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She paused on the threshold.“This family will survive and so will you.” She looked over her shoulder and held his gaze for a long moment before leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Family. The word settled in his chest, unfamiliar yet right. Heather and Mary Ann, secure in their beds. Abigail, with her quiet strength and stubborn grace. His to protect. His to cherish.

His to fight for.

Graham straightened, a cold clarity descending. He had allowed Hollan to dictate the terms of this battle long enough. The baronthought him weak, thought him cowed by propriety and shame. He would learn otherwise.

He crossed to his desk and pulled a sheet of paper from the drawer. The grandfather clock in the hall struck eleven as he dipped his pen in ink and began to write.

The clock struck one as he finished the letter. He read it over, nodded once, then rang for a footman, who appeared a few minutes later in a rumpled waistcoat.

“You rang, Your Grace?”

“Send for Mr. Nedley,” he instructed. “Immediately.”

The young man’s eyes widened. “Sir, it’s past midnight. Mr. Nedley will be abed.”

“I don’t care if he’s at the gates of heaven,” Graham snapped. “Get him here.”

The footman bowed and hurried away. Graham returned to his desk, pulling out more paper.

Within the hour, Nedley arrived, rumpled and bleary-eyed, his waistcoat askew over his ample middle and his gray hair standing on end. He paused in the doorway, mopping sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. “Your Grace, it’s nearly twoin the morning,” he protested, tugging his case more securely beneath his arm and stifling a prodigious yawn. “I came as quickly as?—”

“I need this letter in every newspaper in London by morning,” Graham interrupted, handing over the first sheet.

Nedley shuffled forward, wedging himself into the chair across from Graham. After a moment’s searching through his pockets, he produced a pair of spectacles and perched them on the end of his nose. His eyebrows crept higher with each line he read, jowls quivering with surprise. “This is unprecedented, Your Grace.”

“It is a warning to those who would threaten what is mine.”

The solicitor tucked the letter into his case. “Very good, sir. Though I must advise at least a modicum of caution in your approach to?—”

“I’m not interested in caution,” Graham cut him off. “I want legal action against the papers that published today’s article. Libel, defamation—whatever charges will stick. And I want a counter-petition against Hollan filed with the Court of Chancery first thing tomorrow. Let’s see how eager the court is to grant guardianship to a man whose finances are in disarray.”

“I’m not sure we can prove?—”

“Then find someone who can. I want his every debt, every questionable investment, every mistress and gambling markerexposed.” Graham leaned forward, hands flat on his desk. “He made this personal, Nedley. I intend to respond in kind.” He rang the bell.

The solicitor studied him over the rims of his spectacles, then nodded. “As you wish, Your Grace. I shall set things in motion immediately.” He heaved himself back to his feet with the help of the chair’s arm.

The footman appeared in the door.

“See Mr. Nedley home and have the plain carriage brought around front,” Graham ordered, finishing the letter before him.

“Very good, Your Grace.” The footman stood aside, watching as Nedley, papers gathered and case clutched against his belly, lumbered towards the door.

The solicitor paused, attempting to smooth his hair, and favored Graham with a weary, but loyal, look. “May I suggest you get some rest, Your Grace? The next few days promise to be especially trying.”

“This is no time for rest, Nedley. I’m just getting started.” Graham waited for the man to leave before he stood and poured himself a brandy, tossing it back and savoring the burn in his chest.

Hollan had poked the bear, thinking it too broken, too weak to respond. By morning, he would understand that he had made a grave miscalculation.

He woke with a start, Abigail’s hand on his shoulder.

“Graham.”

He blinked against the morning light, disoriented. He’d dozed off somewhere just before dawn. His neck ached as he rolled it, trying to shake off the fog in his mind. He caught the look on Abigail’s face—tight-lipped, pale, furious.

“What is it?” he rasped, already rising. “Are the girls?—?”