Page 181 of Courting the Wrong Duke

William froze.

For one disorienting instant, the words seemed to belong to the house itself. The voice was low and rough, close enough that whoever had spoken must have entered the cellar without any of them hearing him.

Gabriel’s grip tightened on the bar.

William started to turn, but his gaze caught on Rosalind first.

She was staring past him.

The fear on her face stopped him cold.

Her back had gone rigid against the wall, her eyes wide and fixed upon whoever stood behind him. Whatever color had remained in her face disappeared.

William released the iron bar and reached instinctively toward her as the voice came again.

“This game is over.”

Chapter 26

Rosalind recognized the voice a moment before the man stepped fully into the light.

Algernon.

For one suspended moment, no one moved.

He emerged slowly from the darkness at the foot of the stairs, and a chill swept over Rosalind’s skin.

He looked different from the man she remembered seeing in London. More exhausted, certainly. His clothes were rumpled from travel, shadows darkened the skin beneath his eyes, and several days’ growth roughened his jaw. There was a darkness to his expression that made him seem almost unfamiliar.

Yet there was nothing uncertain in the way he moved.

Algernon crossed the cellar slowly, without once looking down to judge his footing or glancing into the shadows around him. He seemed entirely at ease with the uneven floor and narrow passage, navigating the place with a familiarity that made Rosalind’s unease deepen.

Whatever Bryn Hir was to him, this was not the house of a man who rarely visited.

William released the iron bar and turned toward his brother. “Algernon.”

Algernon’s gaze passed over him and Gabriel before coming to rest upon Edmund behind the bars. His expression tightened, though Rosalind could not tell whether it was anger or something closer to hurt.

“So,” he said quietly. “You found him.”

William stepped away from the cell. “What have you done?”

A humorless laugh escaped Algernon. “What have I done?” He glanced around the cellar, taking in the iron bars and the lock they had been trying to break.

“You all stand there looking at me as though this is some great tragedy. Poor Eastmere, locked away from his family. Poor Rosalind, searching for her father. Poor William, discovering that his brother is not the man he thought he was.”

“Algernon,” William warned.

“No. You want to know what tragedy looks like? Look upstairs.”

Rosalind’s breath caught as she thought of the rooms she had wandered through only minutes ago. The papers scattered across tables and floors. The words copied repeatedly until they had begun to lose their meaning.

Why, Father.

Algernon’s attention shifted to her, and whatever he saw in her face seemed to give him his answer.

“You saw them, didn’t you?”