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Page 4 of A Duchess Worth Stealing (Saved by Scandal #2)

Chapter Three

“ Y ou presume I am the sort of man who can be bullied,” Mason, the Duke of Galleon, stated calmly with his tone so quiet that it bordered on pleasant.

The man across from him, a greasy fellow with the sort of mustache that suggested both ambition and moral confusion, even had the gall to smirk.

“I presume only that you value discretion, Your Grace,” he replied with a lazy shrug. “And that a thousand pounds is a small price to pay to keep your… shall we say, affairs private.”

Mason did not smile. He had many smiles; this much was true, at least as far as his sister would have it.

In fact, she was the best keeper of secrets in the family, and as such, she noticed details that others did not.

There was the polite, empty one he used at balls then the arrogant smirk he wore when besting someone in conversation and the rakish, teasing one reserved for moments of mild amusement. But none of these appeared now.

What he wore instead was the look of a man weighing not only the odds of being caught murdering someone in one’s private study, but whether or not it would be worth the paperwork.

“You speak,” Mason said softly, “as though you’ve only just begun your career in idiocy. But the audacity of this particular attempt, which is so utterly clumsy and so tragically uninspired, makes me suspect you’re a veteran.”

The man flushed but held his ground. “The scandal sheets would pay handsomely for what I know. Society would pay even more in whispers and shame. But I am a fair man, Your Grace. I thought I’d offer you the opportunity to settle the matter… privately and to the satisfaction of both of us.”

Mason stood. The movement was not swift nor dramatic, but it carried the weight of a man who did not rise unless it was to end something… or someone.

“I find it curious,” he said, stepping around the side of the desk, “that you speak so confidently of fairness, while attempting extortion. Tell me… Mr. Reed, was it? Have you considered what becomes of men who threaten dukes?”

Mr. Reed, to his credit, did not flinch.

Unfortunately for him, Mason had grown up under the tyranny of a man far crueler and far more calculating than this squirming weasel before him.

His father had taught him many things, most of them abhorrent, but Mason had learned, endured, and grown teeth of his own.

“Do you imagine I am unprotected?” the man sneered, clearly mistaking Mason’s calm for hesitation. “I have friends. Patrons .”

“Names,” Mason said, now dangerously close, “are like coins. Easy to collect, easier to spend. But there is a cost when one overplays his purse.”

Mr. Reed swallowed.

“I have no interest,” Mason continued in a low and cutting tone of voice, “in giving you what you ask for. I do have interest in finding out how you came by this particular bit of information. But I suppose that in the end, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

“You cannot threaten me,” the man hissed.

“Oh, I don’t intend to,” Mason assured him confidently. That was when he smiled. It was the smile of a wolf humoring a rabbit who believed it was a fox.

Mr. Reed, for all his bravado, had taken one visible step backward, and Mason found that encouraging. Fear, after all, was a far more effective deterrent than money.

He folded his hands behind his back and spoke in a voice so calm, it could have been mistaken for indifference. “What do you do for a living, Mr. Reed?”

Reed blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“It is not a difficult question,” Mason shrugged.

“You asked me for a thousand pounds. I assume that is not your annual income. So, I wonder… how do you normally feed yourself? Do you work? Or do you simply peddle gossip to the highest bidder and hope no one ever takes the time to look at your own accounts?”

The man opened his mouth, but Mason did not wait for a response.

“Allow me to help you. You’ve spent time in Yorkshire these past three years.

The reason? The failed mill venture. A questionable associate named Parsons—who is, rather inconveniently for you, currently awaiting trial in York on charges of fraud and misappropriation.

I assume your name is not yet attached to that particular mess though I imagine it would not be difficult to change that. ”

Reed paled.

“And your wife,” he said, almost conversationally. “Anne, wasn’t it? You married her young. Some would say too young. She is fond of lilacs. She writes letters to her sister on Mondays. Mary, I believe. Rather sweet, clever girl. I wonder if she knows about the woman in Lambeth.”

Reed went completely still.

Mason bared his teeth, but it was not a smile. “No, of course, she doesn’t. It would be difficult for a woman to hold onto her domestic optimism when she learns her husband has been keeping a mistress above a gin shop and paying her rent with money he’s not supposed to have.”

