The Duke's Hound Hated Every Woman He Courted — Until a Young Lady Walked Through the Gate
Chapter 10
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"Then explain this." The Duke held up the forged reply. "A letter in my name, dismissing Baron Marlowe's family in a hand very like mine, sealed with my seal, sent by the man who managed all my post." He let the paper fall to the table. "I never wrote it. I do not know how I shall ever make that right, but I know who did.""A clerk's error—""Hobbs, Lord Percival ordered every letter sent to his London lodgings, Your Grace," the old butler answered steadily from the doorway, "including three from Bristol. And it was Lord Percival who stood at the carriage door on each of the 11 occasions."For the first time, something moved behind Percival's eyes. "You are all being played by a girl with a sad story," he retorted, and now the warmth had thinned. "You, Julian, who know me better than any living soul—"Sovereign stood up.It was done so quietly that at first few noticed. The great hound rose from beside Isolde's skirts and crossed the marble floor, claws clicking in the silence, until he stood directly before Lord Percival Ravenhurst. He did not growl. He did not bare his teeth. He simply looked up with the patience of an animal who has waited three years for one afternoon.Percival went white. "Call him off!" he demanded. "Julian, call him off!""Why?" asked the Duke gently. "He has never harmed a living soul in this house. I only thought he disliked women."The dog moved. He took the cuff of Percival's coat between his teeth, very carefully, and pulled.The fine cloth tore from wrist to elbow, and the sleeve of the white shirt beneath fell open. On the inside of Percival's forearm, healed to a pale, ridged curve, was the shape of a bite: five deep punctures, three years old and unmistakable.Lord Whitcomb, who sat on the county bench, rose slowly from his chair."Percival," said the Duke, "in the week Edmund died, you told me you had been thrown from your horse."Percival opened his mouth. Nothing came. He looked at the scar, at the hound, at 40 faces turned toward him in a ring, and the handsome mask came off all at once, like a coat dropped from a hook."He would not listen to reason!" he cried. "A few thousand pounds, a few acres, and he meant to ruin me for it! He would not wait until Sunday; he said he would ride to you at dawn! I only meant to stop him! We struggled on the quarry road, and his horse reared, and that brute came at me out of the dark, and Edmund—" His voice broke. "I did not mean him to fall. I did not!"