Page 83 of Stolen By the Duke of Stone

“I saw someone going toward the garden.”

Andrew disentangled himself and tore for the library door, wrenching it open and sprinting across the lawn. Light from the windows spilled golden across the foliage, and dew soaked his shoes.

There. Movement, directly ahead. Andrew threw everything he had into running. All thoughts cleared from his head; only anger remained. No, not just anger—he had been angry before, and it had been nothing like this.

Because he knew who the culprit was. He recognized the gait, the gleam of his brown hair in the lights.

Baron Lorthey.

Rage rose in Andrew. An overwhelming need to do the man damage, images of blood spattering and the crunch of breaking bone. Violence. He’d felt the urges out in battle-ravaged France, but he’d thought he’d left those feelings behind, exchanging them for the veneer of civilization. But now he knew those things were still inside him.

Then he realized the baron held William, and everything stopped. There was no way of doing damage without harming the child.

The rage stilled. Withdrew. Not gone, merely… waiting.

He stepped out in front of the man, allowing his height and width to do the talking for him. “What,” he started, his voice low and dangerous, “the devil do you think you’re doing?”

Baron Lorthey stopped, clutching the squalling baby to his chest. “Isn’t it obvious?” he demanded—spat, rather. “I’m taking away the one thing you care about. Just like you did to me.” He held William even tighter, and Andrew’s fists clenched. “You cost me my brother! You took my family. I will take yours!”

“My own brother died too,” Andrew said with false calm. “Or have you forgotten that fact? I am the duke because my brother and father died. My cousin died giving birth to the child you hold in your arms. If you want revenge, then consider it taken.”

“It’s not enough!” In the faint light from the house, it seemed as though the baron’s face turned dark with an angry flush. “You could have saved Harry! You should have!”

Ever since that day, Andrew had been plagued with nightmares that told him the same thing. But…

“There was nothing I could do,” he said, and the words released a little of the tension in his shoulders. This was true. “He was my friend. If I could have saved him, I would have, but there was nothing.”

And Andrew hated himself for it. He hated himself for every life lost under his leadership. But that was a fact that Baron Lorthey didn’t have the right to.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Andrew said, still in that voice of soft calm. “Give me the baby, Lorthey. Why hurt an innocent child over this? Is that what Harry would have wanted?”

Behind Andrew, a crowd was forming. And Jessamine, the person he would have tried to protect the most, stood at the front, her hand over her mouth.

Baron Lorthey spat on the ground by Andrew’s feet. “It’s your fault Harry died. If it weren’t for you, he’d still be here. You owe me a brother. This baby will do well enough. I’ll raise him as my own, and he’ll know to hate you.”

There could be no reasoning with him; he’d lost reason somewhere along the road of his vendetta. Andrew couldn’t hope to reach him with words alone.

Fortunately, he had more than words at his disposal. Andrew kept perfectly still until he pounced. Baron Lorthey hadn’t been expecting an attack, and he was briefly undefended.

William tumbled from Lorthey’s arms as Andrew planted his fist in the baron’s face. Blood splattered. Too late, he twisted, trying to catch the falling infant, only to discover Jessamine on the ground beside him, William in her arms. Her dress had torn.

Guilt plagued him as he bent, catching her elbow and pulling her to her feet. William screamed, red-faced, and she murmured shaking reassurances to him.

Lorthey, his hand clamped over his nose, glared at them both.

“Send for the constable,” Andrew instructed Jessamine quietly. “And the magistrate.”

The ghost of a smile appeared across her face. “I instructed James to do both before I ran out here.”

James was their head footman; if she’d asked him, he would have jumped to do it. The magistrate and constable would be on their way.

He looked at William. “Is he unharmed?”

“I think so,” Jessamine said, cradling him against her chest. She turned her gaze to Lorthey. “You thought to harm us, but you failed,” she said, her voice strong and authoritative. “Consider what you have done and repent.”

“You stand by him even now?” Lorthey demanded, one hand pressed against his nose. “Even knowing what he has done?”

“Your brother was a victim of the war, not of Andrew,” Jessamine said, and Andrew’s chest felt too tight. She was defending him in a way that no one had ever defended him before.