It was so, so annoying.
“What did you do to her?” Persephone asked.
“I didn’tdoanything,” Ezra protested. “She wanted to go. I let her go. It’s as simple as that.”
Another one of those stupid looks.
“You definitely did something,” Persephone said.
That was it. Ezrawasgoing to throw them all out. The children could come back once he had a decent governess back in the house.
He was all ready to tell them to leave. Instead, something else entirely came out of his mouth.
“She’s frightened of someone,” he admitted. “A gentleman who didn’t want to take no for an answer.”
He kept his voice quiet enough that the children could not hear him, but made certain that his tone was casual enough that they wouldn’t realize that there was something the adults didn’t want them to know.
Persephone went very still, a furious glint in her eye. Hugh clenched both his fists where they rested on his knees.
“Then why isn’t she here where you can protect her?” Hugh demanded. “Why would you let her go out on her own?”
Ezra shot his cousin a poisonous look. “Oh, right. Because I didn’t think of that.” Hugh tilted his head in acknowledgment. “Of course, I wanted her to stay here. But I wasn’t going to force her. And the man—Dugley, a viscount, nobody I have heard of—lives in Belgium.”
“Which is why she wanted to stay in England,” Persephone said. She had put that together a lot more quickly than Ezra had. That was properly humbling. He decided to never admit it.
“Precisely,” he said. “And she says that she doesn’t want to engage the man, doesn’t want him to spread rumors that he had threatened to spread.”
“Bastard,” Persephone muttered under her breath, making Ezra like her even more.
“Just because she doesn’t want to fight him,” Hugh said menacingly, “which I understand, I truly do—but just because she doesn’t want to do something doesn’t mean thatwecan’t do something.”
Ezra was heartened by thatwe. For the first time in a long time, he did not feel an instinctive desire to reject any help from his family.
He should have suspected that Letitia’s power was enough to make him reconnect with his family, even without her presence. She didn’t even need to be in his life to change his life.
God above, he missed her already.
“I need information first,” Ezra said to distract himself. “I want to know what I am getting into. So that I can destroy him.”
He watched Hugh and Persephone carefully as he added this last piece. They seemed willing to help him for now, but he needed them to understand what they were getting into. He wasn’t planning to give this Dugley fellow a stern lecture, as he had with Bassett. He wanted Dugley to regret being born.
Neither of them flinched. Hugh even gave him an approving nod.
“I will make inquiries,” he began. “See who knows about the wretch. I?—”
“You need not do all that,” Hugh interrupted, looking genuinely baffled. “Just ask Xander.”
Ezra must not have hidden his grimace quickly enough, because Persephone laughed and pointed at his expression.
“That isexactlywhat you look like when someone suggests you ask Xander for help,” Persephone crowed, jostling her shoulder against her husband’s. “Poor Xander. What did he ever do to get such a reaction?”
“He is annoying,” Ezra said at once.
“He likes to be in charge of things,” Hugh said with the same lack of hesitation. “So if you ask for help, he’s going to try to take over. It’s irritating.”
“He is barely older than I am, but he still acts like he thinks he is my father,” Ezra complained. “It is infuriating.”
“And he’s not ‘poor Xander,’” Hugh added. “He has scads of money and a family he adores. He’s so happy that it’s annoying.”
