Page 95 of A Scandalous Kind of Duke

On the street, the horses were stamping their feet after the hazy, too-fast drive from Kent. He told the coachman to take the carriage home, tend to the horses; he would walk.

Rage propelled him through the streets, his usual unhurried pace transformed into a relentless march. He hardly knew where he went or what to do. The only place he wanted to be was by Juno’s side; the only thing he wanted to do was fix everything for her.

He could not. She was right: It was bigger and stronger than he was.

He could marry her. That would save her reputation. No one would dare snub a duchess. But she did not want to be a duchess. She did not want him.

I have booked my passage to Italy. I leave tomorrow night.

How brittle she had looked, how desolate and lost. She was crumbling, and he could not hold her together.

All his money and power, and he could do nothing. He was a duke, a bloodyduke, but one spiteful letter from one nasty small-minded hypocrite could destroy her world and he could donothing. She was hurting—Juno was hurting—and he could not stop her pain. He could not even hold her because he was promised to another woman, and besides, she did not want him; she had made that plain.

On and on he marched, faster and faster, slicing his walking stick through the air. He found himself passing through Leicester Square, along St. Martin’s Lane. He found himself passing a coffee house popular with artists. He found himself staring at a square, compact man, in crisp black and white clothes, holding court before a group of hangers-on.

William bloody Prescott himself.

“Prescott!” Leo yelled, and hurtled toward him like a cannonball, half blinded by the blood rushing behind his eyes.

A dozen faces turned. He saw only one. The circle of artists scattered like goats.

“You pompous, prick-faced parasite,” Leo spat. “I’ll pull you apart with my bare hands and feed you to the rats.”

Prescott stepped back, hands wide. “Dammerton! Your Grace!”

He kept advancing. “You lily-livered lump of—”

“Please. Your Grace. Calm down.”

“I am calm,” Leo roared. “I am completely bloody calm!”

Again like goats, the scattered artists re-formed into a circle to watch, along with a few other passersby.

Leo backed the critic up against the stone wall, pressed the head of his walking stick under his chin, and loomed over him.

“Does it feel good, Prescott?” he hissed in his ear. “To play God with others’ lives? To make yourself the righteous judge of how people are to behave?”

Prescott’s mouth twisted into something like a sneer. “I shine a light on art. I guide people. I provide a service.”

“The only service you provide is saving other people the trouble of having to think for themselves.”

“If an artist behaves badly—”

“Artists are supposed to behave badly!”

Prescott sidestepped toward the door of the coffeehouse; Leo swiftly blocked his path.

“I had to protect my wife,” Prescott said. “Her reputation could have been harmed.”

“If you’d kept your mouth shut and she’d quietly severed the connection, no one’s reputation would have been harmed. But youwantedto expose her.”

“It is unacceptable for a woman to—”

“Poor little Prescott, how scared you must be. If the world changes, you’ll lose your position and power, so you must make sure the world doesn’t change.” Leo stepped back. “You call yourself a critic, but you are nothing but a narrow-minded, lily-livered, yellow-bellied coward.”

Prescott set his shoulders. “I’ll thank you not to malign my honor as a critic and a gentleman.”

Leo smiled. That was, he bared his teeth. “How can I malign your honor when you have none?”

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