She Kissed a Stranger Before the Entire Ballroom to Stop a Bullet—Three Days Later, England’s Richest Duke Appeared at Her Door Holding Her Last Three Shillings and a Marriage Contract She Could Not Refuse

PART 7

“You are a terrifying man,” Beatrice said.

“I am a necessary one. If I show weakness, the vultures tear this estate apart.”

“And me? Am I a vulture, or am I part of the estate?”

Henry stood up. The chair scraped loudly against the floor. He closed the distance between them, stopping mere inches away. She had to tilt her head back to look at him. His hands hovered at his sides, as if he were physically restraining himself from touching her.

“You are my wife,” he said, his voice dropping to a rough gravel. “You are the only person in this godforsaken city who looked at me and saw a man worth saving rather than a vault worth looting.”

He reached out slowly. His knuckles brushed the line of her jaw. The touch was electric — a jolt of heat against her cool skin.

“Go to sleep, Beatrice,” he ordered softly.

But he did not pull his hand away.

She did not move. She leaned slightly into his touch, her eyes holding his. “No.”

Henry’s breath hitched. He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, fighting a war behind his eyelids. When he opened them, the calculation was gone. Only hunger remained.

Before he could speak, a sharp frantic knock echoed from the heavy study doors.

Henry dropped his hand instantly. He stepped back. The Duke of Keilder slammed back into place like a steel door. “Enter.”

It was Hess — the elderly butler Beatrice had insisted on bringing from their old house. He was still wearing his nightcap, holding a silver salver. His hands shook.

“Forgive the intrusion, your Grace. A messenger arrived at the servants’ entrance. He insisted it was a matter of absolute life and death. He carried the seal of the Duke of Keilder.”

Henry took the sealed parchment and broke the wax. He read the few lines written in jagged script. Beatrice watched his face. The exhaustion vanished, replaced by a cold, terrifying stillness.

“What is it?”

Henry crumpled the parchment in his fist. “It seems Lord Finchley has finally pieced together the identity of the clerk on the terrace. He has just submitted a formal challenge of a duel to my second.”

“A duel? He wants to fight you? He owes you twelve thousand pounds!”

“He does not want to fight me. He is challenging regarding the reputation of an unmarried woman on the terrace of the Dansbury estate. If I decline, he takes the story to the papers. He ruins you, and by extension, the Keilder name.”

“He cannot prove anything. We are married now.”

“He does not need to prove it. A rumor of an illicit affair before the marriage is enough to poison your sister’s prospects forever. This is blackmail. He wants his debt forgiven, or he burns your family to the ground.”

Beatrice felt the blood roar in her ears. The safety she had traded her life for was an illusion. Finchley was a cornered rat, and he was chewing through the floorboards.

“What are you going to do?”

Henry walked over to a heavy wooden cabinet in the corner of the room. He unlocked it with a small brass key. Inside lay a pair of gleaming silver-chased dueling pistols sitting on dark velvet.

“I am going to kill him.”

The dawn was an ugly bruised purple bleeding over the skeletal trees of Hampstead Heath. The fog was thick, rolling over the wet grass like smoke. Henry stood perfectly still in a heavy black greatcoat, staring into the mist. Twenty paces away stood Lord Finchley — shivering, his face a sickly pale green, looking like a man who had sobered up entirely too late to realize the magnitude of his mistake.

Fifty yards away, hidden in the dense treeline, sat a closed carriage with the Keilder crest.

Inside the carriage, Beatrice gripped the leather window strap so tightly her knuckles were white. She had refused to stay home. She had threatened to walk to Hampstead Heath if Henry did not take her. He had forbidden her to step out of the carriage, but she was there.

“You are a fool,” she muttered to the empty carriage. “A supreme, arrogant fool.”

She was not talking about Finchley.

Henry did not need to duel. He had the money to crush Finchley a hundred times over. He could have bought the magistrate, bought the papers, bought the entire damn city to keep the rumor quiet. But Henry was a creature of absolute control. Finchley had threatened the one thing Henry had sworn to protect. Beatrice’s safety. The ledger of Henry’s life demanded a zero balance, and Finchley was a bloody red mark.

The seconds stepped forward. They examined the pistols. Finchley looked terrified. Henry looked like a statue carved from obsidian.

“Gentlemen,” the estate manager called out, his voice muffled by the heavy air. “Take your marks.”

Henry and Finchley turned their backs to each other.

“One.” They took a step.

“Two.” Beatrice could not breathe.

“Three.” They turned.

Finchley, panicked and rushing, raised his pistol and fired instantly. The crack of the gunshot ripped through the quiet morning. The bullet tore through the air. It clipped the shoulder of Henry’s greatcoat, sending a small spray of black wool flying.

Henry did not even flinch.

He raised his own pistol, his arm perfectly straight, his aim locked entirely on Finchley’s chest.

Finchley dropped his smoking gun. He fell to his knees in the wet grass, holding his hands up. “Wait! No! Wait!” He was sobbing.

Henry cocked the hammer.

Beatrice threw open the carriage door and hit the wet ground running.