Author: Tessa Dare

At the clergyman’s entrance, Spencer summoned the man to his side with nothing but a pointed look and the arch of one brow.

The curate inclined his balding head. “Yes, Your Grace?”

“There’s a very generous donation in the parish’s future if you make this fast. Ten minutes, at the most.”

Frowning, the man fumbled open his liturgy. “There’s an established rite, Your Grace. Marriage must be entered into with solemnity and consideration. I don’t know that I can rush—”

“Ten minutes. One thousand guineas.”

The liturgy snapped closed. “Then again, what do a few extra minutes signify to an eternal God?” He beckoned Amelia with a fluttering, papery hand. “Make haste, child. You’re about to be married.”

Spencer scarcely heard the fevered rush of words that constituted his wedding. In principle, he agreed with the curate. Marriage should be a solemn, sacred enterprise, and the length of time Spencer took to make a decision had no correlation with how seriously he considered it. This wasn’t something he approached lightly, else he would have married years ago. Somewhere in between mumbled “I will’s” and parroted vows, he managed a brief, silent petition for a few male children and whatever other blessings God saw fit to grant them. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

At the curate’s direction, they exchanged simple gold bands. All his aunt’s pieces were at Braxton Hall; she’d have her selection of jeweled rings there. Her fingers were chilled, and irrational anger spiked through him. Why was she cold? Hadn’t the modiste sent gloves?

“I pronounce you man and wife.”

There, it was done.

He turned to his bride, looking her in the eye for the first time since the ceremony had begun. And he promptly kicked himself, because this would have been far more pleasant if he’d been looking at her the whole time. Her eyes were really quite lovely—large, intelligent, expressive. A patient, sensible shade of blue.

He very much wanted to kiss her now.

And as if she’d heard the thought—God, he hoped he hadn’t said it aloud—she gave a tiny shake of her head and whispered, “Not yet.”

With a plunk, the curate laid open the parish register on a side table and thumbed to the appropriate page. Once their names and the date had been recorded, Spencer took up the quill and signed his name on the line. His was a long name; it took a while. After he’d finished, he dipped the quill again before passing it to Amelia.

She paused, peering down at the register.

As the moment stretched, Spencer’s heart gave an odd kick. Oh, come along.

Before she could lay pen to parchment, a commotion in the hallway disrupted the scene. Julian Bellamy stormed into the parlor, followed by Ashworth. Spencer groaned as the two made straight for him.

“What the devil do you mean by this?” Bellamy demanded.

“I mean to be married.”

“I know that much, you despicable blackguard.” Sneering, Bellamy shoved a rectangle of paper in Spencer’s face. “This. What do you mean by this?”

It was the bank draft he’d sent over yesterday morning, as promised. “It’s just as I said. I’m offering Lady Lily compensation in exchange for her brother’s token.”

“In the amount of twenty thousand pounds?”

Beside him, Amelia gasped.

“Twenty thousand pounds,” Ashworth said. “There’s no racehorse in the world worth that, much less one retired to stud.”

“I didn’t base my offer on the market value of the horse. I offered what the token is worth to me.” Spencer turned to Bellamy. “And it’s Lady Lily’s to accept or decline. Not yours.”

The slender, dark-haired woman stepped forward. “I’m very grateful, Your Grace, but you know I cannot accept.”

“If you find my offer insufficient, we can discuss more generous—”

“It’s not that,” Lily said. “Your offer is beyond generous. It’s charity, and I cannot accept it in good conscience.”

Bellamy cut in. “She cannot accept it because Leo’s token is gone.”

“Gone?” Amelia said. “Gone where?”

“Precisely what I’d like to know.” Bellamy shot Spencer a murderous look. “Care to tell us, Morland?”

“How should I know where it’s gone? Wasn’t it with Harcliffe’s belongings?”

Ashworth shook his head. “We’ve gone through everything, twice. It wasn’t on his body, either. Must have been stripped by his attackers.”

“Simple robbery, then,” Spencer said. “Or perhaps he’d already lost it in a wager.”

“Never,” Bellamy said. “Leo would never have risked that token, and you know it. You know you had no other way of getting it from him.”

“What the hell are you suggesting?” A cold, leaden weight settled in Spencer’s gut. “Surely you don’t mean to suggest I had some hand in Harcliffe’s death?”

Bellamy only raised his eyebrows.

“Surely you don’t mean to suggest it,” Spencer repeated coolly, “because if you did slander my character in such an outrageous, unfounded manner, I would have to demand satisfaction.”

“So you can get my token, too? Pry it from my cold, dead hands?”

Amelia wedged herself between them. “Why are the two of you so determined to kill one another? Mr. Bellamy, with all due respect and sympathy—your charges make no sense. If His Grace already had possession of this token, why on earth would he offer Lily twenty thousand pounds for it?”

Fortunately someone in the room had some sense. And more fortunate still, she was the one he was marrying.

“Guilt. Blood money, to ease his conscience.” Bellamy gave him a cold stare. “I’ve remembered something, Morland. You were there in the card room the other night, when Leo and I made plans to attend the boxing match.”

