Page 70 of The Duchess and the Beast

“My wife!” Sebastian bellowed, his boot poised for another crushing blow. But this time, Prescott was prepared. He threw up his hands, seizing Sebastian’s boot and, with a desperate shove, pushed him backward.

It was as he stumbled that Prescott turned and scrambled across the floor, pushing himself to his feet and sprinting from the room. The pistol came free from its holster and Sebastian fired, missing Lord Prescott by inches, spraying wood from the doorframe where the bullet struck.

“Tell me where she is!” Sebastian pursued him with the gait of a rhino.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Prescott’s voice cried from somewhere in the house.

“You took her! I know it was you!” He re-holstered his pistol but kept the saber drawn. “Where is she?! If you have so much as touched a hair—”

“You have taken leave of your senses!” came a desperate retort.

Sebastian burst into the dining room just in time to see Lord Prescott disappearing through another door. “Get back here!”

Through the house, he pursued the terror-stricken lordling, cornering him in the kitchens where Prescott snatched a pan from its hook and flung it overhead at Sebastian. He parried the makeshift weapon with ease, but the action blinded him for a moment and Prescott pounced.

Prescott seized Sebastian by the wrist that wielded the saber, forcing it upward as the two men grappled fiercely.

“She was abducted!” Sebastian growled in Prescott’s face. “And I know it was your doing!”

“I haven’t... the faintest... what you speak of!” Prescott struggled against Sebastian’s formidable strength to keep the blade at bay.

“Confess now!” Slowly, Sebastian began to overpower the lord. “Or I will make you confess!”

“I know nothing—argh!”

Sebastian’s advantage was clear; his size and fury lent him a fearsome strength. He delivered a brutal headbutt to Prescott’s already bloodied nose. Another crunch and Prescott lost his grip on his wrist and stumbled back. Sebastian, thinking quickly, took the lord by the collar and drove the butt of his saber into the man’s face. Blood sprayed. Prescott shrieked in agony. And Sebastian was nowhere near finished.

He flung Prescott to the ground like a ragdoll, driving his boot into the man’s gut.

“Tell me!”

“What do you want me to say?!” Prescott gasped, winded and pained.

“Tell me!” Another kick.

“Argh!”

Sebastian stood teetering on the brink of exacting final retribution upon Lord Prescott there and then. The rush of adrenaline, the boiling rage, and the intense fury coursing through him pushed him dangerously close to driving his blade through the man once and for all. Yet, it was the thought of Virtue, the lingering hope of her safety, that held his hand. If he were to kill Prescott now, he might forever lose any chance of finding her.

The self-control it took not to kill the man... Sebastian could not believe he had it in him. He wanted nothing more than to tear the man limb from limb...

“Not yet...” He murmured more to himself than Prescott.

“I don’t know… what you want!” Prescott whimpered on the ground.

“You will.” Sebastian grabbed the man by the scruff of the neck and dragged him from the kitchen.

He hauled Prescott through the house, the lord now too battered to offer any resistance. Once outside, Sebastian hoisted him with one arm and hurled him across the dirt, where he landed in a crumpled heap.

Free from Sebastian’s clutches, Prescott scrambled to his knees and tried to crawl away, but Sebastian delivered a sharp kick into his back, which had the lord eating a mouthful of dirt.

“Come here.” He lifted Prescott to his knees from his collar. Then he held the point of his saber to the man’s trembling throat. Sebastian could not imagine how he must have looked. No mask—his scarred face red and sweaty and callous. Bloodshot eyes. Body heaving from exhaustion. It was no wonder Prescott looked at him like he was a monster come to life.

“Please...” Lord Prescott begged.

“It was you who sent those letters,” Sebastian snarled as he dug the tip of his sword into the lord’s neck.

“It was—but I apologized for that! I confessed to Virtue and sought her forgiveness. I was wrong!”