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“May I speak to you?”
“Of course,” he said, standing up. “Forgive me, Mama. Emma.” He gave her a warm smile, and his heart lurched when she beamed back at him.
She was so beautiful in a cream dress with pearls decorating the top.
When he and Preston reached the other side of the room and stood next to the window, Preston swallowed hard. “I…have to tell someone… I learned something…something that makes me want to take a cricket bat and smash everything to pieces.”
“What?” Sebastian looked carefully into Preston’s face. He was incredibly distressed. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, and lines of grief bracketed his mouth. He was thinner and at the same time looked puffier than before, which told Sebastian his friend indulged in heavy drinking daily.
“Not everything. Everything belonging to one man.”
“Who?”
“Lord Neville Beckett.”
“Miss Penelope’s father? The baron?”
Preston nodded, looking out the window. “The very same.”
“Why?”
“Do you recall Tyche?”
“The club on St. James’s. Yes, of course.”
Tyche was a gentlemen’s club and a notorious gaming hell. Even though it was for aristocrats, it was run by the very ungentlemanlike Solomon Eastbourne, and everyone knew not to cross him. It was a place where the best investments were discussed, deals were done by handshake, and the most outrageous bets were placed on card games.
Preston nodded. “Me, too. Shortly before his death, Spencer told me he thought he saw someone following him, though he never managed to get a proper look at the person.”
Sebastian nodded, remembering his conversation with Grandhampton in the boxing ring.
“And then two weeks ago,” Preston continued, “a servant at Tyche approached me and told me that before Spencer’s death, Lord Neville Beckett had been talking with an important lord about roughing up Spencer… Teaching him a lesson.”
Sebastian blinked. “Roughing up Grandhampton?”
“Yes. Apparently, Lord Neville was concerned that a disreputable rake like Spencer would never marry his daughter, only ruin her. And knowing how much he needed a good match for her and a rich husband…”
“But surely Grandhampton, being a duke, should not have been a concern. And anyway, he did want to marry her, as you well know.”
Preston scoffed. “I guess no one mentioned that to Lord Beckett. The servant wrote and signed a statement where he gives his account of the conversation he overheard. The statement says Lord Beckett ordered thugs to rough up Spencer. And, as you know, things got out of control…”
And Grandhampton died…
“Devil it, Preston, so it was Lord Beckett’s men that beat Spencer up and…killed him.”
Preston nodded slowly. Sebastian had never seen him like this. His eyes were dead. “I’m going to avenge my brother. The only thing that matters now in my life is avenging Spencer’s death. Penelope is at fault, too. Had she not flirted with him, leading him on like that, he wouldn’t have been encouraged. I have no doubt all she wanted was his money. Everybody knows Lord Beckett is a terrible gambler with debts all over London. Most of all, in Tyche.”
It was, perhaps, because of the wedding, the fact that Sebastian was so happy—he was a different man now, a man who knew how love could change someone—but he couldn’t let Preston proceed.
“Don’t do it, Preston. Revenge will destroy you.”
Preston shook his head. “I will not be swayed.”
A hand was placed on Sebastian’s arm, and he turned around. It was Emma, her eyes luminous, the color of grass in the early hours of the morning.
“Excuse me,” she said, “may I talk to my new husband?”
Sebastian laid his hand over hers and looked at Preston. “I mean it. Don’t do it.”
