Her father’s £8,000 gambling debt should have ended in ruin — she offered the Duke her family’s last acres. He refused every shilling of it. What he demanded instead wasn’t her land, or her virtue. It was her signature.
PART 6
Lady Clara, a countess whose husband controlled three vital votes, cornered Lana by the fireplace before soup was served.
“We were all quite shocked when his grace announced his marriage.” Lady Clara snapped her fan open. “Such a sudden affair. Tell me, your grace — how is your father? I heard the most distressing rumor that he had relocated to Bath for his health.” The word dripped with implication.
Everyone within ten feet stopped talking. They waited for the new duchess to stammer, to flush, to break. Gideon stood by the windows, a glass of whiskey in hand, perfectly still. He did not step in. He watched his wife.
Lana did not blink. She looked at Lady Clara with a gaze so flat and unbothered it bordered on insolent.
“My father’s health is vastly improved, Lady Clara.” Her voice carried clearly over the crackle of the fire. “The waters in Bath are excellent for the joints, and the distance from London’s card tables has done wonders for his longevity. I sent him there myself. It is remarkable what a steady pension and strict geographical boundaries can do for a man’s character.”
A stunned silence fell over the room. She had not hidden the shame. She had dragged it into the light, named it, and owned it — admitted her father was a banished gambler, and in doing so, stripped them of their weapon. You cannot blackmail a person who freely publishes their own sins.
Lady Clara’s mouth opened, then snapped shut. “I see. How practical.”
“I am a deeply practical woman.” Lana turned smoothly to the butler. “Bates, please announce dinner. I believe the venison is ready.”
As the guests filed into the dining room, Lana felt a hand at the small of her back, burning through the silk of her gown. Gideon stood beside her, his face a mask of polite indifference for the guests, his pale eyes alive with dark, glittering amusement.
“A steady pension and strict geographical boundaries,” he murmured, lips barely moving. “You are magnificent, Lana.”
The praise hit her harder than an insult would have. Her chest tightened.
That night was a Thursday, not a scheduled day. Lana sat at her vanity, brushing her hair, when the latch on the connecting door clicked. She froze, the brush stopping mid-stroke.
Gideon walked in. He wasn’t wearing his dressing gown — still in his trousers and a wrinkled linen shirt, collar undone. He looked exhausted, yet wired with restless energy.
“It is Thursday,” Lana said, her voice wavering slightly.
“I know the days of the week.” He crossed the room, didn’t stop at the fireplace, came directly behind her chair and placed his hands on her bare shoulders, his skin hot. He looked at their reflection in the mirror.
“I watched you tonight. You took the worst they had to offer and handed it back to them on a silver platter.”
“I merely told the truth. It saves time.”
“It was bravery.” His thumbs traced the line of her collarbone. “I am tired of just Tuesdays. I am tired of schedules. Come to bed.” He wasn’t demanding an heir. He was asking for her.
Lana set the brush down. The cold logic that had kept her safe for five-and-twenty years fractured entirely. She turned in the chair, stood, and let him pull her against his chest. For the first time, she didn’t just endure the kiss. She leaned into it, seeking the heat, anchoring herself to the only man who had ever looked at her and seen a partner instead of a problem.
April brought the thaw, turning the London streets back into a soup of mud and manure. It also brought a reckoning.
Lana was in the morning room checking the linen inventory when the heavy front doors banged open. Raised voices echoed in the marble foyer, the sharp commanding tone of Mrs. Arbuthnot entirely drowned out by shrill, hysterical shouting. Lana dropped her pen, ink splattering the page. She knew that voice.
She walked quickly into the hallway. Arthur Hastings was struggling against the grip of two footmen. He looked appalling — coat torn at the shoulder, face bloated, smelling sourly of cheap gin.
“Take your hands off me. I am the Duke’s father-in-law. I demand to see my daughter.”
Mrs. Arbuthnot stood on the bottom stair, looking as though a rat had crawled onto her pristine carpets. “You will be removed from these premises immediately, sir, or I shall send for the magistrate.”
“Let him go,” Lana said.
The foyer went dead silent. The footmen released Arthur, stepped back, faces impassive. Mrs. Arbuthnot curtsied slightly and folded her hands.
Arthur sagged against the wall, panting, his bloodshot eyes locking onto Lana. Relief washed over his face, quickly replaced by a pathetic attempt at paternal authority.
“Lana. Thank God. These brutes were about to throw me into the street. Tell them who I am.”
“They know who you are.” Her voice was perfectly level. She walked down the remaining stairs, stopping two feet away. “Why are you in London? You are forbidden from leaving Bath. It is a condition of your pension.”
Arthur sneered, a desperate, ugly expression. “That pension — five hundred a year — it is an insult, Lana. Barely enough to keep a gentleman in lodgings and decent claret. I had a streak of bad luck. A minor misunderstanding with a gentleman at the tables in Bath. I had to leave.”
The blood drained from Lana’s face. “You gambled again.”
“I am a gentleman!” Arthur shouted, spit flying. “I play cards. And now I owe three hundred pounds to a man who says he will break my legs if I do not pay him by tomorrow. You must give it to me, Lana. You have access to thousands. Look at this house. Three hundred is nothing to you.”
Lana stared at the man who had given her life. She looked for the father who had taught her to ride a horse, who had read her stories when she was six. He was gone — had been dead for a decade, replaced by this parasite.
“I have no money to give you,” she said quietly.
“Don’t lie to me.” Arthur took a step forward. “You are the Duchess of Ashborne. You sold yourself into that bed. The least you can do is reap the rewards. You owe me. I raised you.”
The words hit her like a physical blow. The shame she’d fought so hard to bury clawed up her throat.
“She owes you nothing,” a voice said. Cold. Absolute. The sound of a steel blade drawn from a scabbard.
Gideon stood in the doorway of his study. He didn’t yell, didn’t rush forward — simply walked into the foyer, his presence eating up the oxygen in the room. He stopped beside Lana, eyes locked on Arthur, not on her.
Arthur physically shrank back, bluster vanishing, replaced by the terror of a rabbit facing a wolf. “Your grace. I merely came to visit my daughter.”
“You came to extort my wife,” Gideon corrected smoothly. “It is a trifling sum, your grace — three hundred pounds, a drop in the ocean for a man of your—”
“I wouldn’t give you three pennies if you were starving in the gutter.” Gideon’s voice was soft, which made it infinitely more terrifying. “We had an agreement, Hastings. Five hundred a year, and you stay in Bath. You broke the terms. The contract is void.”
Arthur’s mouth fell open. “You cannot do that. I will starve. I will go to the Fleet.”
“Yes, you will.” Gideon stepped forward, placing himself slightly in front of Lana, a subtle physical shield. “You sold your daughter to me to save your own miserable skin. You stripped her of her dignity, her home, and her choices. I paid your debt. I bought your absence. You have violated the terms.”
“Lana!” Arthur cried, weeping now, reaching a hand toward her. “Lana, please, don’t let him do this. I am your father.”
Lana looked at his outstretched hand. Only months ago, before any of this, she would have taken it. She would have bled herself dry to save him. Instead, she stepped out from behind Gideon and stood shoulder to shoulder with her husband.
“Goodbye, Father.”
She turned and walked up the stairs. She didn’t look back when Arthur began to scream, nor when the footmen dragged him out the front doors and threw him into the London mud.