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“Thatbitch,” I seethed.
“You too, Mama. Jeez.” Her tone, however, sounded a bit more alarmed. Sofia rarely heard me curse.
I sighed. “Sorry, baby. But in very rare cases, that word is warranted.”
Sofia simply burrowed closer into my side with her head on my shoulder. If that hadn’t told her something was very wrong, nothing would.
“Wait!” my mother called to us. “If you’re going to go, take me with you, please. If they come back and see that she’s gone, they’ll blame me and do what they did to that other woman.”
“You mean Elsie?” I said. “Don’t worry, she was only locked in a bathroom for two hours. If you’re lucky, that’s all that will happen to you.”
“Frankie, please. If they come back—”
She cut herself off when the sound of men’s voices filtered up the stairs through the still-open door. Xavier and I backed into the room so as not to be seen immediately, while he tucked me and Sofia behind him.
“Good God, Barnaby,” said an oddly posh, familiar voice. “Can’t you do anything—oh!”
They looked up to find a room full of people staring at them.
“Crikey,” said Barnaby in a much deeper voice that sounded like the other man’s but was filtered through a very strong East London accent. “What do we have here, eh?”
I was too busy staring at the first man to answer.
“Jeeves?” I asked as I peeked around Xavier’s shoulder.
“Isn’t that one of the butlers?” Sofia asked. “The mean one at Parkvale?”
Xavier seemed to be equally paralyzed. “Bledsoe, what areyoudoing here?”
The butler’s beady-eyed gaze bounced between us, as though he wasn’t convinced we were actually there.
“So itwasGeorgina,” Xavier said to himself. “I knew it.”
“It absolutely was not.” Bledsoe finally found his voice. “The duchess had nothing to do with this little scheme gone awry, and I’ll thank you to keep her out of it!”
“Yeah,” said Barnaby. “It’s just bad luck for you that my brother here’s been in love with the duchess since he was a lad. Would do anything to please her, he would. Even get rid of a duke.”
“For the last time, he’snot a duke, Barnaby!” Bledsoe suddenly sputtered to life. “And this has never been about the duchess! It’s about protecting what’s sacred.” He literally tipped up his nose toward us. “Never in all my years did I imagine I’d have to serve the likes of you, who aren’t worth what’s on the bottom of the duchess’s shoes. You aren’t a gentleman. And you are certainly not a proper duke. Only a bastard, born to this very hovel!”
I waited for the explosion I knew was coming. We’d already heard this once from Georgina, and right now, I had to imagine Xavier was getting tired of his birth status being thrown in his face, incorrectly or not. The fact that I’d already met my limit for those insults before him was enough of a shock. There was no way Xavier would let this go without at least a warning shot.
But to my surprise, he only smirked at the man. “I might be. And I might not. But I don’t care anymore, and that was never for you to decide, you deceitful bit of scum.” He turned to me. “The police should be here soon. Ces, let’s go.”
“Not so fast.” Barnaby stepped forward as he pulled out a shiny silver handgun.
“Oh shit,” I muttered.
“Mama…” Sofia’s whimpers grew more hushed as she kicked her legs and dropped to the floor. “He has a gun.”
“That I do, wee girl. There’s the matter of payment, Your Grace,” Barnaby said with a sneer. “Now, the title, I don’t care about that at all. But I believe there was a sum requested for the return of your daughter.”
“That’sright,” hissed Bledsoe. “Fifty million pounds, and youwillrenounce your title. I don’t care what my brother says.”
He jerked forward as he spoke, shoving his finger directly into Xavier’s face.
Which, of course, was his fatal mistake.
With zero hesitation, Xavier grabbed the man’s finger and broke it with a nasty crack. As Bledsoe squealed and fell to the floor, Xavier took advantage of the moment of surprise to swing a hard left punch over the butler and directly into his brother’s face. The gun fell to the floor with athwack, which I quickly picked up to unload before it could do anyone else harm. Living with Matthew, a former Marine and DA who never left the house armed, had given me at least a few skills of use here.
