Page 88 of A Duke to Steal Her
Peirce himself opened it, looking as disheveled as his residence. His jaw bore a purple bruise from their encounter at the soirée, and his eyes held the reddish tinge of a man who’d been drinking heavily.
“Well, well,” Peirce drawled, swaying slightly in the doorway. “The Duke of Nightfell graces my humble abode. Come to finish what you started?”
“May I come in?”
Peirce’s eyebrows rose at the polite request, but he stepped aside with an exaggerated bow. “By all means, Your Grace. Welcome to my palace.”
The interior was as shabby as the exterior—furniture covered in dust sheets, empty bottles scattered across tables, the smell of neglect and desperation hanging in the air like incense.
“Drink?” Peirce offered, gesturing to a half-empty bottle of gin on the mantelpiece.
“No, thank you.” Ambrose reached into his coat and withdrew a thick envelope. “I’ve come to make you an offer.”
Peirce’s eyes fixed on the envelope with the hungry look of a starving man eyeing bread. “What sort of offer?”
Ambrose tossed the envelope onto the grimy table between them. “Ten thousand pounds. More than enough to start fresh somewhere else.”
“And in return?”
“You leave England. Tonight. You never return, never contact my wife or her family, never speak of what happened between us.” Ambrose’s voice was calm, conversational. “You disappear, Peirce. Forever.”
Peirce picked up the envelope, his fingers trembling slightly as he felt the weight of the banknotes inside.
“And why should I do that? Ten thousand pounds won’t last forever, and I rather like London.”
Ambrose stepped closer, and something in his movements made Peirce instinctively back away. But when Ambrose spoke, his voice remained perfectly controlled.
“Because we both know what you are, Zachary. You’re a man who destroys everything he touches. You’ll waste this money within a year: gambling, drinking, chasing whatever vice currently holds your interest. You’ll sink lower and lower until even the rookeries won’t have you.”
Peirce’s face flushed with anger, but Ambrose continued relentlessly.
“You know what the tragedy is? The only good thing that ever touched your miserable existence was Lavinia. She saw something in you that no one else could see, something that probably wasn’t even there. And you threw it away because you were too much of a coward to be worthy of her love.”
“How dare you?—”
“I’m offering you a chance to leave with some dignity intact,” Ambrose interrupted quietly. “But make no mistake—if you stay, if you continue to threaten my wife’s peace, I will destroy you so completely that tonight will seem like a fond memory.”
The threat was delivered without heat, without drama, but Peirce seemed to understand that it was absolute. His hand tightened on the envelope.
“You think this makes you better than me?” he sneered. “You think buying me off somehow cleanses your hands?”
“No,” Ambrose said simply. “I think it ends this. Finally.”
He turned toward the door, then paused. “For what it’s worth, Peirce, Lavinia forgave you long before she died. Now live with that.”
He left Peirce standing in his shabby parlor, clutching ten thousand pounds and the weight of a dozen wasted years.
The Blackmoor townhouse in Mayfair presented a considerably more formidable challenge than Peirce’s crumbling residence.
When Ambrose knocked, the butler who answered looked at him with barely concealed disapproval.
“I’m afraid His Grace is not receiving visitors, Your Grace.”
“Tell him the Duke of Nightfell wishes to speak with him about my wife’s welfare.”
The butler’s expression softened slightly. Emily clearly had allies in this household.
“I’ll inquire, Your Grace. Please wait here.”