“You… how on earth do you know?—”

“I know everything I care to know,” Mason said coldly.

“You thought you were holding a secret over me, and perhaps you are. But if so much as a whisper of that secret ever reaches the public, if so much as a hint finds its way into the society columns, I will personally make it my business to ensure your entire life collapses in upon itself like a poorly built chimney.”

He stepped closer still until they were only inches apart.

“You will lose your wife,” he said. “You will lose your income. Your friends, few though they may be, will turn on you. I will have no need to lift a sword. Your own disgrace will do the cutting for me.”

Reed’s lips trembled.

“And make no mistake,” Mason added quietly, “there is nowhere in the Commonwealth of Great Britain you could hide where I would not find you. And there are a few places outside of it I could reach faster than your breath could finish turning to frost.”

The man looked utterly ruined. His jaw opened once, then again, like a man trying to speak with no air left in his lungs.

“I… I didn’t mean—” he stammered.

“Of course you didn’t,” Mason agreed. “You meant to be clever. You meant to make an easy sum. You thought I would pay you and tremble. You were wrong.”

“I’m sorry… truly… I beg your pardon, Your Grace… I—I won’t say a word, please?—”

Mason did not move.

“Go,” he said.

Reed didn’t need to be told twice. He backed out of the room like a man leaving a chapel after desecrating it and then turned and bolted down the corridor like the rabbit that he was. The door shut behind him with a satisfying click.

Mason exhaled slowly. Then, as if nothing had happened at all, he turned back to his desk, brushed an invisible speck from the corner of a book, and allowed himself the smallest breath of stillness.

He hated threats. He hated what they required of him. But protecting what mattered, what must be kept safe at all cost, demanded a certain kind of ruthlessness, and he would wield it without hesitation.

Mason raked a hand through his hair and turned from the writing table. His shoulders ached. His thoughts were like caged hounds, restless and circling. He ought to go for a ride. Yes . The fresh air, the sharp rhythm of hooves on frost-hardened ground… these things brought clarity.

He crossed the room in a few strides, shrugging on his coat with mechanical precision. But just as his hand touched the door, a sound floated to him again, the sort of a sound his home had rarely heard since the incident.

Feminine laughter.

It drifted through the air like the scent of honeysuckle on summer wind. It wasn’t the laughter of his mother, though she was known to chuckle drily at the right provocation. No, this laugh was brighter. It sounded rather like someone who had tried very hard not to laugh and failed entirely.

Suddenly, his entire body tensed up. He knew that laughter from somewhere.

He’d been too stunned at the time, what with her having assaulted a peer and kissed him straight in the face, but the sound had stuck.

In fact, it was still there, somewhere in the back of his mind, irritating and pleasant all at once.

That woman.

He exhaled slowly. But she was gone. She had run off into the night like a heroine from a tragic novel, possibly to perish, possibly to star in several footmen’s nightmares. Either way, she was no longer his concern.

Except… there it was again, that sound, that laughter. It was closer this time. Mason’s brows drew together. It came from the drawing room.

A sinking feeling began to settle in his chest as he stepped into the hall. The corridor stretched out in golden light from the windows. He walked with deliberate intent when suddenly a voice echoed through the place as evidently, the drawing room door was not closed.

“Dear heavens, I think this is the most delicious tea I’ve ever had!” came a sweet female voice.

Mason stopped dead in his tracks. That woman was in his house… again. Mason swore very softly under his breath. This was not good. He had no time for distractions. And this particular distraction had already kissed him and nearly committed involuntary manslaughter on his library furniture.

He ought to leave now and ride away for the day.

He ought to let his mother handle whatever madness had led to that woman’s reappearance.

But he didn’t move—because as much as he told himself that he was done with her and her madness, that laughter and that voice were tugging at him like a thread he hadn’t realized was loose.

He couldn’t control himself any further.

The door swung open with a force that sent a draught through the room and scattered several well-placed napkins across the Dowager Duchess’ knees. His eyes held the faintest sheen of disbelief, the part he was not able to control.

“What,” he inquired with the clarity of a man teetering on the edge of abandoning civility, “is going on here?”

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