She’d harbored a girlish infatuation for Toby but had forgotten him quickly enough when Jeremy captured her heart last autumn. For years, Lucy Waltham Trescott had dogged their annual hunting excursions at Henry Waltham’s estate. Toby made eye contact with his friend’s wife across the ballroom, as she weaved through the crush of guests. He had no intention of reconciling with Grayson, publicly or otherwise. “Because if you waited a few months she’d be too round?” Eager to change the subject, Toby clapped his friend on the shoulder. Why do you think Lucy and I planned a ball so early in the Season?” Best to make your public reconciliation now and quell the gossip. Gray’s bringing out his younger sister this year, and they’ll be at every major social event. “Listen, you’re bound to meet with them at some point. “You ought to rise above it.” Jeremy lowered his voice. So long as I have the devil’s own reputation, I might as well live up to it.” “Well, if you didn’t want scandal, you shouldn’t have invited me. If you turn it into scandal-sheet fodder, I’ll take you into the garden and gut you myself.” “Even if you could do it,” his friend said tersely, “you’re not going to do it. He’s the thieving bastard who seduced my intended bride. What isn’t he? If you listen to the talk, Sir Benedict’s a shipping financier, a West Indian planter, a feared privateer, a paragon of valor …” Toby shook his head. He’s the legitimate nephew of a duchess.” Where did honor and decency get me, I ask you? Jilted, and replaced by a thieving, unprincipled bastard.” “Don’t you read the papers, Jem? That affable Sir Toby is a phantom of the past, and good riddance to him. “Why not? You don’t think I have it in me?” Toby gave a bitter laugh. “I could call him out and shoot him dead tonight, in your garden.”

“I could call him out,” he murmured behind the glass.

Toby accepted the drink and downed a quick, blistering swallow. Here, have a brandy.” His host, Jeremy Trescott, the Earl of Kendall, extended a glass. The scoundrel who’d stolen Toby’s bride, his future, and his very respectability, then returned to a bloody hero’s welcome.

“So that’s him.” Toby glared at the man twirling a fair-haired beauty across the gleaming parquet-Benedict “Gray” Grayson. He called every man friend, and no man enemy. As a gentleman of rank, wealth, and unarguable good looks, he’d never received a slight he couldn’t simply laugh off. Failing that, an act of barbarous incivility.īy nature, Toby wasn’t one to hold a grudge. Sir Tobias Aldridge was contemplating an act of cold-blooded murder.

Tessa dare a lady of persuasion