Prologue

PROLOGUE

“ H as my brother arrived?” Thomas Pratt, the Duke of Heathcote, swept through the front door of his Mayfair townhouse with all the fury of a general on the warpath.

The butler lifted appeasing hands as if he might block his master’s campaign. “Yes, Your Grace, but please understand?—”

“The entire staff is excused for the day,” Thomas snapped. “Unless we summon you, don’t bother us.”

He stormed down the hall, his dark hair flying around his face, his coat flapping from the sheer speed of his steps, his face a stone mask of thinly disguised anger, wearing thinner with each step.

The servants barely had a moment to bow their heads in deference as the young Duke marched past them. There would be a riot of shouting and screaming from the floor above soon enough, and no one wanted to be caught in the crossfire.

The Duke’s eyes, usually kind but strict, were now furious and tense. Nobody dared to meet his gaze.

At the top of the stairs, a young servant girl was standing at attention.

“Your Grace?—”

“Not now, Miss Miller. You are excused. Everyone’s excused.”

She leaped out of his way to avoid being flattened, as he thudded onward to reach the door to William’s room. He barged in, talking before the door was even half open.

“Do you have any?—”

The room was more populated than he had expected. Besides his brother William, who was lying in bed with an abundance of bandages wrapped around his torso, there was also his dear mother, Harriet, who was holding her youngest son’s hand. His uncle Gregory, the Viscount Bleasdale, was there too with his daughter Emily. There was also a man he didn’t know, who presumably had just finished bandaging William’s wound, on account of the physician’s bag next to him.

Thomas considered his words for a second and then slammed the door shut behind him. “Do you have any idea how idiotic what you just did was?”

“Brother, I—” William wheezed.

“The next words out of your mouth had better be a roaring good explanation for why I received an urgent letter telling me my brother was in mortal danger after an illegal duel.”

William struggled to sit up to face his brother, but the physician tried to stop him.

“My Lord, I’m afraid that it’s not prudent for you to stand up or talk—you need rest.”

“He can rest when he’s done explaining to me what was so important for him to risk his life so stupidly,” demanded Thomas, and the air in the room froze.

The Dowager Duchess read the situation immediately and stood up. “Emily, dear, why don’t we escort the good physician here outside? His job is done, and we don’t need to bother him with our family troubles now, do we?”

“Yes, Auntie,” agreed Emily, once she realized she was being spoken to.

She walked towards the physician and bobbed a quick curtsy before Thomas, then she and Harriet led the physician outside in a hurry. As they were leaving, Thomas noticed the subtle puffiness in his mother’s eyes.

Once the door was closed and the ladies were out of earshot of what was likely going to be very inappropriate language for feminine ears, he resumed his wrath.

“I hope you remember this day, Brother. I hope you remember Mother’s face. By God, I hope you were conscious and in pain for the whole thing while she was sitting by your bedside and crying her eyes out. I hope you remember it forever, or I swear to every Pratt alive and dead, you will be the death of her!” He felt a calm hand on his shoulder. Gregory’s. He had almost forgotten his uncle was in the room.

“Calm down, Nephew.”

Thomas jabbed a finger in the direction of his brother. “Calm down?! Be serious, man!”

“I feel your pain. Trust me.” Gregory let a moment pass between them as Thomas’s eyes softened a bit. “But shouting will not solve this issue. If you don’t mind, I’d rather talk in his place. It might not look like it, but I’m certain it hurts to talk in his position.”

“Good! I hope it does. It will teach him a better lesson.” Thomas breathed out and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course, Uncle. Go ahead.”

“Your brother challenged someone to a duel.”

“Not something I don’t already know,” Thomas retorted, his last thread of patience fraying.

Gregory hesitated. “A duel with Samuel Kendall.”

Thomas sighed and shook his head, pacing around the room as if he intended to punish every floorboard for William’s idiocy. “I warned you about this, did I not?” He stopped and started between words, needing the movement to calm himself, but also needing to look his brother in the eyes. “You knew he had an eye out for you. You knew he could not help but test you, and yet you still let him! I told you to stay away from him!”

