Rowan caught her wrists, his grip firm enough to stop her movements, but devoid of any affection. He stepped back, his expression carved from granite. "Clementine, this arrangement is finished. Effective immediately."
Clementine froze, a delicate, practiced laugh escaping her painted lips. "Don't be cruel, Rowan. You cannot mean that. We had an agreement. You promised that your marriage to that pathetic, impoverished Winthrop girl would not change our arrangement."
"My wife," Rowan said, the words feeling strange, heavy, and undeniably powerful on his tongue, "is neither pathetic nor a mouse, and I am altering the terms of my life. My solicitor, Mr. Phineas Talisby, will deliver a bank draft to you this afternoon. It will be drawn from Coutts and Co., sufficient to maintain this townhouse and your lifestyle for the next five years. After today, you will not approach me in public. You will not write to me. You will forget my carriage ever stopped at your door."
The shock on Clementine's face quickly morphed into an ugly, desperate rage. She opened her mouth to scream, to weep, to hurl porcelain vases at his head—all the theatrical displays he had expected from Beatatrice the night before. But Rowan did not stay to watch the performance. He turned on his heel and walked out, the heavy front door clicking shut behind him, severing his past with ruthless efficiency.
From Berkeley Square, Rowan drove directly to Chancery Lane. The dusty, paper-strewn office of Mr. Phineas Talisby felt suffocating as Rowan aggressively slammed the heavy oak door shut. Talisby, a balding man with wire-rimmed spectacles, jumped in his seat.
"Your Grace! I did not expect—"
"Who has had access to my private study at Alvington House in the last month?" Rowan demanded, his voice a low, dangerous growl. "Specifically, who has had access to the locked mahogany desk containing the Caribbean shipping manifests?"
Talisby's face drained of color. "No one, Your Grace. Only myself and your senior footman, Thomas Pembroke. The records of the West Indies venture are secured. Why, has something been misplaced?"
Rowan slammed his hands onto the solicitor's desk. The realization hit him with the force of a cannonball. Beatatrice had not been bluffing. During the very weeks her father had been groveling in this office to finalize the marriage settlements, Beatatrice had somehow infiltrated Rowan's inner sanctum. A 19-year-old girl supposedly hiding in a Swiss finishing school had bypassed his security, decoded his ledgers, and secured the blackmail required to hold a Duke hostage.
Returning to the Alvington estate, Rowan felt a strange, intoxicating mixture of fury and intense fascination. He strode through the grand foyer, expecting to find the house in its usual quiet, rigid order. Instead, he found chaos being masterfully subdued. In the main dining hall, Beatatrice was standing at the head of the long mahogany table. She was dressed in a dark, severe navy morning gown that left no room for girlish innocence. Before her stood the entire household staff, over 40 servants, from the intimidating housekeeper, Mrs. Higgins, down to the scullery maids.
"Thomas Pembroke," Beatatrice's voice rang out, cool and authoritative, echoing off the vaulted ceilings.
The senior footman stepped forward, visibly trembling.
"You are dismissed," Beatatrice stated, not looking up from a leather-bound ledger she had splayed open on the table. "You have been passing letters concerning the Duke's private schedule to the Duke of Bedford's staff in exchange for silver shillings. You have precisely one hour to pack your belongings and vacate the premises. If you are found in Mayfair by sunset, I will have you arrested for theft."
The staff gasped in collective horror. Rowan stood paralyzed in the doorway. Pembroke had been in his employ for 3 years. Rowan had suspected a leak, but he had never been able to prove it. Beatatrice had been in the house for less than 24 hours and was already surgically removing his vulnerabilities.
She finally looked up, her dark eyes locking onto Rowan standing in the threshold. A terrifying, knowing smirk played at the corners of her mouth. She dismissed the staff with a wave of her hand, leaving the two of them entirely alone in the massive hall. Rowan walked slowly toward her, feeling the magnetic, dangerous pull of her gravity. He stopped inches away, looking down at the ledger. It was his private household accounts.
"Lady Clementine has been dealt with," Rowan said, his voice dropping to a husky whisper. "Pembroke is gone. What else did Josiah Gable teach you, Beatatrice?"
She closed the ledger with a sharp snap. "He taught me how to clean a house, husband. Now we must prepare. Tonight is the Duke of Wellington's victory ball at Apsley House, and London is eager to see the tamed beast."
Apsley House was a blazing beacon of extreme wealth and aristocratic excess. The grand ballroom, illuminated by thousands of beeswax candles in massive crystal chandeliers, was packed with the most influential figures of the British Empire. The air was thick with the scent of expensive French perfumes, roasted meats, and the sharp underlying tension of high society gossip. Everyone had expected the Duke of Alvington to arrive alone, leaving his pathetic new bride weeping in a country manor.
When the massive gilded doors swung open, the entire ballroom fell into a stunned, breathless silence. Rowan Montgomery stepped into the light, looking every inch the ruthless predator the ton knew him to be, dressed in severe black evening wear. But it was the woman on his arm that caused monocles to drop and fans to flutter in sheer disbelief.
Beatatrice did not wear the pastel pinks or virginal whites expected of a newlywed debutante. She wore a scandalous, plunging gown of dark emerald silk that clung to her curves like liquid glass, adorned only by the massive Montgomery diamonds resting against her collarbone. She did not cower. She did not look at the floor. She surveyed the room with the cold, predatory gaze of a queen inspecting her subjects. And Rowan... Rowan could not take his eyes off her.
The society matrons whispered furiously behind their feathered fans. The Duke was not merely tolerating his wife. He looked entirely, violently possessed by her. The possessive grip of his hand on her waist, the dark, burning intensity in his storm-gray eyes as he looked down at her. It was a scandalous display of raw, unfiltered desire.