If Luc had had a sword on him at that moment he would have drawn. Fletcher never admitted to doing wrong, saying that he had cared for them as well as a humble man might, teaching them discipline and the inner strength that they must have to be men of character in the world. Weaponless, instead of murdering him Luc had spat on him.

Then he bought a commission in the navy.

It was the obvious choice. Christos had fled to France, beyond Luc’s protection while the war raged. So Luc had gone to the only place where as a child he had been able to escape Fletcher.

Like Luc’s wife, the Reverend Absalom Fletcher was terrified of open water. And he could not swim.

Now Luc saw nothing of the drama unfolding on the stage below, or the other patrons tittering over his defiance of mourning, or felt anything except the burning in his gut. But at the break in the show he leaned back in his chair as though merely enjoying the company of his companions, and waited.

Fletcher did not make him wait long. Within minutes he made his austere way around the theater to Luc’s box.

“Lucien, what a delightful surprise.” His voice was the same urbane purr that it had been twenty years earlier. A large elegant cross of gold rested on his chest, glittering with tiny diamonds. “Charles.” He flicked a glance at Cam, then at Tony. “Captain.” None of them bowed. Luc silently vowed that if Fletcher lifted his bishop’s purple-gemmed ring to be kissed, he would break every bone in his hand.

He perused Luc’s clothing again.

“You do not wear mourning out of respect for your uncle, I see, Lucien.” His steel gray eyes were stern with censure.

“No doubt because I did not respect him,” Luc could only say. His fists and throat were tight.

“News has come to me of your race in the park yesterday, and of your frequent gaming these past weeks.”

“Has it?”

“Do you care nothing for your aunt’s grief or the honor due your family’s name?”

“I suppose I don’t.”

“It seems you have not changed since you were eighteen, Lucien. It is with great regret that I discover this. I had hoped you would grow to be a man of character, but alas the seeds I attempted to sow in your youth fell on infertile ground.”

Luc couldn’t breathe. “It would seem so.”

“It is a pity. I shall have to counsel my sister to withdraw her support for your trusteeship of the estate during her son’s minority. A duke cannot disport himself as you, and the child must have guardians that teach him well and minister to his lands wisely until he is of age.”

“Since you purchased your way into the episcopate, Fletcher, have you now a direct conduit to God’s ear,” Luc ground out, “so that you already know that my unborn cousin is a boy?”

Not a muscle on the bishop’s face twitched. “I understand that you have wed a woman of the serving class, Lucien.” He shook his head dolefully. “You were never even as intelligent as your brother. As feeble-minded as he was, at least he knew when to behave according to his best interests.”

Luc saw red.

With a glance at Cam, Fletcher left the box.

Tony gripped Luc’s arm, holding him still.

“Gentlemen,” Cam said, “shall we depart? I’ve had enough of the show for this evening and I happen to know a bottle of brandy with our names on it.”

“Two bottles, I hope,” Tony said. “The soprano gave me the most dreadful megrim in the first half. If I’m obliged to suffer through the second half I may go deaf. Then you would have to go mute, Charles, and the three of us could set up a booth at the fair and sell tickets.”

“I will go mute when you do away with that ridiculous sword, Tony.”

“Sword’s been in the family for—”

“Decades. Yes, we know. That doesn’t make it any less vulgar than the day it was forged.”

“Eye of the beholder and all that.”

“Speaking of, aren’t whiskers like yours disallowed in the navy?”

“Got a special privilege, don’t you know.”

“Special privilege?”

“Already told you, Charles: king, Garter, whatnot. You ought to have been there. Ceremony was excellent. Now that was a rollicking good show.”

They were speaking nonsense to cover his silence. Luc was grateful.

HE DID NOT accept Cam’s invitation to drink himself into temporary oblivion, but made his way home. Already in her confinement, Adina was ensconced in a suite of chambers in Lycombe House, surrounded by servants and attended by a companion, and Luc had seen little of her except in initial greeting. The ducal physician reported that the infant was growing as it should, and the duchess was well albeit weak. It was entirely possible, he told Luc in private, that this child might survive. The duchess required rest, however, and not to be bothered by anything other than the most inconsequential matters.

But Luc could not delay speaking to her any longer. As he had hoped, his charade of hedonism had sufficed to draw out Fletcher’s threat: his intention to cut him out of the business of the estate and raising Adina’s son—if it were a son—was clear. Legally the bishop could not remove him as a trustee of Combe; Theodore’s will was inviolate. But Fletcher was the principal trustee and he must hope to gain through it, and he saw Luc as an impediment. Perhaps he imagined that if Luc were out of the way, Christos could be controlled—whether as heir to the child or as the duke himself if the child were a girl. Then Fletcher would control the dukedom.

According to Theodore’s will, Adina now had no legal control over Combe or her child’s future. Given his uncle’s devotion to the beautiful young wife with which his old friend Fletcher had provided him nineteen years earlier, Luc wondered why.

It was time to have an interview with the expectant mother.

When Luc returned to the house, Miles fussed over him like a mother hen. He drew the coat from Luc’s shoulders and held it pinched between forefinger and thumb.

“Burn it. The waistcoat too, and all the other carnival clothing I’ve worn this past fortnight.”

“Thank heaven!” Miles deposited the coat in the corridor. “Then am I to understand, your grace, that you encountered the bishop tonight finally?”

“Yes, but how you know that—” He shook his head. “Bedwyr.”

“His lordship saw fit to inform me of the reason for your atrocious decisions concerning fashion and amusements of late, your grace.”

“I’m sure he did.” He drew on his dressing gown and went to the door.

“The library tonight, your grace? Or will it be the parlor? I have given each a careful survey and I find that the chairs in the library are considerably more comforta—”

“Don’t henpeck, Miles.”

“Forgive me, your grace.”

“I always do.”

“Your grace, I must inform you of—”

“No more tonight, Miles.” He pulled open the door, more exhausted than he’d been since he was lying on a cot recovering from a stab wound to his gut. “I am finished for tonight.”

HE AWOKE IN a cold sweat from a dream of his six-year-old brother riding along the crest of Combe Hill and falling off a cliff that was not there in reality. A woman appeared on the hill, walking steadily upward, her fiery hair catching the sun. Luc called to her but she did not answer. She marched toward the crest.

Arabella’s name was on his lips as his eyes flew open. Daylight peeked through the library curtains.

He reached for the half-finished glass of brandy on the table beside him and swallowed it. Warmth trickled into his chest, but not enough to offset the ache in his side and neck. Miles had clearly never slept in one of the library chairs.

He went to his chambers and dressed in a black coat, black breeches, and black cravat. His uncle, who had never believed the stories Luc told him about Fletcher, did not deserve it, but the Lycombe name and his comtesse did.

Miles minced around him, clearly bursting to speak. But years ago Luc had warned his valet that if he ever uttered a word before breakfast he would discharge him from the Victory’s thirty-two-pound gun into the depths of the ocean.