Page 42 of His Arranged Duchess (Regency Wedding Crashers #5)

L ord Easton’s house was a little more dilapidated than Lucien had expected.

It was an old house in a well-established part of London, but it had clearly not been maintained properly for some time.

The plaster was chipping, some of the windows were boarded up, and there were visible gaps in the roof where tiles had come away.

Buoyed by righteous fury, Lucien strode towards the front door, seized the knocker, and rapped hard.

Silence.

Clenching his jaw, he knocked again and then tried the doorknob. It was locked, of course.

At last, a faint shuffling sound came from the other side of the door, and a weak, elderly voice answered.

“Who is it, please?”

“My name is Lucien Russell, the Duke of Blackstone. Let me in, please.”

There was a brief silence.

“Is Lord Easton expecting you, Your Grace?”

Lucien smiled grimly. “He’s acquainted with me.”

Somebody whispered on the other side of the door, sibilant and urgent. Flinching, Lucien leaned closer, trying to hear what was being said, but couldn’t make out any individual words.

The old man on the other side, whoever he was, cleared his throat.

“I am sorry to disappoint you, Your Grace, but Lord Easton is not at home.”

Lucien wanted to laugh.

“What is your name, sir? I assume you’re the butler,” he said.

There was a brief, surprised pause on the other side of the door.

“Michaels, Your Grace.”

“Well, Michaels, I might as well tell you that you are an extremely bad liar. That’s no reflection on you, naturally. I would advise you to step away from the door.”

“Your Grace, I must insist that you leave now. You cannot simply… Please… Don’t…”

“Step away,” Lucien repeated, backing up a few steps and bracing himself, “from the door .”

There was a muffled shout from inside, but Lucien paid it no attention. He raced at full speed towards the door, delivering a resounding kick which half-wrenched the door away from its hinges.

There was a terrified yelp from inside, and a good deal of scuttling. Lucien smiled and backed up for another run at the door.

This time, the door came crashing off the hinges, landing with an ear-splitting crash on the marble floor beyond.

An elderly man, presumably Michaels, scuttled backwards, eyes wide and hands held up pleadingly.

“Calm yourself, sir,” Lucien answered crisply. “I’m not here to do you any harm. Where is your master?”

The butler, to his credit, clenched his jaw and refused to answer, so Lucien gave it up. Pausing, he glanced around the cavernous foyer.

The inside of the house was no better than outside.

The wallpaper peeled off the walls in chunks, revealing pitted plaster underneath.

Cobwebs hung thickly from the ceiling, draping an old chandelier in such a thick layer of webbing and dust that it appeared to be shrouded.

The stone floor beneath his feet had seen better days and was so dirty and dusty that he could clearly see his own footsteps trailing back towards the ruined door.

At the back of the foyer, a grand, sweeping staircase led up towards the upper floors. At one time, it would have been a beautiful sight to behold, with polished marble steps and an ornate, elegant banister running up to a mezzanine.

Now, the staircase was shabby, the steps chipped, and parts of the banister were missing altogether.

Halfway up the staircase, facing him with a look of pure, almost comical terror, stood Lord Easton.

“There you are,” Lucien said, strolling towards him. “The grand viscount himself. May I call you Nicholas?”

“You had better stay back,” Lord Easton ordered, but his voice wobbled. “Michaels, run to fetch the authorities.”

“You wanted her for her dowry, didn’t you?” Lucien murmured, glancing around the shabby house. “You never cared about Frances herself.”

Lord Easton flushed. “Well, don’t pretend that you felt any differently.”

Lucien bit his lip, shaking his head. “I care for her.”

“Well, if you say so.”

Lucien took a step closer, and Lord Easton took a careful step back.

“Michaels! The authorities!” Lord Easton ordered, his voice still trembling. The old butler jerked into action.

“I think perhaps we have a good long while before Michaels reaches his destination,” Lucien remarked, watching the elderly butler wobble towards the door. “I am glad to run into you, as we have a great deal to discuss.”

“I have nothing at all to discuss with you,” the viscount spat. “Or your whore of a wife.”

Lucien was moving before he knew it, leaping up the staircase in steps of two and three. Lord Easton gave a panicked squawk and turned to run.

He wasn’t quite fast enough.

Lucien seized him by the collar, his fist flying out.

Crack . The blow caught the viscount across the jaw, and he shrieked, clapping a hand over his mouth. Lucien released him and Lord Easton fell like a stone, landing heavily on his back.

“How dare you speak of her that way?” Lucien breathed, his chest heaving. “Who do you think you are?”

