Page 106

HONOUR

“Is it true?”

Azriel glanced over at me with a frustrated sigh. “You finally speak, and ask me that?”

“What else am I meant to ask you?” I tugged the shawl around my shoulders, the fire having finally warmed me enough that I could once again function. “I beg your pardon, husband, but you were just challenged to a duel, and I would like to know if there was any reason in it.”

Azriel stretched his legs from him with a strained breath. He was still in his trousers, but his shirt lay open, baring his chest and stomach. “Then I shall tell you what I told him, and that is, it is not possible for that child to be mine. Any child I may have fathered before my departure for Greece would be well on its way by now.”

“So there are others?”

Azriel slammed a fist into the table, sending a vase toppling to the floor and making me jump. “God dammit, Evie, but you are stupid sometimes.”

I snatched my slipper from my foot and hurled it at his head, cursing as it sailed straight past him. “You dare call mestupid when you are the one who just entered into a fight to the death over something that isn’t even true? That isn’t even possible? You are stupid, Azriel, not I!”

“You women wouldn’t understand,” he muttered as he got to his feet, pouring himself a glass of brandy.

“We women understand plenty, you pig.” I got to my feet, fists balled at my sides, and resisted the urge to storm across the room and slap him. “We women understand that you men have no honour, no sense, and certainly no thought for what your actions mean for the rest of us!”

Azriel pointed a finger in my direction. “Watch yourself now.”

“Or what?” I planted my hands on my hips. “Or what, Azriel? Are you going to beat me? Put me in my place?”

He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Oh, you are a thorn in my side.”

“One you put there, may I remind you?”

“Evie, enough.” He gulped down the brandy, sucking on his teeth. “I do not need this behaviour right now.”

“No, you need to explain to me what in heaven’s name just happened, and why you agreed to a damned duel?”

“I do not need to explain anything to you!” He bellowed, and now I could not restrain myself any longer, rushing at him and showering open slaps against his head.

“You utter bastard!” I screamed. “You tell me now what happened! Tell me!”

Azriel grabbed my wrists, eyes blazing as he leered down at me. “Nothing happened! Nothing! Lucy de la Croix looks like a horse and has a cunt wide enough to ride a carriage through.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because every man in London has had her!” Azriel hurled back at me.

“Even you?” I wrinkled my nose in disgust. “I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose.”

“No, not even me!” Azriel took my shoulders, shaking me with barely contained restraint. “I wouldn’t go near her, and she hated me for it!”

“So she blamed a child that isn’t her husband’s on you? When it isn’t even possible?”

“It would seem so.” Azriel sighed heavily, his grip on my shoulders easing, stroking me gently. “It is ridiculous, Evie. All of it. It cannot be mine.”

“Then why did you agree to the duel?”

He exhaled heavily, his hands dropping my shoulders. “Damn it, Evie.” He turned away from me, running a hand through his hair.

“Why, Azriel?”

He spun back to me, his eyes like beacons in his tanned face. “Because of honour!”

“What do you care for honour? You, who has told me again and again that the opinion of others means nothing, that there is no good society,nowyou worry about honour?”