Chapter 25
When Letitia heard footsteps on the stairs outside her prison, she raised the flagon over her head and tried to convince herself that it was a more effective weapon.
Peter had left in such a huff yesterday that he forgot to take the basket with him, which had contained a small metal flagon of ale.
She left the liquid in it so it would have some extra heft.
Neither of his options was acceptable to her. She would not remain a prisoner here forever. And she would never agree to give herself to him.
So, she would fight her way out. And if he hurt her, overpowered her, or even killed her... So be it. At least she would know she had tried.
She stood behind the door with her makeshift cudgel as the lock rattled for longer than it should have taken to turn a key.
Goodness, was he drunk? She could not decide if that was a good thing or a bad one.
It would make him easier to fight off, perhaps, but it would also make him even more unpredictable.
Eventually, the door opened, and he stepped through. She waited until he cleared the doorway, then surged forward, swinging as hard as she could, and—
“Lord above, Letty! What...?”
She dropped the flagon in the very last second before she brought it down atop Ezra’s skull.
“Oh, dear God,” she cried, the words spilling out of her even as her mind raced to catch up with what was happening. “You are here, you are here.”
She threw herself into his arms. He caught her, of course. He always had.
She had been furious with herself this past week, furious that she had taken his protection so for granted, furious that she had ever let herself even remotely think that he was similar to Peter.
They were as different as night and day, and if she had only seen that sooner, then she wouldn’t have gotten herself into this situation.
But he had come for her. It had not mattered that she had pushed him away. It had not mattered that she was in another country. He had come for her.
“Ezra,” she whispered into his neck, clinging to him with all her might.
“Letty,” he said back, holding on just as tightly. “Letty, my love. You’re all right. You’re all right.”
Her laugh sounded rather hysterical.
“I am now,” she said.
He pulled her back just so he could look at her, his gaze searching as he examined every inch of her for signs of injury.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded. “What did he do to you? God, if he hurt you, I will kill him, I swear it.”
A polite clearing of a throat interrupted them, and Letitia realized—to her amazement and horror—that the Duke of Godwin was standing in the threshold.
It occurred to her that she might be dreaming.
She might have worried about that, if not for the solid, perfect feel of Ezra’s shoulders beneath her fingertips.
No dream was that good. Also, she simply did not believe that her sleeping mind would ever come up with anything as bizarre as the Duke of Godwin coming to her rescue.
“It is lovely to see you, Miss Knightley,” he said politely. “But I do think it best if we take our leave before we have any… unwanted company.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry yourself too much about that, my dear duke.”
Letitia cursed the gods of bad timing when she heard him, the very last person she wanted to hear at that moment.
Peter looked so very smug as he appeared next to the Duke of Godwin, as though he had won something.
Later, Letty would wonder what he could have been thinking.
After all, it was one thing to threaten her—a single woman in an awkward dress—when he had all the money and privilege, not to mention the key to the door.
It was a completely different matter to threaten two tall, young, fit dukes—who had even more money and privilege, and almost certainly had not come alone, because it wasn’t as if dukes drove their own carriages, was it?
Besides, one of them was visibly furious.
A smart man would have turned and fled the instant he had seen another carriage outside his little hideaway.
But Peter had never been a smart man.
Maybe he had just gotten caught up in his own narrative, she would decide when considering it later. She had, after all. When he appeared, smiling like the cat who got the cream, she felt a shudder of terror go through her.
Ezra tightened his arm around her shoulders.
“I am going to kill you,” he told Peter in a flat, dangerous voice that the other man failed to take nearly as seriously as he ought.
Peter smiled instead.
“Oh, be reasonable,” he said. “She cannot be worth all the fuss to you. And even if she was, she was mine first, and I had to teach her a lesson. You can’t let women think they are in charge of things, you know. They need a firm hand.”
Though Xander seemed inclined to let his cousin decide how to handle things, he gave Peter an appalled look.
“I am starting to be of a mind to kill you myself,” he said so mildly that, under other circumstances, Letitia would have gone faint-headed from laughing. “It would be a service to mankind.”
Peter shot him an interested look. “What, did she spread her legs for you, too? Not a very discerning whore, are you, Letitia?”
“Do not say her name,” Ezra snarled. “Do not even look at her.”
Letty noticed that her fear was quickly decreasing. It seemed that Peter was the only one unable to see which way the conversation was heading. He really didn’t understand the situation, since his next reaction was to roll his eyes.
“Oh, come now,” he said impatiently. “Just give me the chit, and I will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about your father. I knew him quite well, you see, and word is that you have been seeking answers for years. Leave her here for me to deal with later, and I will tell you anything you want to—”
He didn’t finish the sentence because Ezra’s fist crashed into his jaw with enough force that Letty was certain that it had broken.
Peter flew backward, hitting the far wall of the corridor before sliding to the ground with a wet moan that Letitia enjoyed hearing immensely. Ezra wasn’t done, however. He stalked forward—Xander stepped nearly out of the way—grabbed Peter by the collar, and hit him again. And again.
“Miss Knightley?” The Duke of Godwin sounded as though they were meeting over tea, not an increasingly one-sided brawl. “Do you have any possessions you need to gather?”
