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“Please.” Disappointment and grief warred for dominance in her eyes. “Percival, think. Don’t let these people destroy everything with lies and innuendos. You’re stronger than the need for a drink.”
“I don’t know that I am, though.” He took another swig. After all, what was the point of wishing to better himself if she hadn’t been honest with him? Wanting to hurt her as much as anguish lashed at him, he gestured at her with the bottle. “Perhaps your father was right to disavow any knowledge of you, Nia.” Deliberately, he used the shortened version of her name, the one he’d called her when she was his mistress. “You’re naught but a whore and always will be, just like your mother.” Oh, that would cut her to the quick, for he well knew how much she’d worked to not be tarred by that same brush.
Gasps circulated through the room.
Tears sprang into her eyes. He hated himself for what he was doing, but it was essential to put distance between them, to stop the pain, to halt his heart from breaking further… from losing her. “You don’t mean that.” When she laid a hand on his arm, he quickly shook off her touch.
“Oh, but I do.” Again, he took a drink. The fire of it raced down his throat and warmed the pit of his belly. “It was a mistake to marry you.” A tear fell to her cheek, and for one second her whole demeanor crumpled before his eyes. Well, too fucking bad. Everything they’d worked toward together was crumbling. Dismissing her, putting her from his mind before he broke down in front of everyone, he turned his rage upon the duke. “You’ve destroyed my marriage.”
“I think your whore in disguise has done that herself.”
A hot wall of anger rose in his chest. Lord Randolph flew across the floor, shoving people out of his way in his haste to reach Percival’s side.
“Don’t say anything else. He’ll finish you, Laughton.”
“What care I for that when everything I’ve held dear is gone?” Damn his eyes, but he still cared too much for Lavinia. Finishing off the bottle, he let it drop to the floor. It shattered into hundreds of pieces as he advanced on the duke. “You’ll pay for that slander, Bradford.”
The duke snorted. “You said worse things than that to her, and in front of witnesses.”
“That is my right. Not yours, and none of this would have happened if you hadn’t come here tonight.” With a cry of rage, Percival sprang at the other man. “Now it’s you who will pay.”
