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“Stay away from us altogether, do you hear? You destroyed my family, and I have no wish to see you ever again.”

Theo whipped out a handful of paper notes from his breast pocket, before tossing them carelessly at Kenneth. The man snatched at them greedily, his lips moving as he counted. Theo turned to leave, but he paused when Kenneth spoke again.

“The girl was an unfortunate consequence, I’ll admit,” Kenneth was saying, his eyes fixed on the notes. “But really, you shouldn’t blamemefor ruining your family. If it hadn’t been me, your wife would have found somebody else. It wasn’t as if she were in love with you and I lured her away.”

Theo’s fists tightened.

I wish he wasn’t right.

Turning back, he stared at Kenneth until the man glanced up nervously, meeting his eyes.

“Do you even remember her name?” he murmured softly. “Do you ever think about her even for a minute? Did you ever care for her?”

Kenneth blinked, licking his lips nervously. “Which? The mother or the daughter?”

Crack.

Theo’s fist swung out, catching Kenneth neatly on the jaw. The man went flying back, ending up sprawled in front of the hearth, one elbow propped on the seat of his armchair. He blinked up at Theo, dazed, and a thin line of blood tricked down from his nostril to his upper lip.

“What did you do that for?” he bleated.

Theo leaned over him, feeling a vicious sort of satisfaction as the man flinched. “You told someone. You told someone about Kitty. I read it in abloodyscandal sheet.”

Kenneth winced. “I didn’t! I didn’t tell the scandal sheets. There was a man who visited me and left me a bit of money, and he asked some questions… I don’t remember what, exactly. He kept giving me brandy. He asked a great deal about you. I might have dropped a few hints, but I didn’t mean to, I swear it! I won’t do it again, I promise!”

Theo took in the fear and guilt on Kenneth’s face and decided that he believed him. After this, Kenneth really wouldn’t breathe a word, drunk or not.

And if he does… well, that’s a problem for another day.

Theo leaned further forward, coming almost nose-to-nose with Kenneth, who shied away.

“Perhaps it’s just as well that you clearly can’t remember the name of my daughter. Understanding the weight of a name is more than you deserve. Take your money and stay away. The day we meet again, I’ll hurt you worse than this. Understood?”

“Understood,” Kenneth muttered sulkily, wiping the back of his hand across his nose.

Theo straightened up, smoothing down his waistcoat, and walked out of the boarding house just as quickly as was respectable.

Dukes didn’t run, after all.

He threw himself into the carriage, after having forgotten about the puddle and stepping in it with his dry foot.

“All dealt with, Your Grace?” the coachman said, his tone carefully neutral.

“Yes, yes, all dealt with. Let’s go.”

“Where to?”

“Home,” Theo said, his voice cracking. “I want to go home.”

Theo kicked off his sodden shoes at the door and ran upstairs in his stockinged feet. He knew he looked terrible, but that didn’t seem to matter so very much at the moment.

“Anna!” he called, hurrying down the corridor towards her room. “Anna, where are you? We must talk.”

Where would she be at this time of day? Timmins had been awfully cagey about it, but Theo was simmering with energy and hadn’t waited to hear what the butler had to say.

Shouldering open the door to Anna’s room, Theo burst inside. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was expecting to find. Anna, face down on her bed, in tears over his harsh words that morning, ready for him to comfort her?

Instead, he was confronted with her neat room, her bed made impeccably.