She knew what she was doing was improper. Three weeks was far too soon — she should have remained inside for at least another two months, veiled, kept out of public view, and permitted to see only members of her family. But after her fiancé abandoned her, she married London’s most feared Duke to save her family — only for a hidden ledger to reveal the heartbreaking reason he had chosen her from the very beginning.

PART 7

“It details every transaction you forced him to make,” Beatrice said. “The extortion. The blackmail. The sixty thousand pounds you siphoned out of his accounts into your shell companies over five years.”

Simon spun around from the window.

“What? Father — what is she talking about?”

“Quiet, Simon.” Harkort’s voice trembled. He looked back at Gideon and attempted a scoff. “This is preposterous. Arthur Croft was a known gambler and a terrible investor. You cannot prove that book is anything but the frantic scribblings of a ruined man. It would never hold up in Chancery.”

“Then let us test it,” Gideon said quietly.

He placed both hands on the back of Beatrice’s chair and leaned forward.

“You have two choices, Harkort. The first: you sign a deed acknowledging the debt, repay sixty thousand pounds to my wife within the month, and cede control of the Cornwall holding company as surety while the sum is raised. The second: I take Mr. Pell’s sworn statement, the ledger, and copies of every shell-company transfer to the Crown’s solicitors and to every one of your creditors and correspondents at once. You may choose which conversation you would prefer to have.”

The room went very still.

“As my wife’s claim is now mine to press, I have already begun the second course,” Gideon continued, his voice entirely devoid of emotion. “The papers are drafted. They will be delivered by four o’clock unless I send word otherwise. So you had better decide quickly.”

Harkort’s face went completely grey. He looked like a man who had just been told he had a terminal illness.

“Sixty thousand. Ashborne, you know the bank does not keep that kind of liquidity on hand. It is tied up in investments — shipping—”

“I know exactly where it is tied up.” Gideon cut across him without raising his voice. “I know your shipping lines are currently stranded in the West Indies because of a hurricane you failed to insure against. I know your textile mills are operating at a loss. I know that the moment my solicitors file this claim, every man who has ever lent you a shilling will want his money back before the ink dries.”

Silence.

Only the rain, lashing against the glass.

“You will ruin me,” Harkort whispered.

“You will ruin yourself,” Gideon corrected. “Ten years ago you ruined Thomas Rothwell. You drove my brother to put a pistol to his head in a squalid boarding house in Southwark. Did you think I had forgotten?” A pause. “Did you think I would let it rest?”

Simon stepped away from the window, his face a mask of horror as he finally understood the scale of the trap he had walked into.

“Beatrice. Please.”

He crossed the room toward her, hands out, and Beatrice watched him come with the strange detached calm of a woman reading a letter addressed to somebody else.

“You cannot let him do this. You are a reasonable woman. We were to be married — I care for you—”

She looked at the man she had wept over for twenty-one nights.

She felt nothing. No anger. No sorrow. Only a cold, clean emptiness where the love used to be, like a room after the furniture has been carried out.

“You care for your allowance, Simon,” she said softly.

He stopped walking.

“You threw me to the wolves because you thought I had no teeth.” She stood, smoothing the front of her skirt. “You were wrong.”

She looked down at him — at the sweat, the trembling hands, the boyish face going slack with dread.

“My father died believing he was a failure because you bled him dry. You have until noon tomorrow to sign, or my husband sends the papers.”

She turned and walked toward the door.

Gideon picked up the ledger and followed her. Neither of them looked back.

They stepped out of the bank and into the waiting carriage. The door shut, sealing them into the quiet gloom of the leather-lined interior, and the carriage lurched forward into the traffic of Threadneedle Street.

And then the adrenaline that had carried Beatrice for the last hour vanished all at once.

Her hands began to shake.

She clasped them tightly together in her lap, staring down at the emerald on her finger, fighting the sudden overwhelming urge to shatter into a million pieces. She had done it. She had avenged her father. She had confronted Simon Harkort in a room with a desk and a ledger and delivered an ultimatum with her own mouth.

But the victory felt heavy. It left a hollow cavity in her chest, the exact size and shape of the girl she used to be.

A large, warm hand covered hers.

Beatrice flinched and looked up.

Gideon was watching her.

The cold, demonic general who had just delivered an ultimatum was gone. In his place was a man who looked exhausted — bearing the weight of a ten-year crusade that had finally arrived at its last mile.

He did not say anything. He did not tell her she was brave. He did not offer her any of the things people say.

He simply unclasped her trembling hands, took her right hand in his, and held it. His thumb rubbed a slow, steady rhythm across her knuckles.

It was a grounding touch. An anchor dropped in the violent water they had just stirred.

Beatrice let out a long, shaky breath and leaned back against the squabs. She did not pull her hand away.

For the first time since her father died, she did not feel as though she was fighting the world alone.

She closed her eyes and listened to the rain, safely tethered to the devil in the dark.

The grandfather clock in the Ashborne townhouse parlour struck noon the following day.

Each chime was a heavy brass vibration that travelled up through the floorboards. Beatrice sat by the window watching the street. The rain had cleared, leaving the cobblestones slick and gleaming like fresh oil. She was holding a cup of tea that had gone entirely cold.

Gideon stood by the fireplace. He was dressed for the afternoon, black coat tailored sharply across his broad shoulders, his pocket watch open in his palm, thumb resting over the crystal face.

Waiting for the final chime.

Twelve.

The silence that followed was absolute.

No courier arrived with a signed deed. No note came asking for terms.

The Harkorts had chosen the second course, whether by pride or panic — and left Gideon no choice but to deliver on his word.

Gideon snapped the watch shut. The sharp metallic click echoed in the quiet room.

He slid the timepiece into his waistcoat and looked at her.

“It is done,” he said. “The papers go to the Crown’s solicitors within the hour.”