The viscount removed his hand, revealing a swollen lip and a trail of blood making its way down his chin from the corner of his mouth. He snarled, wiping his chin with the back of his hand.

“She spurned me at the altar! She had no right to do that. None at all!”

“Then your quarrel is with me,” Lucien shot back. “Not her, because without me, she would have married you.”

Lord Easton got unsteadily to his feet, watching Lucien like a rabbit might watch a hungry fox.

“It was easy, you know,” he muttered, his voice thin and spiteful.

“I knew there must be something in the Baroness’ past. She’s an opera singer, after all.

Frances looked nothing like the Baron, and she was born so soon into the wedding that it was hardly a leap to suspect something, once I began to think about it. ”

“You bribed a maid to get the letters, then?”

He nodded. “The girl was barely literate, so I’m confident she didn’t read them. That friend of yours, that vulgar Mr. Holton, tried to buy me off. As if he could offer enough money. The truth must out, after all,” Lord Easton lifted his chin haughtily. “It’s a matter of respectability.”

Lucien gave a bark of laughter. “You dare to say such a thing? You expect me to believe this act of spite has got anything to do with respectability ? You wanted to hurt Frances, and that’s all there is to it.”

Lord Easton curled his lip. “Well, if I was able to get a little revenge, then what of it? One thing is for sure—you can’t undo what’s been done. The truth is out. Pandora’s box is open, and you won’t be putting a thing back inside. Isn’t that amusing?”

“I think you and I have very different definitions of amusing. Tell me, Lord Easton, you remember what you said to me when you first understood who I was? Think back. It was the first time we met, at the altar, with Frances standing in between us, baffled. Can you recall?”

Lord Easton blinked, clearly ill at ease.

“I don’t recall.”

“Oh, I do,” Lucien said, grinning wolfishly. “Now I know exactly who you are. You are that wretch, Lord Lucien Russell. A cold- blooded murderer. It’s a miracle you never swung for what you did. I can’t believe you had the gall to show your face on these shores again.”

He took a step forward, and Lord Easton quailed backwards, retreating along the landing. The floorboards creaked ominously under his weight. They approached a spot where at least three feet of the railing had been removed entirely, leaving only a yawning gap down to the marble floor beneath.

“Think about what you said, my dear viscount,” Lucien whispered. “You called me a cold-blooded murderer. You were so convinced of ruining Frances’s reputation that you became concerned with the wrong reputation. It is my reputation you should be worried about.”

He lunged forward, seizing Lord Easton by the front of his shirt. The man squawked in panic, backing away. He caught his foot on something, perhaps a snarl of carpet, and toppled backwards.

He fell directly into the banister’s gap.

Lord Easton screamed. His eyes bulged, and he clawed desperately at Lucien’s arm. Lucien did not release his grip, nor did he tighten it.

“Don’t let go,” Lord Easton begged. “If you let go, I’ll fall… Michaels! Michaels !”

“There is no sign of your dutiful man, I’m afraid,” Lucien sighed. “It seems as if he has gone to fetch the authorities as you commanded. Let us hope they will arrive in time.”

The blood drained from Lord Easton’s face. “You mean to kill me,” he whispered. “Just like you killed your father.”

Lucien tilted his head thoughtfully, eyeing Lord Easton. The man was on the brink of tears.

“If I really did kill my father, as you say, why would I hold back from killing you ?” Lucien asked softly. “Now, listen to me very closely, Nicholas.”

The viscount swallowed thickly, eyes widening further. He nodded hard, clearly not trusting himself to speak.

“You’ll never speak about Frances again,” Lucien murmured, heaving the man up a few inches so that their noses almost touched. “If anyone ever asks you about the story, you’ll maintain that it is nothing but lies.”

“N-Nobody would believe me,” Lord Easton stammered.

“No, I imagine not, but you’ll do it anyway. Furthermore, you’ll pack your things—today, in fact—and you’ll leave London. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t come back. Sell this crumbling old place, go to your insignificant country seat, and spare us all the unpleasantness of your company.”

Lord Easton clenched his jaw. “Have I a choice?”

“Why, certainly. You can choose to agree, or you can choose to take the consequences, whatever they might be.”

There was a moment of taut silence, the two men staring at each other.

Lord Easton blinked first.

“Fine!” he snarled, sweat beading along his brow. “Fine, we’ll do it your way, but for heaven’s sake, please don’t let me fall!”

Lucien grinned, baring his teeth, and hauled Lord Easton back to the safety of the landing.