Daniel hesitated. “I never said Marcus was not legitimate. I only said others could be convinced otherwise.”
“You called him a bastard daily.”
“Those were just words from my anger and jealousy. The facts remain unchanged.”
“What are the facts, Daniel?”
His cousin looked around the drawing room as if the answer was hidden there.
“The fact is, Blaise, that I know for certain that Marcus is legitimate.”
Blaise frowned at him. “And how do you know that?”
Daniel chuckled. “Have you forgotten that I was Benjamin’s secretary? I had access to all his documents, including his marriage certificate.”
Blaise’s fists clench. It took all his strength not to charge at Daniel and pummel him into the ground. For years, Blaise could find no evidence of his brother’s marriage, and it was Daniel who had hidden it all along. He wanted to kill him, but he had to be smart about this. Blaise stalked toward the fragile man and stopped just a few inches away from him.
“Get out,” he said through gritted teeth.
Daniel staggered backward in fear, and Blaise stood upright, not allowing his slyness and slippery ways to get to him.
“You will regret this!” His cousin stammered before the door clicked shut behind him.
Blaise stood, heart pounding wildly in his chest. All these months of torture, done by his own family member. It disgusted him how far men would go to overthrow you for a title.
Marcus was legitimate, and that truth burned dangerously in his chest. He needed that proof, and he would get it.
Thoughts of Iris and Marcus filled his mind and heart. A confusing concoction of a word he had long forgotten and wastoo afraid to say out loud. He would not let Daniel dictate the terms of their lives, and he would not let Iris be a casualty of a war she never chose.
Blaise lowered his eyes to a blank page and dipped his pen in ink.
Where there is a will, there is a way. And, by God, I will find a way.
CHAPTER 30
“You have not turned a page in ten minutes,” Camelia observed Iris gently from the sofa opposite her.
Her sister’s bulging belly rose beneath the soft muslin of her morning dress. “You shall damage your eyes pretending so hard.”
“I am thinking,” Iris said.
“Liar,” Margaret sang from the carpet, where she and Pamela were arguing over a deck of cards. “You are brooding. There is a difference, you know. Thinking is dignified, whereas brooding makes that little line appear between your brows.”
“I do not brood,” Iris said. “I am perfectly?—”
The parlor door opened. Mrs. Dallow, the housekeeper, peered in.
“Pardon, Your Grace,” she said to Camelia, then turned to Iris with an expression that wiped all flippancy from the room. “Lady Hentley has a visitor.”
Iris looked at her sisters and Pamela, who were just as curious as she was. “Who is it?”
“Your old housekeeper, my lady. She asks to see you. Begging pardon, she looks… rather distressed,” Mrs. Dallow added concernedly.
Mrs. Henkings is here?
The book slid from Iris’s lap to the carpet.
“I will come down,” she said at once, standing so quickly that the room swayed for a heartbeat.