Have I been too soft?

He did not think he could have been any clearer, but if this was the result, then evidently he should have been leading the family with a fist of stronger iron.

“I did…” William pleaded on a pained breath. “I did, Thomas. For a year, I avoided everywhere and everything so as not to cross paths with him, but he left me no choice!”

Thomas clenched his hands into fists. “There is always a choice, William! And I trusted you to make a better one.”

“Was I supposed to let him insult me?!” William groaned in pain as he squirmed on the bed.

“Yes!” Thomas threw up his hands. “Yes, you should have! Do you know how many members of this family have lost their lives because they wouldn’t let an insult slide? How many Pratts are dead in the prime of their youth because of this ridiculous vendetta?”

Petulance quivered in William’s lip. “You weren’t there. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“Oh, and pray tell, Brother, what did the young Kendall do that was so important, so insulting?”

William was hesitant in a way that Thomas recognized. His younger brother wore the look of a man who knew the answer would make him sound like even more of an idiot.

“He… he tricked me and made me destroy my last bottle of whiskey… the one I had specially ordered,” William replied quietly.

“All of… this…” Thomas pressed his fingertips to his temples, wishing he could be more shocked by the situation. “… for a bottle of alcohol. Are you addled, William? You must be. You can’t possibly be serious.”

William dropped his chin to his chest. What else could he say?

“Not only will you pay the fine for the duel out of your own pocket,” Thomas barked, “but you are, effective immediately, completely cut off from the family treasury. If you can’t abide by my rules, you won’t benefit from my coffers.”

“What?” William sat up, propelled by the horror of the threat despite the physician’s earlier protests. “For how long?”

“For as long as I say. I am the Duke of Heathcote, and I will not let our family perish due to a stupid conflict that you keep perpetuating!” Thomas realized his lungs were too tight, making it hard to breathe, and he had started sweating as he swiped his messy hair from his face.

“Nephew,” Gregory said more calmly. “If it pleases you, join me at the library. I would like to have a word, and I should say that William needs his rest to recover from the shock.”

Of the stupid duel or the fact that he was now without financial means, Thomas did not care, leaving the room ahead of his uncle.

Thomas sat by the main library coffee table with his uncle, hopelessly trying to release a knot in the back of his neck as one of the servants poured tea. The smell hit his nostrils like a balm to a wound.

“Thank you, Philippe,” he said as the servant bowed and exited the room, leaving the two men by themselves.

Thomas took a long sip from his cup and let the tea go down, sighing as he gathered his thoughts. A library was no place for anger, but it had followed him from William’s room regardless.

“I don’t know what to do with him, Uncle,” he muttered, sinking back into the leather armchair, balancing the cup and saucer on his thigh. “I don’t want him to be added to the pile of bodies. I made a promise to Father. He almost… I don’t think I could ever look Mother in the eye again if he got himself killed.”

Gregory sipped his tea and smiled warmly. “At this juncture, I fear he is as likely to meet his end at your hand as he is at the Kendalls’. I don’t know what has hurt him more—the pistol shot or his severance from his monthly allowance.”

“If you are trying to amuse me out of my anger, it won’t work,” Thomas warned with a resigned attempt at a laugh. “But I thank you for your expert mediation. I might have strangled him if I’d stayed a moment longer.”

Gregory leaned forward to set his cup and saucer down in a more proper fashion. “You are angry because you care, because we have all seen too much violence and can see no end to it. There are lulls, we believe it is over, then… bang —it begins again. I understand your anger, Nephew. There is no judgment here.”

If Thomas had hoped that his uncle would continue to try and lighten the mood, his hope stopped there. As the most senior members of the Pratt family, they both knew that what had happened was not something that could be smoothed over with a paid fine and a few months of financial punishment. The Kendalls were not going away anytime soon, and neither was the feud.

Eighty years of its bloody history and far too many headstones bearing both surnames had taught them that.

“We can’t keep living like this, Uncle.” Thomas grimaced; it reeked of stating the obvious. “This vendetta… It will be the end of both our families. One of them, at least, and I don’t want to spend my life placing awful bets on which. It is not the dukedom I want for my children, nor Mother’s or Grandmother’s final years. They all deserve better.”

