Page 7 of Brilliance and Betrayal (The Diamond of the Ton Regency Mysteries #1)

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“Si vis pacem, para bellum.”

– Vegetius

B y midnight, Peregrine was a crucible of half-molten fury. An afternoon and evening of cooling his heels had only tempered his will into steel.

He had waited and watched through the evening hours as the windows went dark in the duchess’s house. The final few lights had been extinguished some half hour past, and now anticipation stoked the fire in his soul. He focused it with a purpose, letting it burn hot and clean through his frustration.

Peregrine had been stuck at that blasted garden party all afternoon, waiting on tenterhooks for the prince to fall gravely ill, perhaps to die. But the prince’s poisoner had done their job with precision. William of Orange had embarrassed himself by vomiting and being carried off like a common drunk… and that was all.

The storm he had feared had never come. There was no outcry. As he finally departed from Carlton House, he had been at the end of his tether, sticky with the commingled sweat of relief and worry.

It wasn’t the first time he’d been a game piece in society’s endless chessboard of schemes. Normally, though, he was the one making the moves. Being an unwitting pawn in someone else’s game was rare—and unsettling. And worse still was playing a game where the rules weren’t clear, a scenario he found utterly intolerable.

His thoughts ran in circles as he retallied the events of the day, but he came back to the same final deduction.

The fact that the prince did not fall ill enough to garner suspicion made it feel like a message intended for his eyes only. A warning that his life continued at someone’s whim.

Only someone who knew the signs would be able to discern that the prince had been dosed. Fewer still would recognise the specific symptoms of the prince’s particular toxin. Peregrine knew of only one person at the party who possessed the knowledge, means and motive to employ a stratagem simply to destroy his peace of mind.

And now he stood below that vengeful woman’s balcony.

All he had to do was shuck his coat so that his ability to climb was not impeded, and he did so without hesitation. His decency was the penultimate concern on his mind. The last spot was reserved for the reputation of a woman with the brass balls to threaten him in such a manner.

No wonder the duchess had been staring at him with hate in her eyes. She had made her opening salvo in a plot for revenge and wanted to ensure he heard her message as clear as a bell, the little wretch.

The part that he despised the most was that she had succeeded in forcing him to question his own judgement.

How much of this had she orchestrated? Had she even gone so far as to ensure he had received the invitation in the first place? Peregrine’s hands briefly clenched into fists at his side before he threw himself upwards, clambering up the edifice.

The truth was like shifting sand beneath his feet. Everything he thought he knew since returning home was no longer reliable. He could depend on absolutely nothing—not his standing with other members of the ton , and certainly not their actions towards him. Perhaps even his hard-won redemption had been corrupted by her touch. A laugh to be had by the Queen and her family at his expense.

When Peregrine’s mother had fled England, abandoning him to either survive or pay the price for her crimes, he had thought so naively that things couldn’t possibly be any worse. But it seemed that anguish was only the merest fraction of what would lie ahead in his future.

Only sheer need to see this next deed through was keeping him from going stark, raving mad. He was going to break into that woman’s room and let her know beyond any shadow of a doubt: If she wanted his attention, she had it. In spades.

If she thought she could hide behind the rules of genteel behaviour, attacking him and then retreating to the safety of her home where she believed he would not retaliate because he was a gentleman, she was about to be disabused of the notion. As he had warned her earlier, he would not be bound by any rule she did not follow herself. And for every slight she meted out against him, he would return it a thousandfold.

If she wanted him to question his own judgement and standing, he was going to take every bloody scrap of peace of mind she possessed. If she wanted him to feel insecure, he would show her how easily he could have her at his mercy.

Some of the most dangerous vipers of the ton that he knew were women. He would give no quarter to this chit simply because she was one of the fairer sex.

To ensure his peace, he would go to war.

Within a few short minutes, he found himself standing in the bedroom of the Duchess Atholl. The weather was unseasonably warm, and she had mostly thrown the covers off herself. They lay in a tangled bunch near mid-thigh, and what he could see of her night rail clung to her curves damply. Her blonde locks had been plaited into a simple braid that lay across her shoulder.

He had left the curtains parted to give him enough light to see, and moonlight flooded the room, giving him a clear view of his quarry. She slept like a babe, completely without remorse or trouble.

Entering a sleeping woman’s bedroom like this, standing in partial dishabille while he watched her like a voyeur? It was almost enough to make him feel like a scoundrel. Almost. But that brief pang was smothered quickly by thick resentment.

He crept across the room and turned the brass key in her door to ensure that it was locked. Then he pocketed it. Time to cut straight to the final act of her little performance and see the finale.

His blood was up as he approached her bed. Small noises made by his booted feet were unavoidable, but she slept on, blithely unaware of his presence. She didn’t even stir when he stealthily set one hand and knee on the edge of the four-posted canopy bed.

Spreading his weight to cause the least amount of disturbance, he hoisted himself off the floor, straddling her prone body. She stirred then, not truly conscious. He held his breath for a moment, and then with the swiftness of a cobra striking, he covered her mouth with his left palm to keep her from screaming.

