“Speak less, Percival,” Daphne urged, and again Graham could not even seek his family. Percival's loud accusations had him rooted to the spot, utterly frozen.
“Speak less,” Percival sneered. “The only person who must speak less is you, cousin, for the ton must know the truth. It is about time the Duke of Blackthorn breaks his resolute silence, do you not think? What must you think, little Daphne, of your older brother being a murderer?”
The ballroom fell deathly silent. Beside Graham, Amelia tensed. His hand twitched, and he was not sure when they had grown apart.
His tongue was too heavy in his mouth.
“Let us remember, shall we?” Percival announced. “It was, oh,perhaps just a little over five years by now. Putney Heath.” Graham flinched at the location he had avoided ever since that awful day. “Dawn, on a beautiful March day—except it was not so beautiful, was it, Graham? We all recall the disgraced Lord Thomas Ashford, do we not?”
At that, a murmur rippled through the crowd. Graham stilled, his breath shaky as he heard the name of one of his former best friends.
“Percival,” he said quietly. “Percival,stop.”
“Do you not think that the ton deserve the full story? After all, they are in your home. They deserve to know whose house they are in. The gossip column was good but it did not getallthe details.”
His vision blurred, growing hazy. Graham needed to move, to run, to fight his cousin, to stop this by all means. But he was rooted, too heavy to move a single limb.
Amelia, he thought.Amelia, do not listen. Do not believe him.
“And, of course, let us not forget the late Lord Henry Hartley,” Percival slurred.
Graham let out a terrible noise. His hands were stained with blood—always blood, always so thick, and he would scrub and scrub and scrub—
He gasped, and Percival only continued.
“Stop,” Graham muttered, his ears ringing.
“Lord Thomas and Lord Henry—the two best friends of our dear Duke of Blackthorn, although he was not so much a duke back then as he was a hang-on to his father’s tailcoat, desperate to impress. Heavens, Graham, you were quite the intelligent boy. It is a shame to see what you became. Regardless, those two men saw something in you to befriend—except they had their own weakness, did they not?
“We all know Lady Charlotte Winthrop.”
At his side, Amelia’s breath sharply stopped, as it had when Henry’s name was mentioned. Graham himself had loosened Henry’s name from his own mouth, but where had she heard of Lady Charlotte Winthrop? She couldn’t help but wonder if it had been from the gossip in the ton, or his family—and if so, how much of this did she know?
Amelia was never supposed to find out like this.
He was supposed to have told her when he was ready.
Around him, eyes bore into him, all eager, all hungry vultures for something to giggle and point and whisper about.
“And Heavens, did Graham’s two friends also know her—intimately.” Percival chuckled, low in his throat, sloshing his wine. “One day, the two friends found out the other had been courting this lady and I believe it was Lord Henry who challenged Lord Thomas.Putney Heath,he ordered.Guns drawn, friend. We shall fight for her and for our honours. And to that place they both went on that beautiful March dawn. But, oh, who just needed to swoop in and play the hero? One Duke of Blackthorn.”
Percival’s beady eyes were set on Graham.
“Do you regret it yet, cousin? Do you regret ever interfering?”
Felicity had reached Percival but he managed to send her away, not easily deterred.
“He rode through the night after receiving an anonymous tip-off about the duel, for his best friends were very guarded, both of them forgoing second men. Now that I think about it, that must havestung. Our dear duke was desperate to stop the duel, and so into the clearing he appeared. Should you ask His Grace what he did in that clearing, he grows speechless, but ask any constable. They can tell you that clear as day they heard a gunshot ring out, and when they arrived they found one man fled, likely to get away from the dangerous curse that His Grace carries, and another man was crumpled, dead in His Grace’s arms, and the Duke of Blackthorn had blood on his hands. Whose blood was that, Graham?”
The ballroom’s silence was suffocating as Graham breathed heavily, staring his cousin down.
“Do tell us all!” Percival cried out, laughing, flinging his wine all over Amelia’s glittering floor. “It was the blood of one Lord Henry Hartley, dead, never to return to his poor family who did not even know his whereabouts, who had not even known he left the family home that morning. But the question remains, did you kill Lord Henry out of jealousy, Graham, or was your life here at Blackthorn Manor simply too boring and you needed to create chaos? What could this beastly duke have gained from murdering his own best friend?”
“Stop!” Graham shouted, but his cousin only laughed darkly. Shame spread through Graham’s chest—shame, and anger, for he could not stop Amelia from hearing the story from the wrong perspective, and the whole ballroom watched, enthralled.
He began to retreat back into himself, a wall of protection building up around him, as he breathed uneasily, the pants coming out fast and short.
This is a dream, he thought.This is a dream and I shall wake up, and my cousin will not have just done this. My wife will not know why I am a true beast. She thinks it is only because of my facial scar—but there is so much more.
