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“No,” Isaac said darkly. “Fernside only ever wanted to help people in need.”

Michael gave a derisive laugh, throwing his hands up in the air. “This is ridiculous. I am not going to sit here and be accused by you.”

Lucas leaned forward, pointing a trembling finger at him. “Gordon wasn’t an idiot when it came to women, Michael. That wasyou. Head in the clouds, believing yourself in love with every flirt who brushed past you in a room.”

“What happened, Grant?” Seth demanded. “Did she turn you down because she preferred Fernside over you?”

Michael looked like a hare in a hunter’s trap, staring around at the room, searching for an escape route.

Seth leaned forward, gripping the edge of the table to stop himself from leaping across and grabbing the man by the throat. “Is that why you killed him?”

Lucas gasped at his words, recoiling from the table. Isaac’s face paled.

Seth didn’t look away from Michael for a moment.

“Wh-What?” Michael stuttered.

“The Marchioness told me that Gordon had offered to elope with her, that he wanted to save her from a miserable marriage, but someone else tried to step in. Someone she feared. Someone who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Someone who swore he could do for her what Gordon could not.”

“I could have!” Michael bellowed, leaping to his feet. He glared at Lucas and Isaac’s appalled faces, breathing heavily. “I saw her months before at a ball Fernside and I attended together. I knew at that moment that I had to make her mine, but it washimshe spoke to, danced with, and cared for. It always was. Bloody Gordon and his perfect manners and charm. She didn’t look at me twice.”

He shook his head. “But I could have helped her far more easily than him. Her father wanted her to marry a man with a fortune, but Gordon didn’t have that—not until he inherited. I was independently wealthy. I could have paid off her father’s debt and more. We could have been happy.”

Seth’s back was rigid, his shoulders tense. “So what happened? You made your offer, but she didn’t care for it and chose him instead?”

“She was MINE!”

The word echoed through the room.

Finally, the mask fell away, and the real Michael Grant stood before them, twisted, filled with fury, and unrepentant.

“Gordon knew I wanted her. I had never wanted anyone so much. I was planning to speak to her father and do it all the right way, but Fernside came up with some harebrained scheme to run away with her. It would all have come to nothing. He didn’t truly love her—I did!”

Isaac threw down his napkin and rose unsteadily to his feet, bracing his weight on his hands. Lucas was on his feet beside him in an instant. Seth could see the panic brimming in Michael’s eyes.

“Tell me you didn’t hurt him,” Lucas’s soft voice was loud in the quiet room. “Tell me you didn’t, Michael. Please.”

Michael was panting, gasping for air as his eyes darted from one to the other in terrified despair. He inhaled sharply, the pallor of his skin terrible to behold as his hand came up to his throat, his nails clawing at the skin.

“I didn’t mean to,” he whispered.

Isaac slammed his fist on the table as Seth slowly walked toward Michael.

Michael backed away, shaking his head. “He was smug, gloating about how he was the one she wanted. That she had no interest in me. I… I pushed him. But I didn’t mean to hurt him—not in that way. I never meant to kill him!”

Seth was almost upon him now, his final act of revenge within his grasp, when Michael suddenly lunged violently to the side.

Alicia shrieked in shock as Michael grabbed the knife from her plate and pulled her roughly from her chair, one arm around her throat, the other pressing the knife to her chin.

CHAPTER 35

Alicia held her breath, the tip of the blade sharp against her chin as she tried to remain as still as she could.

“Put the knife down, Michael.” Seth’s voice was like ice, his gaze fixed on his friend.

Michael’s arm tightened, and Alicia winced as the knife pressed more forcefully against her flesh.

Lucas and Isaac advanced on them, but at their movement, Alicia winced as the knife pushed in far enough to draw blood. She felt it trickle down her neck.