Page 7 of She Tempts the Duke
She smiled in answer, just a soft tilting up of her lips. Familiarity fed a ridiculous notion to speak with her first, to ask how she was, then go in search of his uncle.
But then he saw the pity in her lovely green eyes, the tears welling. His gut clenched. He had both dreaded and anticipated this moment of seeing her again. And a pain far worse than anything he’d endured on the battlefield pierced his heart.
He knew what he’d become. Had smashed the mirror that had first revealed it to him. He would have spared her the horror of it, but to expose his uncle he had to expose himself. Just this once, and then he would be done with it.
“Don’t,” he commanded, barely moving his lips, the force of the word not carrying beyond her ears.
Blinking back her tears, setting her jaw in a familiar determined manner, she gave a quick nod and squared those distracting bared shoulders. “Your uncle knew only that you disappeared. No one knew where you’d gone, what your fates had been. Speculation abounded that you’d died. Wolves, illness, murder. So many stories. No one knew which was true. But after all this time, the certainty was that you were dead.”
It was Tristan who laughed darkly, without humor. “Well, then it seems that word of our demise was a bit premature, doesn’t it?”
Mary nodded. “For which we’re all grateful.”
Sebastian doubted that his uncle would be as pleased. He slid his gaze over to the party’s hostess. She, too, was gripping the banister now, reminding him of a baby bird that had suddenly found itself shoved out of the nest before it was ready to test its wings. He couldn’t risk taking pity on her, of showing even a hint of weakness. She was the devil’s plaything, and while she might be innocent, she could still prove very dangerous. “Where is he, madam? Where is your husband?”
She appeared dazed, her brow deeply furrowed. “Playing cards most likely.”
“Send someone to fetch him.”
From a well of indignation deep inside her, she regained her equilibrium, drew herself up to her full height, and matched him stare for stare. “See here! I am not to be ordered about in my own house.”
“It is mine,” he ground out, descending two steps. She released an ear-splitting screech and, with hands fluttering, raced down the stairs. “Lord David! Lord David!”
Sebastian went down two more steps, heard the echo of his brothers’ boots hitting the marble after his. “I am the true Duke of Keswick. My brothers and I are reclaiming what was stolen from us.”
“You look like your father,” a gentleman announced.
Sebastian almost laughed. “I no longer do, but Tristan does. Remarkably so. As my twin, he will serve as proof enough that we are who we claim to be. And I wear our father’s signet ring.”
He thought the ballroom had been quiet, but if at all possible a heavier silence descended, with the solemnity of a funeral. He had not expected jubilant rejoicing but he’d hoped for a bit more acceptance. He could feel the stares, sense the speculation. He did not like airing dirty laundry before strangers, had considered confronting his uncle in the privacy of his library, but the man had earned a public flogging. This was as close to one as Sebastian could deliver.
“What the devil is going on here?”
And at long last, there he was: the usurper. Blustering and lumbering his way through the crowd. By Sebastian’s estimation at least three hundred people were in attendance. When his uncle reached the stairs and looked up, he came to a staggering stop. Sebastian knew he shouldn’t have been, but he was surprised by the man’s appearance. He didn’t know why he had expected him to remain the same when no one else had. His uncle had never been particularly tall, but he was stockier than he’d been in his youth. Obviously he enjoyed the fruits he’d stolen. Rings adorned thick well-manicured fingers. His hair was awash in white. His nose was pointing too high in the air, a man who thought he was owed things he was not.
“Greetings, Uncle.”
Lord David shook his head in obvious disbelief before glancing around with wide eyes, perhaps searching for a hole in the floor through which he could conveniently drop. “My nephews are dead.”
Sebastian did laugh then, although it more closely resembled a bark. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d truly laughed, but he knew it had been before his father died. “Believing your own lies?”
“I don’t know who you are—”
Sebastian was down the stairs so quickly that his uncle barely had time to take two steps back before Sebastian’s hand was wrapped firmly around his throat. He heard gasps, a muffled cry, a few clearing throats, and harrumphs, but no one came forward to challenge him. He could only imagine the pending threat that his misshapen face conveyed to anyone who might consider interfering. It would not be tolerated. Not by him, and not by his brothers. He suspected they were silently issuing warnings with their stances. By God, but it seemed each of them had learned to convey menace without bothering with the nuisance of words. A talent that came in handy when confronting one’s enemies—and there could be no doubt that Lord David Easton was enemy to one and all.
When Sebastian was a lad, he’d thought his uncle to be a towering man, fearsome and invincible, but now Sebastian loomed over him. And he’d not lived a life of ease. His muscles were firm, his body hardened by the challenges of war. He could take a man down with a sword, rifle, or pistol. He could destroy a man with his bare hands if need be. The temptation to do so with this bit of excrement was almost overwhelming.
“You know damned well who I am,” Sebastian said evenly, although his voice was seething with a fury that threatened to bubble past the surface. He’d known it would be difficult to hold his emotions in check, to act a gentleman rather than a barbarian, but he was rapidly reaching the end of his tether. He should have had a life of few worries, attending schools, being educated in the ways of a future duke.
Instead he’d had hardship, blood, and horror. His brothers had experienced much of the same. He’d been born to protect them, to care for them, and all he’d managed was to lead them through the gates into hell. He’d let them down. His father would have been sorely disappointed in him, but no more so than he was in himself.
“We can go before the Court of Chancery if you wish, but one way or another I will hold the titles that my father passed down to me. You can skulk away quietly or you can fight me on it. But let me warn you that I was a captain in Her Majesty’s army. When I have an objective, nothing will sway me from reaching it. Tristan has sailed the seas. You’re nothing to him. While Rafe ... well, let’s just say that he knows a dark side to London that terrifies even me.”
His uncle dug his fingers into Sebastian’s wrist and gagged. His eyes bugged.
“You have one day to pack up your things and leave. We were given much less time to run from Pembrook with our lives. Take one item that does not belong to you, and Tristan will deal with you the way he saw thieves dealt with in the Far East. He’ll slice off your hands.”
“And be glad to do it,” Tristan announced laconically, as though the task would involve little more effort than swatting a fly.
