhaps you should consider what the duchess has done to me.”

“If she boxed you around the ears, I’m sure it’s no less than you deserved.”

Campbell didn’t enjoy the suggestion that a woman had bested him.

“You might ask yourself what a lovely creature like Julia was doing alone with me in the gardens. We can only snatch a few moments here and there.” Campbell gave a dry laugh. “Undoubtedly, she’ll insist that I dragged her here, but that woman needs no encouragement to follow after me.”

“The Duchess of Ashworth.”

“Pardon?”

“You shall address my wife by her title, Campbell, or at least by Her Grace. If you do not, I shall enjoy the distinct pleasure of taking you apart piece by piece.”

Not many in London had ever seen Gregory truly angry. Unlike most men, he didn’t roar or swagger about when he was furious, puffing himself up in an attempt to appear impressive. He became quieter, and much more still. It was the instinct of a predator to conserve all energy possible when going in for the kill.

Campbell noticed the shift and grew distinctly nervous. Wonderful.

“Fine. Then you might return this to the Duchess of Ashworth.” The man snagged something from the ground and proffered it to Gregory. Moonlight sparkled on shapes of glass. Julia’s slipper. “We became so animated that she left without this.”

“I’d sooner believe my wife lost it in a struggle trying to avoid you.”

“Oh, I believe the ton will see it all my way.” Campbell sneered, his anger rising as Gregory refused to be manipulated. “How the fairy story will be tarnished when they learn the Duchess of Ashworth dallied with another man during the queen’s ball. Shame will hang heavy over both your heads.”

“Be careful what you threaten,” Gregory growled.

“It is no threat. No one need learn of my escapade with Her Grace tonight. That is, so long as a financial arrangement can be made between us two men.”

“My money will buy my wife’s reputation. Is that it?” Gregory smiled, calm as ever. “Blackmail. What a charmingly common weapon of choice.”

“Nothing common about it.” Campbell practically spat the words. Apparently, the great seducer of women hated to have his pride poked at all. “There’s no way to ensure my silence otherwise.”

“Oh, there is. If I silenced you on the other end of a dueling field, for example.”

“What?”

Gregory moved with expert speed and surety and clobbered Lucas Campbell across his left jaw. The other man dropped Julia’s slipper with the shock. He staggered back a few steps, then came at Gregory with a muffled roar. Such boorish behavior matched the beast that he truly was.

Campbell was not a soft member of the idle elite. He knew how to shift his weight in a fight and how to jab, but Gregory had been involved in more than a few brawls during his time. He’d never fought with too much vigor before; after all, it wasn’t like he had a reputation worth saving.

But this wasn’t about him. It was for Julia.

He struck Campbell, ducked so that a blow sailed over his head, and then gave a short, sharp jab to the other man’s midsection. Campbell coughed and spluttered with the wind knocked out of him, sinking to the ground and bending over as Gregory stood above him.

“If you’re threatening my wife’s good name, then I must have satisfaction. We meet upon Hampstead Heath at dawn. We shall settle this as gentlemen.”

“Y-You can’t. Dueling’s illegal,” Campbell gasped.

“Believe me.” Gregory smirked. “I’ve mastered the ins and outs of most illegal matters. Finagling one final duel shouldn’t be too difficult.” Gregory snagged Campbell by his lapels and pulled the bastard to his feet. The coward quailed as Gregory brought their gazes level. “My wife’s honor is my business, you putrid sack of shit. If you’ve debauched her and are threatening to ruin her, there won’t be a place in this country you can hide. You won’t be able to evade me on the Continent, either. It doesn’t matter if you go to Madrid or all the way to Moscow. I’ll hunt you down, find you, and put a bullet through your small, shriveled heart.”

“I didn’t debauch her!” Campbell’s voice was shrill with fear. Apparently, Gregory looked rather frightening at the moment. “I swear on my life I never touched her like that.”

“Then what, pray tell, were you doing out here?”

“I was courting her stepsister.” Campbell gave a furious cry as Gregory struck him, sending him to lie upon the grass.

“Courting? I doubt that very much.”

“Fine. I was attempting to entrap the girl into marriage. Is that what you wished to hear?” Campbell managed to get to his feet and kept a careful distance from the duke, whose every current thought was bent toward bloody murder.

“Julia discovered you,” Gregory said.

“She got the girl away from here and kicked me in the damn balls. She was leaving as you arrived. I didn’t harm Miss Fletcher or the duchess. That means there’s no need for a duel.”

“Oh, but I think there still might be ample need. After all, a bastard like you would happily tell pretty lies to good society. It would be no trouble to invent all sorts of scandalous scenarios and whisper them into the ton’s collective ear.”

“Never. I swear it.” Campbell appeared a bit dewy with nervous sweat. How unappetizing.

“Allow me some certainty.” Gregory stepped toward the other man, relishing it when Campbell almost fell down in terror. “By morning, I want you out of London and back to wherever you come from. If I learn that you’re still in town, I shall pay you a visit and drag you to the dueling field if I must. If I learn that you have spoken to anyone about what transpired tonight, I’ll follow wherever you run and force satisfaction.”

“You’ll be hanged!”