Her eyes flew open in surprise, and the surge of savage elation pulsing through him was heady. But as she focused on the person above her, her lifted brows slammed together and she shouted something into the palm of his hand. The words were muffled, but he understood exactly what she meant to say.

“How dare I enter your room like this?” he murmured, his voice low and edged with mockery as his hand cupped her face, holding her gaze captive. “I dare , you gilded harpy. You and I, we need to continue our little chat. And if you thrash, scream, or call for your servants, know that I will tell them you invited me here. It will be your word against mine. Just imagine the scandal.”

She was still, malice glittering in her eyes. Finally, he returned his left hand to the feathered mattress beside her ear, sweeping a loose strand of her blonde hair off of her face as he did so. Turning the tables on this canny little witch… it was edifying.

“No? You are not going to shout? What a pity. The thought of being asked to marry you to preserve your honour, all while knowing that you are utterly horrified by the predicament… well, it is the sort of irony I could savour for days.”

That finally sparked her voice. “You—you… utter blackguard,” she hissed, her words barely louder than a breath as she fought to summon something sharper. “Traitor’s son!”

He let out a low snort, laced with bitter amusement. “Oh, come now, O Shining One. Is that the best you can do? I have long since claimed those words for myself. Will you punish me forever for things long past between us?”

“Your mother held a grudge against mine since before I was born. Why should I not carry this one until I can spit upon your grave?”

He wasn’t surprised by her words. But he was disappointed by the fact she seemed to overlook the part her own family had to play in their feud.

“Fine. I really do not care if you want to despise me until kingdom come. But your discretion is sorely lacking. I have enough to contend with without being dragged into the messes you insist on making. Whatever this is—your plans, your manipulations—you need to leave me out of it. Stay away from me. Do you understand? Because if you keep pushing things, breaking into your bedroom for a little chat will be the least of what I do, hellion.”

Her chin jerked up in defiance as she bared her teeth at him. “You think I cannot imagine what you are capable of? Only a Fitzroy would play games with people’s lives.”

He laughed almost silently in her face.“You two-faced hypocrite. That’s bloody rich from the title chaser who played half the ton on a merry chase last season, and who manipulated two men into an engagement?—”

“That isn’t at all what happened!”

Her voice had grown louder as the words spilled from her lips, and Peregrine tapped her soft lower lip gently with the very tip of his index finger to warn her to be quiet. “Whatever you believe happened does not matter. You do not have the right to toy with me and my life.”

“I disagree,” she said, her face growing ugly with hate. “You gave me the right when you watched as your mother tore my future to shreds, and you did nothing. You are as much a monster as your mother, and I will be repeating every word of this conversation to the Queen.”

His pulse throbbed in his veins, and his chest tried to heave in shallow, controlled breaths as he froze, warring over his own wounded instincts. He let out a long hiss through his teeth.

It wasn’t enough for her to devise a scheme to frighten or blackmail him. She was so consumed by her hatred that she planned to grind him to dust beneath her slippers. Where would this end? What lies would she tell to see that he suffered the ultimate price?

Peregrine briefly closed his eyes, and then he slid his hand into his pocket, withdrawing the intricately carved ivory-handled folding knife he had grown accustomed to carrying since last summer.

He sat back on his haunches, pinning her torso with his weight as he unfolded the blade. The duchess’s eyes fluttered, and she let out a small whimper.

Hard as it was to believe, last June—just before he had been shipped to the front and after he had heard about her broken engagement—he had actually felt sorry for this woman. No matter what happened between their parents, she had been an innocent wronged, and while it was true that his mother had been responsible for her kidnapping and not him, he felt a share of guilt for it.

Last June they had both been licking their wounds, preparing to survive a world that would cast judgement on them for the offences of others, and the chance to explain had passed unacknowledged. Rather than send the letter he had begun to write to her, he had drowned his regrets in brandy instead.

He might have earned at least some small measure of forgiveness, and as unlikely as that was, he could not help but wonder if it would have prevented… all this.

Peregrine doubted it. Trust was required for forgiveness, so some things were impossible to forgive.

Casually, he flipped the knife in his hand. And as she stared up at him, white faced, he reached for her right hand, pressing the handle into her limp, unresisting palm, wrapping her fingers around it.

A hard crease formed between her brows, and she blinked at him. “What—what are you doing?”

“Since you are out for blood, let us be done with it. I am giving you my knife, my lovely little luminary. Go on. Stick me with it.”

She let out a small, disbelieving laugh. “What madness is this? You broke into my home so you could give me your knife and tell me to stab you?”

If he believed the duchess had a prayer of killing him, he would not have put a weapon in her hand. But he wanted to make her afraid to even try. He had to put an end to their open animosity.

“Why not? You believe me to be a monster.”

“I do not know what your game is, Fitzroy,” she hissed, trying to pull her hand away, “but I will play no part in this. Begone with you.”

He held her firmly. “It is so much harder to take a life when you must do so with your own hand, is it not? My heart is here,” he told her simply, taking her other hand and resting it over his chest.

She was a coward, prepared to let other people’s hands do her dirty work.

“I will not allow you to use the Crown’s hands to achieve your ambition. You wish me to die? You will need to drive the knife home yourself. Go ahead, Duchess . Do. It.”