Page 15 of Trapped with the Forbidden Duke
“You have no right, Stormhold! No right to come intomyresidence and interfere inmyfamily’s affairs!”
Edwina bit back an unladylike curse as she dashed around a corner and heard the Duke’s response.
“Your family’s affairs? Ah, the ones you have so conveniently neglected while your sister bears the brunt of everything you have destroyed? While she is burdened withyourconsequences? Heavens, look at you! You look as though you have barely slept for a week?—”
“You know nothing of what I have been through.” Nicholas’s roar rippled down the hall.
There was another scuffle.
Edwina could see the door to the breakfast room.
“I know exactly what you have been through, Nicholas. War did not break you. Your inability to deal with the reality of returning did.”
Edwina all but skidded into the breakfast room right as Nicholas’s arm swung in an arc. Only for his fist to be caught in mid-air by the Duke.
“What is going on here?” she demanded.
At her voice, both men sprung apart. The Duke released her brother’s fist, and both of them straightened their jackets.
Nicholas looked the worse for wear, with dark circles beneath his eyes and unkempt dark hair. The piece of hay stuck to the back of it helped her guess where he had hidden out all night. She could only hope that it had been the almost empty stables.
She could only hope that his appearance was merely the consequence of a sleepless night—in contrast to that of the perfectly groomed Duke of Stormhold.
“Nothing,” the Duke answered coolly. “Your brother and I are merely getting reacquainted. Is that not right, Montgomery?”
“You had better get reacquainted with words, not fists,” Edwina scoffed before her brother could answer, stepping further into the breakfast room. “Do you both wish to be like thugs?”
Neither answered, until Nicholas turned a deep scowl on her that looked worse, ghastlier, with his pale face and bruised, heavy-lidded eyes.
It only turned her stomach further that he had left to deal with such turmoil alone. It was not uncommon, but it still tugged at her.
“I need an explanation forthis,” he hissed, jabbing a finger in the Duke’s direction. “You have brought a man into our home. Do you know what that tells me, Sister?”
“It tells you nothing,” she snapped. “It tells you that we need support.”
“It tells me that your honor may have been compromised, for how can you be comfortable with having a man sleeping beneath our roof?”
Edwina’s face reddened as she opened her mouth to say that the Duke was not a stranger and that her honor was perfectly intact, as it had always been.
But the Duke spoke first.
“Watch how you speak to your sister.”
“Oh, do not get involved, Lucien. Backoff. You are adept at that.”
Lucien.
His name reverberated through Edwina, momentarily distracting her.
When she blinked, Nicholas had lunged for the Duke again, but she darted forward, stepping between the two of them. It was as if their anger stopped at the limit of not hurting her, for they both stepped back. Yet, their angry eyes were still trained on one another.
“Nicholas,” she snapped, looking up at her brother. “It is either the Duke or poverty.” Then, she rounded on the Duke. “And if you arebothdone with proving who can act like a more bullheaded fool, then perhaps you would care to help me figure out how to save this house?”
“I have already started,” the Duke answered smartly. “Perhaps you can convince your brother over there to be useful for once.Or, rather, again. Tell me, Nicholas, does it sting to have wasted so much potential? To lose so much of that hard-earned honor?”
Nicholas tensed, and Edwina readied herself to step between them once more.
Her brother staggered backward, gritting his teeth. “I do not need this.”
