Bane Beresford. Ann Lethbridge
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pointed a crooked finger at the young men nearby. ‘They are real Beresfords.’ His whispery voice flicked like a whip at Bane’s pride.
He bared his teeth in a hard smile. His was, after all, the final triumph. ‘Too bad. There is nothing anyone can do about it.’
‘No?’ A calculating gleam entered the faded blue eyes and his lips twisted. His gaze darted to the far side of the bed, to the huddle just beyond the lamplight. ‘Jeffrey. Gerald. Come to me.’
The two young men came forwards. The dandy, Jeffrey, at a saunter, meeting Bane’s gaze surprisingly coolly. The younger cousin, Gerald, known to Bane only as a name, ran to the old man’s side and knelt, clutching one of those misshapen hands. ‘Grandfather, do not upset yourself.’ The boy looked up at Bane. ‘Leave him in peace.’
Beresford pulled his hand free and stared at the two young men with a wry expression. ‘These are my grandsons. True nobility. Real Beresfords.’ He turned his head on the pillow to look at Bane. ‘But whose spawn are you?’
Whose bastard, he meant. It wasn’t anything Bane hadn’t heard before. It barely registered, but the soft gasp coming from somewhere in the shadows cut at him like a whip. The girl. He knew it instinctively. He forced himself not to look her way, despite feeling the intensity of her gaze grazing his skin. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said coldly. ‘I am your legal heir, so that pair of spoiled ninnyhammers had best crawl at my feet if they want crumbs from my table.’ He took pleasure in speaking in the rough tones of his mother’s people.
The old man grunted and struggled up on to one elbow, pointing at Bane’s face with a crooked finger. ‘Think you’ve bested me, do you? You’ve got nerve, I’ll credit you that. I’ve watched you. I’ve got your measure. If you want the wealth and power that goes with the title, then you’ll dance to my tune.’
Ranger, by the door, rumbled low in his throat.
‘Grandfather!’ the young lad at his side said, trying to ease him back down on to the pillows.
His grandfather brushed him aside. ‘It takes a clever man to best a Beresford.’ His laugh crackled like tearing paper. ‘I’m only sorry I won’t be here to see it.’
Bane shot him a considering look. The old man seemed just too sure of himself. ‘I won’t be controlled, old man. You should know that by now.’
As the dying man collapsed against the pillows, his gaze sought out the young woman he’d spoken to earlier. ‘Don’t be so sure.’
Who the devil was she? Bane sent her a baleful glance. She inched deeper into the shadows, but her blue eyes, her Beresford-blue eyes, never left his face and they held a kind of fascinated horror.
The earl’s gaze dropped to his other grandsons and moisture ran down his cheeks, glistening, running into the crevasses on his cheeks. Then he drew in a shuddering breath, his jaw working. He turned his head and his eyes, still wet with tears, fixed on Bane. ‘You’ll do your duty by the family.’
‘I have no family in this house.’ Bane let his scorn show on his face. ‘You failed to be rid of me when you had the chance and they bear the consequence. The sins of the father will be visited upon these children of your line. And there will be no more.’
The old man chuckled, a grim sound in the quiet room. ‘Cocksure, aren’t you. And proud. Yet you hold the losing hand.’
The wry amusement gave Bane pause. Intimidation. The old man excelled at terrifying those weaker than himself. Bane was not his or anyone else’s victim. He’d made himself too strong to be any man’s punching bag. He leaned over, speaking only for the old man to hear. ‘You forget, it will all be within my control. My only regret is that you won’t see the desecration of your family name.’ He flicked a glance at his cousins, the coolly insolent one who hid his true nature from the world and the half-scared boy. ‘It would do them good to work at some low honest task for their bread.’
The old man groaned, but there was something odd in his tone, as if he wasn’t so much in agony, but stifling amusement. ‘You think you are such a cold devil,’ he muttered. ‘I will be sorry to miss the heat of your anger.’
Bane drew back, searching that vindictive face. ‘What have you done?’
‘You’ll see.’
A resounding crack of thunder split the air at the same time as lightning flickered around the room. The storm’s last violent convulsion.
Ranger howled. The old man jerked upright in that wild blue light, the colour draining from his face, from his clothing, from the twisted hand clutching his throat. He sank back with a sigh.
The kneeling boy uttered a cry of despair. Jeffrey leaned over and felt for his pulse. Mrs Hampton rushed forwards. The tall girl remained where she was, a hand flat across her mouth, her eyes wide.
Bane curled his lip as he looked down on the empty shell of what had once been a man who had wielded his power to harm the innocent.
Bane was the earl now. And to hell with the Beresfords.
He spared a last glance for those gathering close around the bed and shrugged. Let them weep and wail at the old man’s passing. It was of no import to him.
Weariness swept through him. After travelling hard for three days, he needed a bath and a good night’s sleep. He had a great deal to do on the morrow if he was to set his plans in motion. He had debts to pay and a coalmine to purchase.
As he turned to leave, he caught sight of the young woman hanging back, her expression one of distaste. What mischief had the old man planned for her? Nothing his grandfather could do from beyond the grave could harm Bane. But he did not like to think of yet another innocent female destroyed by his machinations.
Unless she wasn’t as innocent as she appeared. Was anyone in this family innocent? It was hard to think so. And if she wasn’t, then Bane was more than a match for her, too.
He snapped his fingers for Ranger and headed down the corridor, hoping like hell he could find the way back through the maze of passages to his assigned chamber.
While the family members hovered and wept around the body of the old earl, Mary made good her escape. Her brain whirled. Her stomach cramped. And she ran like a cowardly rabbit.
When she’d been invited to meet her benefactor, the man she’d recently learned had paid for her schooling, her every meal, for most of her life, she had wondered—no, truly, she had dreamed that at last some family member, some distant relative, had decided to claim her as their own. A childhood fantasy finally fulfilled.
She’d certainly had no idea that the man was at death’s door until the butler guided her into that room earlier this evening. And when she’d asked her question with breathless hope and seen the surprise in those watery blue eyes and the wry twist to his lips, she’d felt utterly foolish.
Was she a member of his family? The answer had been a flat no.
Sally Ladbrook had been right. The man had viewed her as a good work, a charitable impulse, and was looking for recognition before he met his end. Unless he intended to impose the obligation on his heir.
She shivered. Just the thought of the new earl’s overwhelmingly menacing presence in that room made her heart race and her knees tremble. She’d been transfixed by the sheer male strength of him, while he had stood in the shadows as still as death.
She halted at the end of the corridor and glanced back. A sliver of light spilling on to the runner revealed the location of that horrid room. Never in her life had she witnessed anything so morbid. She rubbed at her jaw, trying to erase the sensation of cold papery fingers on her skin and shuddered.
To make it worse, once the heir had stepped out of the shadows, the hatred in the room had been palpable. Like hot oil on metal, hissing and spitting first from one direction and then another, scalding wherever it landed.
And the man. The new earl. So dark. So unexpectedly large, even