Page 203 of Poor Little Rich Girl

“He’s not marrying you,” Noah growls.

“Don’t you think Gabriel should answer that, or do you control his thoughts as well?” Cleo smirks. “Mackenzie knows all about that, doesn’t she? She’s got you all wrapped around her little fingers, just like her daddy. But I know secrets about the precious homecoming queen that’ll make your hairs stand on end. Starting with why she disappeared all those years ago—”

The knife flies across the room before I even register throwing it. Cleo gasps as the blade slices through her skirts, pinning her to the wall near her hip. She bends down to tug at the fabric, aware now with cold certainty that she’s trapped in this room with a crazy bitch.

“You—” she starts, but her words cut off into a scream as I whip the sword from the hands of a suit of armor and rush her. She ducks as I swing the sword at her head. I punch through the wall, raining plaster down on Cleo.

“Restrain her,” the duke yells.

Footsteps clatter across the floor. Duchess Blackwich screams. Rough hands grab me, throwing me to the floor and trying to wrestle the sword from my grasp. I kick wildly. I fling out my arms, not seeing or caring what I destroy. A glass smashes. Someone grunts. The hand pinning my arm is jerked away. I leap to my feet, landing the way Antony taught me, and swing the sword around to point the tip at Duke Blackwich’s throat.

The room falls deathly silent.

“Your move, Your Grace,” I hiss.

The duke freezes. His Adam’s apple bobs.

“Go on. You talk a big game, so let’s see you do your worst. Unleash the hounds, have me thrown in your dungeon.” I let him see my slow smile as I twist the blade against his throat. “You think you’re untouchable, old man. But you have no idea what I’m capable of.”

“And you have no idea what I’m capable of,” he whispers. There’s no fear in his eyes, only a surety that he cannot be beaten. “If you run me through in a room full of witnesses, you’ll never see the outside of a jail cell. But perhaps that’s what you want? To rot behind bars alongside my son. Gabriel will do as he’s told, or he will be convicted of the murder of his beloved friend Dylan O’Connor.”

I glare into the duke’s eyes, wishing I could rip those expressive orbs from their sockets so he will no longer bear any resemblance to the beautiful boy I love.

My blade wavers. “Gabriel was cleared by the police.”

He scoffs. “Perhaps in America. But you see, Ms. Malloy, Gabriel has not answered for his crimes on British soil. I have connections in the highest courts in this land. There’s nothing my money can’t buy, including a guilty verdict. If my son insists on burning our legacy to ashes, then I will make certain he burns along with it.”

It seems weird to stay at the castle after the duke’s threats, but Gabe assures me we’ll hardly see his parents. That’s not the point, and he knows it. He’s using their stiff British formality against them – they won’t kick him out and risk a scandal so close to his engagement announcement, so he intends to party in their castle and make them sweat.

I can’t say I blame him. Turnabout’s fair play.

Cleo disappears somewhere in the vast labyrinth of rooms. She’s smarter than she seems – she must know that if I find her I won’t let her go this time. Gabriel marches us into a large, empty room with a polished wooden floor where several long mats are set out. He kits us out in white fencing jackets, breeches, and mesh helmets, and shows us how to stab each other with impossibly thin swords called foils.

What can I say? The boy knows what I like.

Fencing is a careful, structured fight that would be shit against the hack-and-slash berserker style I learned off re-enactors on YouTube. I struggle to get the hang of it, but I love watching Gabriel. With his white jacket and his dark hair spilling from beneath his helmet as he lunges forward to thrust, I see a little of the aristocrat his father bred him to be.

“Wit over brawn wins again.” Gabriel bows to Noah, whipping off his helmet and shaking out his hair. He grins wickedly as he reaches for a glass of Champagne held out to him by Harold, but his jaw hitches and I see this jovial Gabe is a mask.

He’s distressed.

He’s drinking.

My fallen angel’s wings have been clipped.

I think he hoped stabbing his friends with a sword might take his mind off what his father said. It’s working for Eli, whose light-footedness and ability to read an opponent make him a natural, and for Noah, who enjoys applying precision and control to the killing arts. But it’s not stabby enough for me, and Gabriel’s movements show that while he knows the dance his father has swept him into, the last thing he wants is to participate.

What he needs to do is write a song, but the stubborn bastard won’t do it. I take the glass from his hands and sip as Eli and Noah dance across the floor, flinging medieval insults at each other as they lunge and parry.

“Take that, you crooked-nosed knave.”

“Hah, the point is mine, you treacherous, demon-sired spittoon.”

“Fine. Ready for a rematch, you ruff-sucking rapscallion?”

“I’m so proud.” Gabriel places his hand over his heart. “I taught them everything I know. What do you say after the boys have given each other a thrashing, we take the horses for a run? There’s a trail through the woodland that leads to an extraordinary view of the valley, and—”

“Gabe, this is fun and all, but we need to deal with your father’s threats.”

---