Chapter Twenty-One #2
A door opened at his back. Every sense Drake possessed snapped awake at once.
His spine tightened despite the ropes, pulse spiking, breath going shallow.
Footsteps padded over, unhurried. A man came into view, crouching before him.
His memory had no space for this man. Nothing. Not even a flicker of recognition.
“I never thought she’d get entangled with someone like you,” the man said mildly.
Drake’s jaw clenched. “Where’s Violet?”
“Ah, yes. You know her as Violet. I know her as Evangeline.”
“And who the devil are you?” Drake growled. “Except a tiny cockchafer in need of a thrashing.”
“Me?” A slow smile spread across the man’s face. “I’m Percival Horace, the Earl of Bramblewick, Evangeline’s fiancé.”
Her bloody what?
The word struck him cold and hot all at once—ice down his spine, heat flaring sharp and sudden in his chest. His mind, however, rejected the claim outright, batting it aside like a poorly aimed blow.
Yet at the same time, a treacherous memory surfaced.
Their last conversation about secrets. The ones that could ruin the relationship between lovers.
But they weren’t lovers.
Who are you still trying to fool, you arse? They had been lovers, damn it. They had been since the moment he’d kissed her in her courtyard. He had simply been too much of a fool to realize the bloody truth. Was this what she had meant? Why she had changed her mind? An engagement?
No.
He would not accept it. Could not. Violet was not the sort to dally with a man while promised to another. She was fire and principle both. Whatever this was, it stank of manipulation, calculation.
“That’s rot,” Drake said flatly. “And if you expect me to believe it, you take me for a greater fool than I am.”
Percival regarded him for a long moment. “I did not take you for a man who clung to comforting fictions.”
Drake’s mouth curled. “And last I heard, you were meant to be in a crate.”
“Did you truly believe I wouldn’t escape?”
He might have believed that question to be laced with arrogance had the man not looked like he wanted to cast up his accounts at the mention of the crate. Knowing Serpent, he’d picked the smallest one.
The earl rose to his feet and strode to the wall, leaning back against the stone as he regarded Drake. “You are the fool here, believing you could have a woman like her.”
Drake bared his teeth in a grin, taunting. “I’ve already had her.”
“Yes, so I’ve gathered.” His face turned cold. “I’ll have to fully remove the stench of you from her body.”
A scowl replaced his smile. “What the devil do you mean by that?”
“You are a stain, Mr. Fury. And stains can be removed.”
This bloody madman. “You are mistaken,” Drake growled, cursing his inability to throttle the man. “I’m the stain you’ll never get rid of.”
Percival reached into his inner pocket and withdrew a folded parchment. “Do you know what this is?”
Drake refused to fall into the man’s trap and answer that blasted question.
“It’s a special license.” The cockchafer’s mouth lifted into a smug grin. “In mere hours, she will be my wife, and forever out of your reach.”
Rage flooded every part of his being. “You can’t force someone to marry you.”
The man laughed. “You can’t? How uneducated of you. Marriage has been forced for eons. Even in today’s world, even if the bride is unwilling, coin can still purchase a blind eye. In fact, it’s one of the better things coins can buy.”
“You wretched filth. That will never happen.”
“The only wretched filth I see here is you, Mr. Fury.”
“Well, this wretched filth will bloody rip you apart limb from limb if you touch even a single hair on Violet’s body.
” The mere thought of her absence from his life sent a dark winter through his soul.
In such a short time, she had become so deeply woven into his being that imagining life without her felt like tearing himself apart.
Percival chuckled. “Such theatrics for a person in your position. Do you truly believe bluster frightens men like me? We command the world.”
“You command your world, not mine.” Drake surged against the ropes, the cords biting deep. “Untie me,” he snarled. “Let us see how brave you are when my bonds come off.”
“Why would I?” The man pushed away from the wall and stood over him. “You see, Mr. Fury, you are very useful to me precisely as you are now, bound, helpless, and running out of time.”
“Time for what?” Drake demanded.
“Why, your life, of course.” The man pursed his lips, sudden realization dawning over his dull face. Something inside Drake rocked to a halt. “You don’t know the full scope of the woman you’ve fallen in love with, do you?” The man chuckled in amusement. “How unexpected, yet how not.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t know Violet. She will never suffer cockchafers like you. I imagine that is why she ran away and set up shop here in Brighton. Why she climbed into my bed.”
The man’s face darkened. “Perhaps before the killing blow, I shall make you watch me marry your Violet and then have her watch her own brother put a dagger in your heart.”
Brother.
Brother . . .
Bulldog.
Christ. It all suddenly made sense. Every bloody piece of Violet Sharpe fell into place.
The sister of the man trying to kill him.
Laughter tore from his throat. The little spitfire had known all along who he was looking for, who was behind these attacks on him and hadn’t breathed a damn word.
Betrayal stabbed at his chest, fiercer than the dagger that arse put in him.
Fiercer than this cockchafer’s blow to the back of his head.
Fine. He understood. Would he tell him that secret if he were in her shoes?
No. Right up to the moment she asked him if they were lovers or not. But she hadn’t trusted him.
Christ, she probably thought he’d toss her in one of his dungeons.
“Torturing our guest, are you, Percival?” a new voice asked. A red-haired man stepped into view.
Now this one, Drake recognized. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered.
“So you’re the dog that’s been snapping at my heels since the start.
” Violet’s brother. The Bulldog. Also known as Edmund Thickett Graves, the Earl of Barrowmere.
This close, he could mark the resemblance, and if his memory of this man had been clearer in his mind, he’d have figured out his initial suspicions sooner.
The man’s mouth curved. “You seem rather bitten yourself.”
“Not as deeply as you might think.”
The dog chuckled. “I hear you’ve been keeping my sister company. A disobedient girl, that one.”
“So you’re the reason she fled home.” Drake wanted to rip the skeleton from the man’s body. “Ran all the way to Brighton to escape your charming authority.”
The man’s eyes hardened. “She’ll remember her place soon enough.”
“Seems to me she already found it. What’s the plan here? Marry her off to this puffed-up buffoon and kill me once the register is signed?” Never. Going. To. Happen. And if by some stroke of ill fate it did, he’d undo it all.
“That is precisely the plan,” the dog replied. “A grand fight between you and me.”
“You really should learn your lesson the first time.”
“Yes, well, this was a request from my esteemed supporter. One who helped me locate you, and rest assured, before this day is done, I’ll have snapped your wrists, so you’ll never lift them again.”
Drake ignored the last, and simply taunted, “And who is your supporter? Another dog?”
“Dog? I suppose that’s a matter of perception. However,” the man lowered to his haunches. “I believe you call him uncle.”
Everlasting hell.