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“You can’t do that!”

“I can, and I am.”

“For what reason? You have money aplenty!I’vemade you the wealthiest man in the city with my investments! You don’t need to take anything from my stipend. You’re just being petty.”

“Is it petty to remind you where you stand? Then perhaps you shouldn’t have told me I look like an orphan.”

“Is your ego so sensitive? Are you so insecure that you cannot take a joke?”

“Considering both my parents no longer walk this world, perhaps you can glean why I take such high offense.”

That shuts me up. For about a second. “Perhaps I’d be more inclined to feel sorry for you if you weren’t stealing my money, lands, and manor.” And if he weren’t a man. He already has such an advantage in the world. It’s hard to feel sympathy for him at all. His parents are dead? Well, at least the law forbids anyone from trading him for money. Never mind that particular law is now fixed. It wasn’t at the time I suffered for it.

He says nothing as he puts his signature on some document before him. I try a new tactic. “If I have my stipend, I’m likely to spend more time out of the manor spending it.”

“No, Duchess, I’m feeling petty enough to put my foot down on this issue. And I’ll be monitoring all the items in the manor, should you try to pawn something off. I will come for you, not the servants, if anything goes missing, including my family’s heirlooms, which I noted you’ve stored in the attic. You may go now.”

I don’t slam the door in my wake, but I do raise a certain finger to the closed door where the duke cannot see. Precisely at that moment, his supposed valets approach and see the gesture.

Argus raises a single brow, while Dyson salutes me.

“You just keep putting the prick in his place, Your Grace,” Dyson says. “I haven’t had this much entertainment since we visited that brothel in Pegai. When are we due for another outing, Argus?”

“Don’t use such language in front of the lady, and there will be no outings. His Grace has far too much to do.”

“Not even a short one? Perhaps we sneak away for an hour while Eryx is handling some boring business in town?”

“That’sYour Grace,” Argus reminds him, “and I don’t think you could fill a whole hour of a woman’s time if you tried.”

This time Dyson is the one to give Argus a pummeling. “I’ll have you know I’ve kept scores of women up all night with my prowess! I shan’t have you disgracing my good name in front of the lady.”

Dyson puts Argus in a chokehold, but the bigger man slings his elbow into Dyson’s stomach. He doubles over, yet strikes out with his leg, sending Argus flat on his ass.

At the noise, Eryx throws open the door to his study to find Dyson hunched over, Argus on the floor, and me staring at the two of them in astonishment.

“Quit showing off for the duchess and get your sorry hides in this room at once.”

Argus rolls onto his feet, grabs Dyson by a scrap of his shirt, and hauls him into the room. Eryx doesn’t spare me a glance as he shuts the three of them within the study.

If those two men are valets, then I’m the empress of all seven kingdoms.

CHAPTER 7

Ican’t remember the last time I was so incensed. No one has been so antagonistic toward me in my life. So few have known me well enough to truly get under my skin.

In less than twenty-four hours, this stranger has managed to take away my control over my homeandmy money.

In the morning, I don’t wake to the sounds of hammering and footsteps carrying heavy items throughout the manor. I also don’t wake in my beautiful master suite to the image of cherubs darting through clouds.

I’m back where I started, in the damned duchess suite. Second in power once more.

Once Medora finishes helping me dress, I walk through the manor in silence. In the entryway, the grand staircase is only half finished, the dark tiles partially replaced with white marble. The intricate metalwork beneath the banister is halfway painted with gold. The mismatched sight makes my skin itch.

In the ballroom, half the drapes have been torn down, with the other half untouched. They’re a gaudy bright red that some ancestor, likely before Pholios’s time, selected. Who knows what became of the golddraperies I’d purchased? The old chandelier was removed from the ceiling and is resting in the middle of the floor. Apparently the fake duke didn’t even allow the workers to remove it before sending them off.

Light spots on the wall show where paintings once hung. Eryx has likely halted my shipment of new purchases to add life and color to the place. Mismatched furniture lines all the corridors. The windowsills are covered in sealant, from where a hasty patch job was done so as to not let any air into the manor, but it looks awful. Most of the windows weren’t even able to be replaced yet, so they, too, are mismatched.

Outside, the hedge maze is only mostly finished. The sculpture for the water fountain will never arrive. The lawn is partially trimmed. I don’t even see the gardeners out and about watering the plants, which they usually do at this time.