Page 86

And, with a sigh, Caleb did, dropping his hands from her father’s neck to cup Grace’s face in return, to draw her mouth to his in a kiss that felt like coming home.

When they pulled apart, the duke was massaging his angry red throat and looking at her with disgust.

“How dare you, Grace?” he demanded, his voice rough. It sounded painful to use. “That man tried to kill m?—”

“Oh, would you just shut up,” Grace snapped. She’d never spoken to her father like that, had never even come close, and he flinched in surprise.

“I heard everything you—youbastard!”It was as vicious an insult as she could make to someone like her father, someone who valued his bloodline and family name above all else. It might not have been strictly true, and was, Grace felt, an insult to those born on the wrong side of the blanket, but it landed all the same.

“Grace Miller!”

“It’s GraceGulliver,” she reminded her father acidly. “And thank the heavens for it. I wantnothingof yours, not your name, not your history, not your money.Nothing. You are not my father; you are barely even human, as far as I can see. No, you are a monster, driven by greed and self-importance. I never want to see you again. I am glad to be rid of you.”

Even after everything, her father had the temerity to look angry with her.

“You’re going to trust this Scottishbruteover me?” he sputtered.

Grace laughed directly in his face. “You mean my husband? Yes, I trust him over you—I would have done so even if I hadn’t heard the admission from your very own lips.” She shook her head. “Maybe you should have chosen differently when you tried to make meusefulto you by marrying me off.”

Caleb’s hand came up and landed on her shoulder in a gesture of silent support.

Graham—she would no longer think of him as her father, she decided then and there—tried to shift tactics.

“Nobody will credit you,” he said. “The documents could have been forged. And you’re just a woman—andhe’sjust a Scot. When they see how he’s brutalized me, he’s the one who will be gaoled, not me.”

“That might have been true,” said a calm, even voice from behind him, “if not for the fact that we heard, too.”

Graham whipped around in his chair—and that looked like it hurt, too, Grace noted with savage glee—to see his son, standing straight backed, the only sign of his distress the white knuckles where he gripped his wife’s hand.

“And before you say that you’ll accuse me of trying to usurp you,” Evan said dryly, as if already bored with whatever his father might try next, “I’ll have you know that we’ve the constabulary here, too.”

At these words, a man popped his head round the edge of the doorframe. He looked downright cheerful in a manner that was just on this side of inappropriate, given the circumstances.

“Hello,” he said. “I’m Inspector Drummond. As his lordship indicated, I did hear one Frederick Miller, Duke of Graham—though I suspect you’ll be stripped of that title, if I’m telling the truth—confess to conspiracy to abduct Her Grace, Grace Gulliver, the Duchess of Montgomery as part of a scheme to defraud Parliament.” Hetsked. “I imagine the other lords aren’t going to like that very much.”

He glanced at Evan, then Caleb, ignoring Graham entirely. “Did I miss anything?”

“No, that sums it up quite nicely,” Evan said, tone sharp and dipped in acid.

“You missed the part where this man assaulted me!” Graham cried. He flung an arm in Caleb’s direction, nearly striking Grace. Caleb growled, fists clenching, but Grace patted his chest soothingly.

“You see?” Graham demanded. “He’s going to do it again!”

Drummond looked unimpressed. “I didn’t see anything of the kind. I was behind the door, you see.”

“He threatened me! You must have heard that!”

Drummond shrugged. “I never was much good at Scots accents.”

Caleb gave the constable an approving nod at this.

“All right, then,” Drummond called into the hallway. Evan cradled Frances protectively, urging her to one side so that two more constables could enter. “Cuff him, then, boys.”

“Wait, no!” Graham sputtered. He stumbled back, nearly crashing into Grace, so Caleb gave him a shove in the small of the back that sent the older man careening directly into the officers’ grasp. “No! You cannot cuff me like a common criminal! I’m a duke!”

Drummond didn’t even look up from where he was jotting notes on a small tablet of paper he’d produced from a pocket.

“Like I said, I doubt that title will stick. Besides—” He glanced up at Grace. “—how long were you kept captive, Your Grace? Several years, wasn’t it?”