Chapter One



Sir Tobias Aldridge was contemplating an act of coldblooded murder.

 Failing that, an act of barbarous incivility. 

By nature, Toby wasn’t one to hold a grudge. As a gentleman of rank, wealth, and unarguable good looks, he’d never received a slight he couldn’t simply laugh off. He called every man friend, and no man enemy. 

Until now. 

“So that’s him.” Toby glared at the man twirling a fair- haired beauty across the gleaming parquet— Benedict “Gray” Grayson. The scoundrel who’d stolen Toby’s bride, his future, and his very respectability, then returned to a bloody hero’s welcome. 

“That’s him. Here, have a brandy.” His host, Jeremy Trescott, the Earl of Kendall, extended a glass. 

Toby accepted the drink and downed a quick, blistering swallow. “I could call him out,” he murmured behind the glass. “I could call him out and shoot him dead to - night, in your garden.” 

Jeremy shook his head. “You’re not going to do that.” 

“Why not? You don’t think I have it in me?” Toby gave a bitter laugh. “Don’t you read the papers, Jem? That affable Sir Toby is a phantom of the past, and good riddance to him. Where did honor and decency get me, I ask you? Jilted, and replaced by a thieving, unprincipled bastard.” 

“Gray’s not a bastard. He’s the legitimate nephew of a duchess.”

“Oh, yes. And now a knight, as well. Wha...