“You may try,” he said.
Three words. Spoken without volume or emphasis, in a tone that made Whitcombe’s solicitor take an involuntary step backward.
“You may petition every court in England. You may hire every solicitor in London. You may fill every scandal sheet with whatever poison you choose. But you will not touch that child. Not today. Not ever. Because I promise you, Lord Whitcombe—on my name, my title, and everything I possess—if you come near her again, you will discover precisely how much damage a notorious rake can inflict when he has something worth protecting.”
The drawing room door opened. Crawford stood in the entrance, his presence a quiet confirmation that the household was alert and aligned.
“Mr. Crawford will escort you to your carriage.” Alastair did not look away from Whitcombe. “I trust you can find your way back to whatever corner of England you’ve been keeping your daughter. Do give Lady Marianne my regards.”
Whitcombe held his gaze for a long, seething moment. Then he turned on his heel and strode from the room, Lady Whitcombe rising to follow with the rigid dignity of a woman who had just been humiliated in someone else’s drawing room. The solicitor scurried after them, clutching his case like a shield.
Alastair did not move until he heard the front door close. Until the crunch of carriage wheels on gravel confirmed their departure. Until silence reclaimed the house and the only sound was his own breathing, ragged now that there was no audience to perform steadiness for.
He sank into the nearest chair. His hands were shaking.
You will have nothing.
Whitcombe was not bluffing. Alastair had seen enough dangerous men to know the difference between threat and promise, and that had been a promise. The courts, the scandal, the investigation—all of it would come. And the man had resources, connections, the ruthless patience of an aristocrat accustomed to getting what he wanted.
Alastair pressed his fists against his thighs and stared at the floor.
He needed a plan. He needed Penelope. He needed?—
“How much did you hear?”
He looked up. She stood in the doorway, pale as chalk, one hand braced against the frame. Her eyes were wide and bright and fixed on him with an intensity that made his breath catch.
“Enough,” she whispered. “I heard enough.”
CHAPTER 22
“Tell me everything.”
Penelope’s voice held no tremor. She had crossed the study in three strides and now stood before him, her hands fisted at her sides, her chin lifted with that quiet, immovable determination he had come to recognise as the most formidable weapon in her arsenal. Behind her, the drawing room door still hung open—the room beyond it emptied of Whitcombes but not of their poison.
Alastair looked at his wife. Chalk-pale, yes. Shaken, certainly. But her spine was iron and her gaze was fixed on him with an intensity that left no room for evasion.
“Whitcombe believes Rose is his granddaughter.” He kept his voice level, clinical—a surgeon delivering a prognosis. “Marianne’s child. He came with a solicitor and the full intention of taking her.”
Penelope’s breath left her in a single, sharp exhalation. Her hand found the back of the nearest chair, her fingers pressing into the upholstery hard enough to dent the fabric.
“On what grounds?”
“Blood. Timing. The scandal sheets, apparently, have been most informative.” He dragged a hand across his jaw. The skin still felt tight where he’d clenched it for the better part of an hour. “He intends to petition the courts. Claims we’re unfit guardians—a rake and a girl barely out of the schoolroom, his words—and that the child was taken from his daughter without consent.”
The colour that had drained from her face did not return. But something else did—a hardening behind her eyes, a squaring of her shoulders that reminded him, absurdly, of a soldier bracing a wall.
“And you refused him.”
“I threw him out of my house.”
“Good.” The word came out low, fierce, stripped of every social nicety she’d been trained to maintain. “Because I do not care what solicitors he brings or what courts he petitions. He will not touch Rose.”
“No. He won’t.”
“You sound very certain for a man who just had his drawing room invaded by a lord with legal counsel.”
“I am certain because I intend to make it impossible.” He rose from the chair, and the movement felt deliberate in a way that surprised him—as though something in his body had decided, even before his mind had caught up, exactly what needed to happen next. “Whitcombe’s entire claim rests on the assumption that Rose has no one to speak for her. No parents willing to come forward, no family willing to fight. If we can change that?—”