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Escorted inside, he waited, casting a torturous glance to the spot on the stairs where Benjamin had made Charlotte his own. He was surprised the Duke had not torn up the carpet—though perhaps the devil enjoyed knowing she was there. He could imagine him lapping at the teal crushed velvet like the dog he was.
Wordlessly, the butler trailed back to him and gestured for him to follow. Benjamin was led down a corridor, a different one than that which he had trailed the night of his ousting. As with the other corners of the manor, the walls were bare of portraits, the hallways deathly quiet.
He had never known such morose luxury. Men like him went their entire lives dreaming of riches, finery, leisure—and for what? To display one’s wealth in a hollow manor? To live out one’s days in comfortable abandonment? This was no life. This house was not a home.
Gamston was sat by a crackling fire at the very end of a narrow, long drawing room. It was tucked away, not nearly as pristine as the rest of the rooms Benjamin had spied. Top to bottom, the room was dark with heavy, rich woods and furs. The overcast of the day only rendered the room more a cell, a light drizzling of rain knocking against the large, wall-high windows.
The butler closed the door quietly behind him.
Gamston was facing away, his hand curled around a glass of something amber and thick, hovering in mid-air as he considered the flames.
“You have some nerve coming back here,” he groused without turning back. “Is your memory as poor as your manners?”
“My memory and manners are none of your concern,” Benjamin replied, taking one challenging step closer.
The sound of his boot against the floorboards seemed to rock Gamston to his feet. Slowly, he levered himself out of his red fauteuil, and his skin was the same sickly shade of white as his shirt and cravat. Gone was the overcoat. There was no need for pretense between them—not for what Benjamin had planned.
“You have come to discuss Lady Charlotte.”
“Would that it were true.” Benjamin ticked. “You have sunk your claws in her from the first. There is nothing more I can do to release her that will not harm her—that will not draw blood.”
Gamston smirked mirthlessly. “Is that a threat? You would threaten me with bloodshed in my own home.” He laughed under his breath. “Ah, but I should not be surprised. You have allowed yourself much. Too much.” He downed the rest of his drink, and the tumbler clinked against the glass top of the side table. He lifted a fifth of liquor. “Drink?”
Benjamin’s teeth ground together. “I don’t partake.”
The Duke shrugged him off, pouring himself another. He motioned for him to sit. When he did not, Gamston settled instead against the back of the chair to look at him. “If not for Charlotte, tell me why you have come.”
Benjamin considered his words carefully. He had gone over them in his mind; he hadn’tsleptfor going over them. Now, faced with the daemon that had haunted him, he wanted only to hurt him. “You have no heirs. Why?”
Gamston regarded him as though he could not have fathomed a more surprising question. “Is that of your concern?”
“I told you not to worry yourself over my concerns, Your Grace. I ask you again—why is your home so large yet so empty?”
“I never fathered an heir,” was all he replied, by his neck worked beneath his cravat. Again, he downed his drink.
“For lack of trying?” Benjamin stood straighter yet. “Or for lack of desire for your wife?”
The fire spat behind Gamston. “Such a strange man you are, Huxley. Do you make a habit of alienating your betters with your corruption?”
“Oh, only since I’ve met you.” Benjamin tucked his hand into his pocket, wrapping his fingers around the Duke’s letter. “Is that what you seek to rectify by trapping a young woman in marriage? One last chance at love?”
Gamston ground his teeth together. Benjamin was getting under his skin, and he relished it. “I do not seek to make Charlotte my wife out of longing for her but out of care and duty. A thing you would not understand even if you were man enough to ask for her hand.”
“What other things have you done out of care and duty, I wonder.”
A terrible, heavy silence filled the space between them.
“Tell me what you want,” the Duke asked again.
“For that, I must tell you who I am.” Benjamin swallowed down his disdain. “Huxley is but an alias. My true name is Benjamin Fletcher. I would not honor you with knowing who I am unless I was certain you would not forget me.” He pried the letter free. “I ask now—is that a name that means anything to you?”
“Should it?” Gamston asked, and he seemed sincere in his ignorance.
“If it does not, it will soon.” Benjamin walked the length of that oddly shaped room until he was at arm’s length from the Duke. He could smell the spirits on him, now—Arrack, which had been Benjamin’s poison of choice. There would be no going back after what was to follow, whatever it held for him. “Perhaps you speak true, and you do not know of me, but I believe you know of her.”
He handed the letter to him and took a step back, longing to see the man’s horror flash in his eyes. With only the scratching sound of fire and the ticking of a clock, Benjamin waited.
The Duke scanned the letter, his eyes darting along the lines of what he had penned, widening, moistening with every intake of breath. “What?” he breathed incredulously. He looked up at Benjamin, and all anger gave way to shock. “How did you get your hands on this?”