Was he? Spencer supposed he could have been, but he certainly hadn’t been paying attention to Harcliffe and Bellamy. His sole focus had been winning Faraday’s token. “What if I were? So were a dozen other gentlemen.”

“None of them had a reason to kill Leo. You’ve destroyed fortunes in pursuit of Osiris already. Why should I believe you’d stop at violence? You knew exactly where Leo was going to be that night. You knew I was meant to be with him. Were you hoping to get us both in one blow?”

“You’re mad.”

“You’re sickening,” Bellamy said. “My gut twists, to think I almost allowed you to marry Lily. And it makes perfect sense, why you wouldn’t. Imagine, sitting across the table from her every day for the rest of your life, knowing you were responsible for her brother’s death. Keeping company with your own damning guilt.”

“Stop this,” Lily said. “Julian, you don’t know what you’re saying. This is nonsensical. We have no reason to believe that missing token had anything to do with Leo’s death. And simply because His Grace declined to—”

Bellamy ignored her. “Couldn’t stand the thought of it, could you? No, you’d sooner pay Lily off.” He jerked his chin toward Amelia. “And shackle yourself to the first available female just to settle the matter.”

It had been fourteen years since Spencer had lashed out at a man in a moment of blinding white fury—but he hadn’t forgotten how to land a punch. His knuckles made a satisfying thwack as they connected with Bellamy’s jaw, sending the man sprawling. The bank draft fluttered to the carpet as Bellamy struggled to his feet.

Spencer hauled back his fist for another punch, but before he could swing, Beauvale leapt forward to grab his arm.

“You see?” accused Bellamy, rubbing his jaw. “He’s dangerous. He wants to kill me, too.”

“I do now,” Spencer ground out. He shrugged out of Beauvale’s grip.

“And need we guess who’s next? Everyone knows what you did to Ashworth at Eton.”

“Oh, do they?” Spencer turned to the soldier. “And what, precisely, did I do to Ashworth at Eton?” Damn it, he’d been sent down for that fight. He’d tacitly accepted all the blame. The blackguard had better not sell him out at his own wedding.

Ashworth shrugged. “Obviously something less than killing me.”

“Julian, please.” Lily went to Bellamy’s side. She touched a finger to the corner of his mouth, where blood oozed from his cracked lip. “I know you are hurting and angry. I know you want someone to blame, some means of avenging Leo’s death. But surely you’re mistaken.”

“Am I?”

The room went quiet. Uncomfortably quiet, as all eyes trained on Spencer. He felt the keen scrutiny of every person in the room: Bellamy, Lily, Ashworth, Beauvale, the curate … Amelia.

She spoke first. “You are mistaken, Mr. Bellamy. I was there when he learned of Leo’s death. It took His Grace completely by surprise, I assure you.”

Bellamy dabbed his bleeding lip with the back of his hand. “Forgive me, but your assurances aren’t worth much.”

The knave. Spencer wanted to grind him into this revolting pink carpet and cast both pieces of refuse out onto the street. But he wouldn’t waste the effort. There were more effective ways of wounding a man. Julian Bellamy came from nothing. In the eyes of the ton, he was nothing. And there was no one so well positioned to remind him of it as the fourth Duke of Morland.

“You will refrain,” he said with crisp, aristocratic diction, “from addressing my bride in that familiar manner. You will refrain from speaking to her at all, unless you afford her the respect and deference her superior rank demands. Know your betters.”

A flash of jealous hatred crossed Bellamy’s face, and Spencer knew his cut had slashed deep. Obviously the man harbored a poisonous mix of envy and loathing for the social elite. Someone ought to inform him such an attitude was a grave weakness, ripe for exploitation. But that someone wouldn’t be Spencer.

“As to the value of Lady Amelia’s assurances,” he continued in a low voice meant for Bellamy’s hearing alone, “I assure you, they are worth far more to me than your miserable life. Disparage her again, and you will find yourself at the point of a blade.”

“Spoken like a murderer,” Bellamy growled.

With a careful appearance of nonchalance, Spencer bent to retrieve the bank draft from the carpet. “If Harcliffe’s token is missing, I also have an interest in locating his killers. In one hour’s time, meet me at the mews where Osiris is stabled. We’ll discuss the matter further. But for now …” He carefully pocketed the bank draft, then finally had the satisfaction of speaking the words he’d been longing to say since Bellamy entered the room. “Get out.”

“No, wait.” Amelia clasped her hands together. “Don’t leave. We still need a groomsman.”

Unbelievable. Spencer blinked at her. “Are you seriously suggesting this … this cur should witness our wedding?”

Bellamy put in, “After all you’ve heard and seen, are you still seriously planning to marry this villain?”

“Do I have a choice?” Amelia tilted her face to Spencer’s and studied him quietly.

“It’s not yet official,” he made himself say. “You haven’t signed. I will release you, if you’ve given some credence to Mr. Bellamy’s accusations.”

After a moment’s lip-biting hesitation, she reached forward and touched one hand to his. The light touch dissolved the tension in his wrist, and his fingers uncurled. He hadn’t even realized he’d been holding them in a fist.

Wordlessly, she bent over the register and wrote her name in careful, deliberate strokes. After blowing lightly over her signature and returning the plume to its inkwell, she straightened and said simply, “There.”