Page 95 of Second Duke's the Charm
Tess’s frustration was mounting. Where had Justin heard the name Charles King? And why would he think she and King were lovers? Or she and Stockdale, for that matter? Either way, his unwelcome interference couldn’t be allowed to jeopardize this case. It was too important. She had to make him leave; she could explain later.
“Go away, Justin,” she said coldly. “I have some important business with Mr. Stockdale, here, and you are decidedlyde trop.”
He glared at her. “Are you paying him to have me killed?”
Her mouth dropped open in shock. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Are you trying to get me out of the way so you can be with your lover?” He gestured at Stockdale. “Is he the one responsible for the ‘accident’ to our carriage wheel? Is he the ‘poacher’ who can’t shoot straight? The cart driver who almost ran me down?”
Behind her, Stockdale sucked in a breath. He stepped to her side, both hands raised in an attitude of innocent surrender.
“You’ve got this all wrong, Yer Grace. I’ve never set out to harm you in my life.” He took another step sideways, edging toward the trees. “I deal in scandal, not murder. My business was with the duchess, and it’s done. If you want to play the jealous husband, that’s none of my affair. I’m off.”
“You stay right where you are,” Justin growled.
Tess shook her head in exasperation. “Let him leave, Justin!”
Ellie and Daisy would be watching this farce from the trees, waiting to accost Stockdale in the shadows. If Justin would just allow him to leave, they could grab him and retrieve the necklace before he left the grounds.
But Justin wasn’t having any of it. As Stockdale kept moving, he leapt forward and tackled him.
“Bastard!”
Tess gave a shriek as the two men sprawled on the ground, rolling over and over in the mud and the leaves. Stockdale tried to push Justin off him, then punched him in the ribs. Justin gave a furious grunt and slammed his elbow hard into Stockdale’s belly, then landed a blow to his jaw that made the other man’s head snap back.
“Stop it, you idiots!” Tess scolded. They were like two dogs, blinded by rage. If only she had a bucket of water to throw over the pair of them.
She’d seen a boxing match in Holborn, once, as partof an investigation. There, the fighters had been methodical, almost scientific in their ducking and delivering of blows.
This was nothing like that. It was savage and lawless, like a tavern brawl, with both men kicking and punching at any body part they could find. Gentlemanly it was not.
Justin kneed Stockdale in the groin, and the other man curled into a ball with a howl of pain. As Justin staggered to his feet, Stockdale recovered enough to kick out and land a horrible blow to his knee.
Justin hissed in fury, and as Stockdale rolled and got to his feet, he curved his arm around the printseller’s neck in a brutal choke hold. Stockdale squirmed and bucked, trying to free his head, and a glittering lump fell from his pocket and into the mud.
Neither man noticed, in their distraction, and Tess darted forward and scooped up the necklace when the scuffle spun away.
“Justin!” she commanded. “Let him go. I can explain.”
He glanced up at her, his face flushed. He still had Stockdale bent over in a headlock, but he stilled. A red mark that would undoubtedly become a bruise was already darkening his right cheekbone, and his lip was split and oozing blood.
Stockdale grasped his forearm and gasped an unsteady breath. “Mercy! Let me go, you madman!”
With a disgusted sound Justin released him and Stockdale staggered back, clutching his throat and gasping for air. He eyed Justin as if he were an inmate straight from Bedlam.
Justin sent him a dismissive glare. “I never want to see your face again, do you hear me? Now go.”
Stockdale didn’t need telling twice. With a furious, accusing look at Tess—as if this debacle was somehowherfault—he turned and staggered off into the trees as fast as his shaking legs could carry him.
Justin’s chest was heaving with exertion. He wiped the blood from his lip with a disdainful swipe of his cuff, then turned his attention back to Tess.
His eyes glimmered in the faint light and her heart couldn’t seem to find a steady beat.
“Care to explain, Scarlet?”
Justin was furious, not just with Tess, for whatever perfidy this was, but also with himself, for losing control. Where had his icy calm gone? His ability to reason? He’d seen another man’s hands on her and reacted like some hotheaded Casanova in a Drury Lane melodrama.
He was a stranger to himself. And it washerfault. She made him insane.