“You have a good heart, Thomas,” Gregory said. “My brother raised you well. He might have been a flawed man… stubborn, impulsive… He always moved his hand before his mind had a moment to think—a true hothead. You, on the other hand, seem to have evaded these traits, thankfully. When I said I felt your pain earlier, I meant it…”

Thomas looked at him.

“I was the younger brother,” Gregory continued tightly, “but I sometimes felt like the elder. I lost count of how many times I had to run back home and found my brother wrapped in bandages or with a physician over his head patching him up.”

Not much has changed.

Thomas held his tongue, letting his uncle carry on.

“You don’t know how many times I begged him to stop picking fights with the Kendalls. I have often thought in private that Samuel is my brother’s punishment—there always seems to be one in every generation.” Gregory shook his head. “By the time he died, your father probably had so many bullet wounds in him… he would have had less if he went to war, I reckon.”

Thomas almost chuckled at that comment while he pondered. “But I don’t think William is like our father either. I don’t think he is a Samuel, despite what I said up there.” His eyebrows would probably stay in a perpetual frown after this. “However, I can’t control their side. I can only control my side, hoping for the best but anticipating the worst.”

The following silence was deafening.

“What am I going to do, Uncle?”

Gregory steepled his fingers as if he had been waiting for that question. “Do you want to end this feud?”

“You say it as if it is that simple.” Thomas took another sip of his tea. “How would we even go about that? Sign a peace treaty? You know no one will respect it.”

“Well… there are two ways to end this. One is the violent way.”

“Uncle.”

“I’m just kidding, just kidding! I promise.” Gregory stared down into his own cup. “There is a significantly less violent way. And, as you said to your brother, there is always a choice. It is up to you whether to make it or not.”

Thomas did not want to, wary of the reply, but he asked anyway, “And what would that choice be?”

“Thomas, my dear boy, we could solve most of this… if we arranged a marriage between the families.”

A full three seconds passed before Thomas burst into hearty laughter, having to hold his chest to stop himself.

“Come on, Uncle. I thought we had left the schoolroom games in my brother’s bedchamber. I would like a serious suggestion or none at all.”

Proposing a one-off battle between both families, with everyone forming their respective lines with loaded pistols on the sprawling lawns of Hyde Park, would have been less ridiculous. If there was a wedding between the families, the Kendalls would probably send a horse in a veil or a dog in a dress out of spite, creating another unacceptable insult that would cause another duel and possibly another headstone or two in the graveyard.

“I am being serious,” Gregory insisted. “It is the only way.”

“It is not possible,” Thomas argued, shaking his head. “You are asking for the lions to befriend the wolves.”

“Are both not predators who ought to stop scrapping over the same piece of meat, though neither can remember what bit of meat started it all?” Gregory shrugged as if offended. “I think it can be done. I think it is the only thing that can be done, but if you rather keep finding your brother with a physician looming over him—or, eventually, an undertaker—then I shall not say another word.”

A sharp pain pinched Thomas in the center of his chest. All he had to do was look at Gregory, who had been the peacemaker of his brotherly pair, and see himself in ten, twenty, thirty years, having the same conversation with his own nephews or sons, William a casualty of the feud.

Nothing gained, nothing changed, the cycle of misery repeating.

Thomas moved his cup to his opposite thigh. “So, you propose we grab a random idler off the street and train him or her in the ways of our family then send them off to marry one of the Kendalls? Because that’s the only way I can imagine it happening. There is not a single world out there where a Pratt and a Kendall would agree to marry each other. There certainly aren’t enough miracles in this world for such an endeavor.”

Gregory pursed his lips. “No need for such hyperbole, Nephew. We already have a perfect candidate for a marriage proposal. One who wants this peace and who would put duty above all, even himself.”

Thomas opened his mouth to speak, but then his thoughts coalesced, and he figured out what his uncle was getting at. “Uncle…”

“There is always a choice, Thomas.” Gregory parroted his nephew’s earlier words. “And we are all trusting you to make a better one.”