She threw herself into his arms. He caught her, of course. He always had.
She had been furious with herself this past week, furious that she had taken his protection so for granted, furious that she had ever let herself evenremotelythink that he was similar to Peter. They were as different as night and day, and if she had only seen that sooner, then she wouldn’t have gotten herself into this situation.
But he had come for her. It had not mattered that she had pushed him away. It had not mattered that she was in another country. He hadcome for her.
“Ezra,” she whispered into his neck, clinging to him with all her might.
“Letty,” he said back, holding on just as tightly. “Letty, my love. You’re all right. You’re all right.”
Her laugh sounded rather hysterical.
“I am now,” she said.
He pulled her back just so he could look at her, his gaze searching as he examined every inch of her for signs of injury.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded. “What did he do to you? God, if he hurt you, I will kill him, I swear it.”
A polite clearing of a throat interrupted them, and Letitia realized—to her amazement and horror—that the Duke of Godwin was standing in the threshold.
It occurred to her that she might be dreaming. She might have worried about that, if not for the solid, perfect feel of Ezra’s shoulders beneath her fingertips. No dream was that good. Also, she simply did not believe that her sleeping mind would ever come up with anything as bizarre as the Duke of Godwin coming to her rescue.
“It is lovely to see you, Miss Knightley,” he said politely. “But I do think it best if we take our leave before we have any… unwanted company.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry yourself too much aboutthat, my dear duke.”
Letitia cursed the gods of bad timing when she heard him, the very last person she wanted to hear at that moment.
Peter looked so verysmugas he appeared next to the Duke of Godwin, as though he had won something.
Later, Letty would wonder what he could have been thinking. After all, it was one thing to threaten her—a single woman in an awkward dress—when he had all the money and privilege, not to mention the key to the door. It was a completely different matter to threaten two tall, young, fit dukes—who had even more money and privilege, and almost certainly had not come alone, because it wasn’t as if dukes drove their own carriages, was it? Besides, one of them was visibly furious.
A smart man would have turned and fled the instant he had seen another carriage outside his little hideaway.
But Peter had never been a smart man.
Maybe he had just gotten caught up in his own narrative, she would decide when considering it later. She had, after all. When he appeared, smiling like the cat who got the cream, she felt a shudder of terror go through her.
Ezra tightened his arm around her shoulders.
“I am going to kill you,” he told Peter in a flat, dangerous voice that the other man failed to take nearly as seriously as he ought.
Peter smiled instead.
“Oh, be reasonable,” he said. “She cannot be worth all the fuss to you. And even if she was, she was mine first, and I had to teach her a lesson. You can’t let women think they are in charge of things, you know. They need a firm hand.”
Though Xander seemed inclined to let his cousin decide how to handle things, he gave Peter an appalled look.
“I am starting to be of a mind to kill you myself,” he said so mildly that, under other circumstances, Letitia would have gone faint-headed from laughing. “It would be a service to mankind.”
Peter shot him an interested look. “What, did she spread her legs for you, too? Not a very discerning whore, are you, Letitia?”
“Do not say her name,” Ezra snarled. “Do not even look at her.”
Letty noticed that her fear was quickly decreasing. It seemed that Peter was the only one unable to see which way the conversation was heading. He really didn’t understand the situation, since his next reaction was to roll his eyes.
“Oh, come now,” he said impatiently. “Just give me the chit, and I will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about your father. I knew him quite well, you see, and word is that you havebeen seeking answers foryears. Leave her here for me to deal with later, and I will tell you anything you want to?—”
He didn’t finish the sentence because Ezra’s fist crashed into his jaw with enough force that Letty was certain that it had broken.
