Page 51 of The Duke of Pain

Gideon shook his head in disbelief. “If I know nothing of love, it is thanks to you and my mother. I would hazard to guess you’ve never had a tender feeling in your life. Not even lust, I’ll wager.”

“I feel lust. Unlike you, I am discreet in my affairs. I do not rut everything that moves or breathes. No scandal will land at my door. Can you say the same, boy?”

Gideon pushed the soup bowl away. “I just turned forty. I am hardly a boy. Call me that again, and I will beat you bloody as you so richly deserve.”

Whinstone grunted in response. The footmen scurried over to remove Gideon’s bowl and then brought platters of sole to the table.

Jesus, he hated sole as well. Knowing his stepfather, he no doubt had these foods served, knowing that Gideon detested them.

Gideon picked up the smallest slice with the serving utensils.

“How long have you known this—vicar’s daughter?” his stepfather sneered.

“Long enough.”

The duke’s booming humorless laugh filled the cavernous dining room. “You really are a fool. That is not love; you are cunny-struck.”

“And how would you know?”

“I know. I married at the age of twenty-two because of lust and was a widower by twenty-four. My first wife is moldering in the ground with her infant,” the duke replied dismissively.

Gideon couldn’t believe this. “You were married before my mother? Why didn’t you mention it?”

The duke slurped his soup noisily. Then he hesitated and responded with a chilly coldness, “She isn’t worth remembering.”

Fury boiled in his veins. Good God, the man was even more of a monster than he had originally believed.

Gideon dropped his fork and knife in contempt. “I do not want that life for me. I crave more. I want to love.”

“Ha!” his stepfather barked. “Now I know you have gone mad. As I said, it’s stuff and nonsense. You’ve caught a fever. It will pass soon enough. Now, enough of this. What of the proposal I have laid before you?”

“I will approach Mother about the divorce. In the meantime, you are to vacate Foxmont in three days.”

Whinstone reached for a roll and tore it in half. “Let’s make it three weeks. I need time to make arrangements. It will also give you time to secure your mother’s agreement. In writing, legal like. As to the settlement, I will require sixty thousand pounds.”

Gideon started coughing and took a drink to wash down the horrible tasting fish.

Sufficiently recovered, he shook his head. “You have overplayed your hand, Whinstone. For that price, you can keep Foxmont and be damned to you and your bastard spawn.”

“I don’t want this damned drafty place. I will file for divorce and drag the case through the courts. Call upon the newspapers and tabloids and give them secret salacious details, some true, some fake, but it will be enough to sully your name as well as your clinging, aging mother’s.”

Whinstone’s piggy eyes narrowed further. “I will also tell them of your slut. I will find out what brothel she came from, as I have eyes and ears all over the East End.”

Gideon was out of his chair before he could blink. This time, alcohol did not slow down his reaction time as it had with Damon.

He caught his stepfather square in the face. Bone cracked, and Whinstone screamed in pain.

How long Gideon had waited to do this to his abuser.

It was tempting to continue to thrash him until he was a bloody pulp beneath his fists, but Gideon shook out his hand and returned to his seat. If he did as he wished, he would be no better than Whinstone.

“You miserable cretin, you hit me!” his stepfather whined.

“I’ll do worse if you do not stop caterwauling.” Gideon turned to the footmen. “Leave us.”

The young men needed no further instruction as they hurried from the room and closed the door. No doubt this exchange will be the tattle below stairs.

Whinstone held a cloth napkin to his nose as he tilted his head back to stem the bleeding.