Blaise’s veins filled with coldness.
“You spread those rumors then.”
“Do not look offended.” Daniel waved. “You profited. A woman ruined clings to the man who ruined her. I did you a favor.”
“A favor?” Blaise bellowed, setting down the glass before he crushed it. “You took a gentlewoman under my protection and smeared her name for sport.”
“For strategy.” He stood uneasily. “Speaking of strategy, we have reached the tipping point.”
Blaise tightened his jaw. “Get on with it.”
“Gladly.” Daniel paced towards the mantel, warily. “Your beloved nephew and the inconvenient fact of his birth.”
Blaise’s gaze tracked him. “Marcus’s birth is not inconvenient. Heisa duke’s legitimate son.”
“Ah, legitimacy.” Daniel traced the mantel’s edge. “Slippery, bound to papers and memories. Imagine if those papers appeared or vanished in court.”
Blaise got up and stepped closer. Daniel flinched, then stopped.
“You said this was urgent,” Blaise spoke dangerously low. “If this is a threat, I will save us both and throw you out.”
He swallowed audibly.
“In two weeks,” Daniel blurted, “I will challenge Marcus’s place at Oxford, his right to the Vale name, and perhaps your new title. Witnesses, registers, and statements swear the late duke never married the girl who bore his child.”
Marcus’s face flashed into Blaise’s mind.
His hands curled at his sides. “You would never touch him.” Each word is a flint. “I will see you ruined before your petition.”
Daniel arched a brow. “And how do you plan to ruin me? By punching me again? Or breaking my face? It all makes no difference in court.”
“Do not tempt me.” Blaise towered over the scrawny man.
Daniel stepped back, shoulders tight, but greed held him steadily.
“I am not your enemy, Blaise,” he said. “This need not be a war. And I did not plan to destroy Marcus or you.”
“You have a strange way of showing affection.” Blaise laughed dryly.
Daniel’s mouth twisted. “I have wanted the title. The place that should have been mine if fate had been fair. I was spare of the spare; Benjamin had it all. Then you, with your fortune and moral superiority.” He spread his arms. “I offer a solution where you can keep Marcus safe, and I finally matter.”
Blaise stared at him, dumbstruck at his audacity. “Pray do tell what your solution is?”
Daniel could not keep eye contact with Blaise as he continued to speak. “If you… disappear. To the Continent or beyond. If the world thinks you are dead, then I can inherit it all. The title, estates, and power to end your family’s scandals.”
He smiled thinly. “I would provide for Marcus at Oxford. He would never question me, and I would continue to take care of him.”
Silence fell heavily in the drawing room.
“You suggest,” Blaise eventually said, “that I fake a death, so you take what you already threatened to steal?”
Daniel lifted his chin. “I protect the boy you love. Marcus will be ruined anyway and out of Oxford. He would be blacklisted and labeled the son of a whore and a coward forever.”
“Do not call his mother a whore!” he roared.
Daniel flinched. “It was a slip of the tongue. She was inconvenient, and Benjamin did what he must.”
“And you want me to trust you?” Blaise cracked. “You would never keep your word! You made society view us as nothing more than the scarred duke and bastard nephew.”
