Shards of rainbow-cut glass danced through the candlelight. One slashed across his mother’s cheek. She did not cry out, but he watched in horror as a teardrop of blood slid down her pale skin.
Her blue eyes widened, and she stood transfixed, almost as if she had been turned into a living statue as she took in her husband.
The duke’s face was a mask of rage as he screamed, “Who was that? I saw you with someone. What were you doing? Have you cuckolded me?”
His words spilled out in a stream of fury, but there was a frenzy to them that was frightening.
Her face paled. “I do not know what you speak of, Your Grace,” she gasped.
His father’s face twisted as he yanked wildly at his cravat. “You cannot lie to me. I saw it.I saw it.You are putting horns on my head. You are going behind my back. We have an agreement and you—”
“I am not,” she cut in fiercely, her hands rising in supplication.
“You are lying to me!” he called out, his snowy cravat now a mangled twist of linen hanging from his strong neck.
“I have never lied to you about anything,” she returned evenly, though her breath was coming in fast takes. His mother’s beautiful face had lost all color, a frightening contrast to her dark curled hair and the blood slipping from the cut on her cheek.
James let his gaze swing from his mother to his father, his guts tightening with fear.
They had always had fights and volatile arguments, but they were passionate. They led lives that everyone watched. Of course, there was gossip about them. They were the Duke and Duchess of Stone. They were one of the most powerful couples in all of England.
Even he, at eleven years old, understood the nature of their relationship. People loved to discuss them, to celebrate them, to imitate them. Women dressed like his mother. Men wanted to be his father. And everywhere he went, people always talked of the antics of His Grace and Her Grace.
The two loved to outdo each other in their eccentricities, and the news sheets were always writing veiled commentary on their shockingly wild lives.
But this was different.
His father had changed.
Always, before, the two had enjoyed their notoriety. The fun that they had, the gossip they caused. Tonight, his father was raging. He was pacing back and forth through his mother’s salon. James always came at this hour of night to read with his mother, but tonight he wished that he had stayed in his rooms.
Her mother looked to him for a moment.
When her precious objects from about the globe had begun to fly, James had thrown himself behind a French chair.
At her glance, he started to stand, to go to defend her, but she gave the slightest shake of her head.
They both knew that his father was being completely unpredictable, and they did not, either of them, know what would happen next.
The duke had never been like this before, speaking so cruelly to her.
He’d certainly never thrown anything or physically harmed her before.
“My darling,” she said, her voice deep with emotion and the need to placate him. “I love you, and I have never done anything without your permission. You know that. I would never—”
His father shook his head, dark hair tumbling over his forehead. He looked confused and lost in his fury. But that confusion didn’t change the fact that he was a giant of a man, dominating the room with his presence.
“Do not lie to me,” he growled. “You cannot trick me. Do you take me for a fool?”
Something wrenched the muscles in his father’s face as if he was at war with himself. “I saw him,” he declared, as if uncertain now. But then he swallowed, lifted his dark gaze and railed, “I saw him in the garden and I saw him sneak out.”
His mother stood stock still, as if she was afraid any sudden movement might drive her husband over the edge.
James leaned forward slightly, adjusting his awkward crouch, but as he did the chair moved ever so slightly. He winced, holding his breath.
“There,” his father called. “You have someone else in here, too.”
James stood slowly. “No, Papa,” he said, though his throat tightened. “It is I.”