“I can win! I’ve always won!” Wildly, he lunged toward Matthew. “I should have been Marquess of Sheene, not you, you rotting stump of useless lunacy!”
No trace of the assured tyrant remained in this shaking, desperate man. The conscienceless beast who had always inhabited his uncle’s body under the social polish was at last naked to the world. Spittle marked his lips and spattered Matthew. Without shifting his eyes from the gun, Matthew wiped one hand across his face.
The scent of impending bloodshed sharpened the atmosphere. Matthew heard Grace’s low sound of distress and his protective grip on her tightened.
“Put down your weapon!” the duke barked.
“For pity’s sake, Lansdowne!” Lord Wyndhurst approached Lord John, keeping a careful eye on the pistol. “This has gone far enough!”
“Be careful!” Grace cried out, lurching forward. “Be careful!”
Matthew thrust her out of the way. “Uncle, it’s over,” he said quietly, trying to stem the building crisis. “What use to cause further pain? Think of your daughters. Your wife.”
Lord John cocked the pistol, the sound echoing eerily in the quiet room, and waved it in the air. “Don’t preach and prate, nephew. You’ve always been a bloody parson at heart. What do you know about what a real man wants?”
Matthew ignored the jibe, as he’d ignored so many of his uncle’s jibes. He kept his voice steady, reassuring, as if he spoke to an injured animal. “I know a real man doesn’t destroy his family just to save his vanity, Uncle. A real man accepts the consequences of his actions. You reached high and came to
disaster. There’s no one else to blame.”
His uncle sneered even as the gun swung in Matthew’s direction. “For God’s sake, spare me the lecture, you self-righteous worm. You think you’ve defeated me. You haven’t. Nobody bests John Lansdowne. My one regret is I didn’t fuck the bitch then kill her when I had the chance.’”
Quickly, before anyone could stop him, he raised the gun to his temple and fired. The report resounded around the closed room. A dull thud followed as his body hit the floor.
Behind Matthew, Grace inhaled on a shocked gasp. He felt her hide her face in his back. Nobody else moved as the hot tang of gunpowder and the metallic stench of blood mingled in the stuffy room. The bluster of Lord John’s final words jangled like untuned bells in the close air.
The man who had tormented Matthew for eleven years was dead. He should feel triumphant. He felt nothing. Numbly, he stared at the still figure lying in its expanding pool of blood.
“Good God,” Lord Wyndhurst said eventually.
The doctor who hadn’t spoken knelt at Lord John’s side. He raised his head and said, “He’s dead.”
“A coward to the end,” Grace said shakily. She broke free of Matthew’s hold and stepped toward Lord Wyndhurst. “My lord, are you all right?”
Matthew immediately missed her warmth. The absence reminded him too vividly of her absence during these long lonely months. Longingly, he gazed after her.
His distraction lasted a fatal moment too long. Monks broke free of his captors and sprang forward.
“Matthew!” she screamed. She whirled back toward him. He dived to drag her to safety.
Too late.
Monks flung his beefy arms over her head. The chain of his shackles tightened brutally around Grace’s slender neck.
Chapter 28
“I’ll break her neck easy as I’d wring a hen’s,” Monks snarled, jerking the chain to wrench Grace closer. Her terrified eyes sought Matthew’s, silently pleading for help.
Matthew felt like someone had punched him in the gut. Cold creeping fear turned his blood to ice. How the hell had he allowed this to happen? He should have foreseen that his jailers would snatch any chance to escape justice. What in heaven’s name had possessed Grace to come here tonight? He cursed her gallant soul, even while his heart filled with overwhelming love. And dread.
“Don’t mistake that he means it,” he snapped, gesturing everyone else in the room back. One false move and Grace would be dead.
He assessed Monks for signs of weakness and as so often before, found none. He balled his fists against his sides as he fought the urge to fling himself on the brute and strangle him with his bare hands.
“Stay where you are,” the duke said to his men who surrounded the room.
“Aye, that’s right canny.” Roughly, Monks tugged Grace around so his back was to the French doors and she faced the room like a living shield. “Nobody follows.”
“What about the lady?” the duke asked.