“It would be a trade of my life for my wife’s honor. It’s a bargain I’d gladly make.”

He meant every word of it. So long as Julia lived a long and happy life, he would be satisfied. He was leaving the woman he loved tomorrow so that she could find the peace she was so richly owed. Dueling some piece of pig shit in a nice suit was a small price to guarantee that tranquility.

“You’re a madman,” Campbell said.

Of course Gregory was mad. He was in love.

“Leave the ball now, leave town, and I shall never feel the need to call upon you. But if I see you in London ever again, you will rue the carriage that brought you to the city. Do you understand?”

Campbell glowered, but he did not protest or try to fight. He was too much of a weasel to stand against Gregory. He valued his own worthless hide over anything else. Truly, a pathetic fool.

“I shall accept your terms, Your Grace.” Campbell gave a stiff and mocking bow. “But what assurance have I that you’ll keep to your end of the bargain?”

“I have no wish to bring scandal upon the woman I love. I will protect her from any harm, which is something you would never do.”

Fuck, but Gregory realized with a sudden flash of clarity the truth of his own words. He loved Julia. He’d known it for ages, of course, but he had not considered everything he’d been willing to throw away for her sake. His own life? Without question. His fortune, his reputation, everything that made him what he was? He’d do without any and all of it to protect her.

And he realized something else, as Lucas Campbell skulked away into the night. Gregory realized that he could not be away from her.

It wasn’t only that he needed to protect her. He needed to hear her voice, be in her presence, look upon her face in order to keep his own sanity. A lifetime without her was misery, but he’d accept that misery if it was what she wanted.

But she didn’t want it, did she? She’d told him over and over, but like a blasted fool he’d refused to listen, too wrapped up in his own idiotic certainty. For Gregory’s entire life, he’d run from the possibility of love because he was too shattered by his own inadequacies.

But Julia loved him despite all of it, didn’t she? Somehow, he had managed to win her heart, and then he’d run from her at the first sign of challenge.

Even after that colossal disappointment, she still seemed to care for him. Perhaps there was a path forward for them, because Gregory knew that he would never find contentment in this world without her at his side. If Julia could love a flawed, broken man, perhaps there was hope.

Gregory used to laugh at the insipid concept of hope, but he had changed. Julia had changed him.

He forgot about Campbell entirely after that, and returned to the party. He hunted through the crowd for his Cinderella, but the silver-and-diamond vision of her did not appear.

“It’s almost midnight, Ashworth. Where’s Her Grace?” someone asked, and it was all Gregory could do not to punch the bastard flat-out for interrupting his search.

Yes, midnight. Gregory swore inwardly. He and Julia would be expected to be present, the center of attention, but she seemed to have taken her cue early and run away. Cinderella was supposed to wait until the stroke of midnight.

But Julia never did what she was told, another thing he loved about her.

“Oh, bugger everyone,” Gregory muttered. If the queen had him thrown out of England for ruining the climax of her big event, Gregory would accept his exile. Unfortunately, as he made his way for the exit the bells began striking the midnight hour. The partygoers noticed Gregory and formed a wall about him, trapping him within a circle. As the last bell tolled, he stood there with his wife’s shoe in his hand and felt the baffled stares of all London high society on his body. Including, from her perch upon a nearby red velvet dais, the queen herself. Her Majesty fluttered a fan and lifted a plucked eyebrow, silently demanding that Gregory explain this botched finale.

Fuck. How was he to negotiate his way out of this one? Gregory stared at Julia’s shoe and had the flash of an idea.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you must excuse me,” the duke said. He lifted the glass slipper into the air so all could see it. “My Cinderella ran away before the end of the ball, leaving only this behind as a clue. I must see it safely returned to her.”

Gregory could not have achieved a more perfect Cinderella moment if he’d tried. The queen smiled, nodding to him in congratulation. Laughter and wild applause chased him out of the ballroom. He made his way to the palace’s entrance, where he learned that his wife had already summoned their carriage and left for home.

Her shoe in hand, Gregory returned to Carter House. His mind kept flooding with everything that he wished to say to her, with ideas on how to say it, with how to prove to her his own idiocy over Campbell had ended. Gregory’s heart lightened as he made his way to the front door. Julia might be put out now, but when he revealed that he was leaving neither London nor her, he believed she’d soften.

“Peele. Where’s Her Grace?” Gregory asked as the butler allowed him inside.

“Beg pardon, Your Grace. The duchess is gone.” Peele appeared green as he extended an envelope to Gregory. “She asked I give you this.”

Head buzzing, glass slipper still in hand, Gregory ripped open the envelope and read the letter.

Gregory,

Forgive me for my stubbornness. I see now you were in the right, and that our union is too fraught with conflict to ever be truly happy. Susannah has no wish to return home, so I have taken her with me to Lynton Park. You are free to travel the Continent and find the peace you crave. I hope you will pardon me for not giving you my decision in person. Forgive me, too, for missing the end of the ball. At least now our charade is well and truly done.

Julia

Gregory did not curse or crumple the paper into a ball or drop the letter. Her words had left him too numb for any kind of reaction. He merely walked silently upstairs, noting the family portrait on his way.

Tonight, it seemed as though his parents were smiling at him in vindication.