“He likes to hurt us.” The words came out flat, matter-of-fact, as though she had long since learned that emotion would not change anything. “Not all the time. Sometimes he’s polite. Generous, even. Brings gifts. Tips well. But when he drinks, or when he’s angry about something—” She stopped. Her throat moved. “He broke my friend’s arm last month. Twisted it until the bone snapped. Claimed she had stolen from him. She had not. She’d just—she’d refused him. Told him no. And he did not like that.”
Anthony’s jaw tightened. He made himself breathe evenly, made himself keep his hands loose on the arms of his chair. Made himself not think about Caroline’s arm in Powell’s grip, Caroline’s voice saying no, Caroline’s bones breaking beneath that pleasant, polished exterior.
“How long has this been happening?”
“Two years, at least. Maybe longer.” She met his eyes, but Anthony noticed the way her shoulders trembled. “He pays well. And we don’t report him because men like Lord Powelldon’t get reported… at least not by women like us. Who would believe us? Who would care?” Her voice was bitter now, stripped of pretense. “There are others, too. Girls who left because of him. One disappeared entirely. We don’t know if she ran or if something worse happened. No one looked for her.”
The silence in the study was complete. Outside, a carriage passed on the street, the sound of hooves muffled by distance. The fire crackled in the grate.
And Anthony looked at her for a long moment. Then he reached into his desk drawer and withdrew a small leather purse. He set it on the table between them. It was heavier than what he had originally agreed to pay. Considerably heavier.
“For your time,” he said quietly. “And for your friend’s arm. Tell her—tell her I’m sorry. For what happened to her. And that I hope this helps.”
She stared at the purse, then at him. Her throat moved again. “Thank you, Your Grace.” Her voice was rough. “Thank you.”
The investigator escorted her out, and the door clicked shut behind them.
Anthony remained seated. His hands were clenched on the arms of his chair, and he made himself release them, slowly, one finger at a time.
The debt. The violence. The pattern of cruelty that had been hiding behind Powell’s pleasant smile for years. And Lewis was parading the man in front of Caroline as though he were a prize stallion at Tattersalls. As though he was safe. As though he would not destroy her the moment the doors closed and the witnesses left.
Anthony stood and moved to the window, looking out at the street. A carriage passed, its lamps swaying. London carried on, indifferent, as it always did. As it would continue to do, regardless of what happened in drawing rooms and bedrooms and quiet St. James establishments where women had their arms broken for saying no.
He could not let this stand. He wouldnot.
Powell would not lay a hand on her. Not while Anthony still drew breath.
He called for his coat and sent word to the constables. They would come when summoned. He had made the arrangements that morning, before the woman had arrived. He had known, somehow, that it would come to this. That Powell would not simply accept exposure and walk away quietly. Men like Powell never did.
Twenty minutes later, he was in his carriage, heading toward Grayston House. The streets passed in a blur of lamplight and shadow. His driver knew better than to dawdle. Anthony sat in the darkness of the carriage and thought about Caroline’s face at the musicale. The careful blankness of her expression. The wayshe had looked at him for three seconds before looking away, as though the sight of him caused her physical pain.
He had done that to her. He had sent her away. He had ended their arrangement because he had been too much of a coward to admit what he felt, and now she thought he did not want her.
When this was over, he would tell her the truth. He would tell her everything. And if she still did not want him—if she had moved past whatever she had felt for him during those stolen nights—then he would accept it. He would let her go. He would watch her marry someone else, and he would smile and offer his congratulations, and he would not say a word.
But first, he would make certain she was safe.
The butler showed him into the dining room without ceremony.
Lewis was seated at the head of the table, Esther to his right. Lord Talton, Esther’s father, was across from her, and Powell sat beside him, laughing at something Talton had just said. The sound of it—that easy, comfortable laughter—made something cold settle in Anthony’s chest.
Powell was good at this. Good at the performance. Good at making people believe he was exactly what he appeared to be.
Anthony stopped in the doorway.
Caroline was at the far end of the table, her hands folded in her lap, her expression carefully neutral. She looked up when he entered, and their eyes met for one brief, suspended second. In that second, he saw everything: the exhaustion in the set of her shoulders, the careful blankness of her expression, the way she was holding herself together through sheer force of will. And something else. Something that looked like relief. As though the sight of him, even now, even after everything, was something she had needed without knowing it.
Then she looked away, and the moment broke.
It hurt more than he had expected. He had thought, perhaps, that seeing her would be manageable now that some time had passed. He had been comprehensively wrong.
“Wynford.” Lewis stood, his brows drawing together. “I wasn’t expecting?—”
“I need to speak with you,” Anthony said.
Lewis’s frown deepened. “Now?”
“Now.” Anthony looked directly at Powell. “In front of everyone.”