Page 66 of Claiming His Scottish Duchess
Ashworth’s face flushed with annoyance at his interloping.
“What in God’s name do you think you’re doing? Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a game?”
“You would do well to call me Your Grace. Your game is over.”
His tone left no room for argument. There were no questions.
One by one, the players mumbled excuses and quickly vacated the table. Ashworth was left alone with Richard and would have no choice but to hear what he had to say.
“You have some nerve, Duke,” Ashworth sputtered. What started as annoyance turned into anger, fueled by the liquor he had imbibed that evening. “Interrupting a private game like this, these men paid good money!”
Richard leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, his gaze locking onto Ashworth’s.
“My brother was brutally murdered, Ashworth. I believe he might have stumbled upon something… something involving the Bow Street Runners. I’m looking for anyone who might have information.”
Ashworth’s eyes flickered nervously. “I… I don’t know anything about that. It was likely some common thief. Happens all the time.”
“You see, that’s just the thing. John wasn’t robbed because valuables were not taken. It was an ambush. Someone wanted him dead. And I intend to find out why.”
He reached across the table, his hand closing like a vise around Ashworth’s silk-clad collar. The politician gasped, his eyes widening in fear. “Look, I told you. I don’t know anything about this case! I can hardly read every file that comes through London, man. Let go of me!”
“Make it worth my while.”
“Lords and ladies can get killed too,” Ashworth choked out desperately, his face turning an unpleasant shade of purple. “In situations like that, sometimes it’s just bad luck. Wrong place, wrong time. Maybe after things went south, they were afraid to take anything and ran off in a hurry.”
The casual dismissal of his brother’s life, the implication that John was just collateral damage in some game, sent a white-hot rage through Richard. He felt the pumping of his blood hum in his ears.
The guilt over John’s death, the crushing weight of his failure to protect Lydia, the raw ache of his fractured connection with Catriona, all coalesced into a blinding fury. He saw red.
Richard released Ashworth’s collar and, in a surge of uncontrolled rage, overturned the table. He reached Ashworth and shoved the politician violently backwards, sending him sprawling against the overturned table. Cards and coins scattered across the floor as all in the hall turned to stare.
“Is that the Duke of Wilthorne?” one man called out as he gave a yell in approval. “Look at him going at that man!”
“Why, I think it is him!” More men walked in their direction to watch the spectacle.
“Guards!” Ashworth bellowed, clutching his throat. “Get him out of here!”
Two burly men lumbered towards Richard then. Unfortunately for them, he was beyond reason, beyond caring about the consequences of his actions. He was a man with nothing to lose.
Instead, he met their advance with a primal growl and quickly grabbed one guard by the arm and hurled him into the other. They went crashing into a nearby wall, knocking over a shelf of glass that shattered.
Richard looked down on them for a moment, then turned and stormed out of the gaming hell. The sounds of shouting and confusion faded behind him as he made his way onto the dark, lonely London streets.
He strode out into the night, the cool air doing little to quell the inferno of guilt and anger that raged within him. He had sought answers, but all he found was more fuel for his torment, more trouble.
As if on cue, he looked up at the sky and saw a bolt of lightning illuminate the dark night.
He was failing on every front, a storm of his own making threatening to consume everything he held dear.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Cha tig spilgein air fear eiginn.” A person in need gets nothing.
“Any word from His Grace?” Catriona asked Mr. Johnstone for the fifth day in a row.
The coolness of her tone belied her racing heart. She ached to hear from him. A note. A single word. Anything.
“I am sorry, but there is not, Your Grace. I will be sure to find you the moment we do.”
