Page 77 of The Baron's Reluctant Bride
With delicate precision, she tried each door she encountered, her gloved fingertips barely brushing the brass handles. Most were secured against intrusion or revealed nothing more significant than vacant studies or linen cupboards.
Then she detected voices, so she halted abruptly, breath suspended, and advanced with utmost caution toward a door left marginally ajar.
Beyond the threshold, candlelight wavered, and voices, hushed, tense, distressingly familiar, reached her ears. Peering through the narrow aperture, Gemma felt ice course through her veins.
Her brother sat in a high-backed leather chair beside a desk littered with papers and accounting ledgers. His shoulders were bowed as if beneath an invisible weight, his complexion ashen in the subdued illumination. He appeared somehow diminished, aged beyond his years, like a man who had relinquished all hope. Opposite him stood Thorne.
No longer had the polished host of London’s elite, Thorne now reclined like a predator at leisure— his cravat loosened carelessly, his tailored coat draped across his chair. His expression maintained calculated serenity, yet his eyes gleamed with cruel triumph.
"You affixed your signature of your own volition," Thorne was saying, his tone smooth as warmed brandy. "I trust you shall recall that fact when questioned. We cannot permit your sister to claim duress in the matter."
William's response emerged as little more than a hoarse whisper. "You assured me I might remedy the situation. You swore that if I but cooperated—"
"Indeed I did. And so you shall. By midnight, the documents will be properly arranged. The investors shall panic when news breaks. And our friends in Parliament shall complete what we have initiated. Hawthorne Trading Company will lie in ruins before the week concludes."
Gemma felt her knees threaten to betray her.
"Dozens of families depend upon—" William managed, his voice scarcely audible.
Thorne's laughter cut through the air like a blade. "Truly, William. If gentlemen wish to preserve their fortunes intact, they ought not entrust them to impractical idealists with account books. Your esteemed brother-in-law shall survive the calamity. He invariably secures his own interests."
A small gasp escaped Gemma's lips before she could prevent it.
A floorboard protested beneath her weight.
Thorne's head snapped toward the door with alarming swiftness.
Their gazes locked.
In that instant, his charming disguise dissolved completely. His smile vanished. What remained chilled Gemma to her core, an expression of pure, calculated menace, honed to lethal precision.
Gemma turned to flee, but hands that were powerful and swift seized her from behind.