God, she never wanted to see anything in this room ever again. She shook her head.
He held out a polite hand. “Might I suggest we take our leave, then?”
Feeling very numb, she accepted the offered hand. The duke led her toward the door, where Ezra was clearly considering another punch to Peter’s bloody face.
“Ez?” the Duke of Godwin said quietly. “If you kill him, it will be a lot of fuss. I assume that you would rather escort Miss Knightley home than find yourself in a Belgian gaol trying to explain why you have murdered a peer?”
Ezra paused, his fist still cocked, then let his arm drop.
“You are right. He is not worth it.” He stood, then turned to Letty. His hand was already going purple, but otherwise, he looked entirely unscathed. Peter, meanwhile, looked as though he might never enjoy solid foods again.
“Thank you,” the viscount croaked to Xander, sounding utterly piteous.
Xander’s lip curled, and he no longer looked as though he was meeting anyone over tea. He looked as though he were a general on the battlefield.
“Oh, it was no mercy,” he said with soft, deadly precision. “By the time the Lightholders are done with you, you will wish most ardently that I let him kill you here. You will be seeing us, Dugley. Start dreading it now.”
This was a very impressive speech, and Xander swept off having made it, as though he could not be bothered to sully his hands on such filth.
Letty, however, was no aristocrat. So, as she passed Peter, Ezra’s arm steady at her side, she paused to lift her foot and stomp down on his bollocks as hard as she could.
The sound Peter let out made Letty think he might never be able to use that part of himself properly again. Ezra laughed, shocked and a bit delighted, and hugged her tighter. Xander looked impressed.
“I have always liked you, Miss Knightley,” he said approvingly. “By the way, I also wanted to say—welcome to the family.”
* * *
The bravado that had held Letty through her ordeal began to fade only minutes after they reached the carriage.
Ezra felt it when she started to tremble as though she was freezing, even though he had given her his cloak to cover up the ruined mess of that ball gown she still wore.
She shrank subtly away from him, pressing herself against the far side of the carriage, and even though it stung, he understood.
He kept his hand on the seat beside her, not touching her or overwhelming her, but making it easy for her to reach out for him if she wanted to.
He was never going to let her feel alone again.
The ride back to Helen and Xander’s neat Brussels townhouse both took an age and seemed to pass in the blink of an eye.
Ezra’s hand throbbed unmercifully, but he took a sort of grim satisfaction in the pain.
Less comfortable than the physical injury was the way he could see Xander carefully trying not to peer curiously at either Ezra or Letitia.
There would be questions, he knew—annoying ones.
As soon as they reached the townhouse, however, Letty was swept off into Helen’s doting embrace, and Ezra was turned over to Xander’s valet, who seemed extraordinarily put out by the bloodstains on Ezra’s sleeves.
“These are ruined,” he said mournfully, his words heavily accented by the local dialect.
After a bath and a visit from the physician who wrapped up his hand and ordered him not to use it for at least a fortnight, Ezra felt better, if still exhausted.
However, he made his way dutifully back downstairs to join his family for supper, though he was really most interested in seeing Letitia.
The past hour or so away from her had been too long.
He needed to set his own eyes on her again to make certain that she was really, truly unharmed.
Unfortunately, as Helen reported, Letty had already gone to bed.
“Not that I can blame her,” Helen said, bright blooms of anger on her cheeks. “Can you imagine? Xander, I hope you have plans to utterly destroy that weasel of a man.”
Xander gave a particularly nasty smile. Ezra suddenly thought of Grandfather Cornelius.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I am sure Ezra and I will come up with something that befits Lord Dugley’s crimes.”
There it was again—Xander’s determination to include Ezra in things. Ezra did not hate it.
“There’s nothing short of burning in eternal hellfire that fits Dugley’s crimes,” Ezra declared flatly while Helen nodded in vehement agreement. “But he will end up there eventually, so, for now, I am happy to help you design some earthly torments.”
Xander raised his glass in salute.
They were nearly finished with their meal when Xander cleared his throat meaningfully.
“Do you want to talk about Dugley and your father?” he asked carefully. “The wretch did mention that he had some information that might interest you…”
Ezra grimaced.
“I have long wondered what started that fire,” he said. “And I never thought it was just an accident. But now, knowing that Dugley was connected to my father… I wonder if he was the one to cause it. Now that I have, ah, improved upon his visage, I doubt he would tell me the truth, anyway.”
Helen, who had evidently not yet heard that part of the story, looked intrigued.
“Probably not,” Xander allowed. “But if you stayed a little while longer, we could see what else we could find. You don’t need to rush off, and Dugley has lived here a long time. Also, nobody likes him, so most people are willing to talk.”
Ezra was astonished to find that he wasn’t even tempted.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I do want answers, but Letty needs to go home. She needs to know she’s safe. She didn’t feel safe in Belgium. I need to take her home.”
Helen looked considerably more intrigued.
“Very well,” Xander said. “When will you leave?”
“Tomorrow,” Ezra said. “I need to get home myself, too. Poor Iris will be beside herself.”
This proved to be more than Helen could take.
“Enough!” she cried. “Someone needs to tell me everything that is going on here right now.”