Page 82 of How to Tempt a Duke

Except it had already been consummated. There could be no annulment.

Then there were the journals. They were no longer Eleanor’s to give, and Charles doubted Westix would willingly offer them to his enemy.

He regretted not having brought the key with him to Scotland. He’d left it behind for two reasons. The first being to prove to Eleanor and to Lottie that this marriage meant something to him. The second because he had been worried that if he did find the answer he sought with the key he would be chomping at the bit to leave immediately. He knew several day’s difference would not matter on his departure to find the stone, but that these few days at Comlongon would matter to his new wife.

If he’d had it with him now, however, he and Eleanor could have searched for the journals and used the key without Evander being the wiser. Damn.

The butler strode down the hall, cast him a curious look, then pushed through the door of the room where Westix and Eleanor were.

“Forgive the interruption, My Lord, but it appears there are two more in their party who have only just arrived.”

“Show them in,” the Earl replied.

That must mean that Lottie and Thomas had arrived. Charles waited for the butler to bring them in and then followed them into the room.

Eleanor’s eyes were red-rimmed but dry, her tears having ceased. She removed herself from her brother’s side and approached Charles. For one tense moment he did not know how she would react to him now that she truly did not need him any longer.

He put his arm around her shoulder and was awash with relief when she melted against him.

“This is charming,” Lottie said in the affected manner she’d always possessed.

She looked around at the stacks of wooden crates and ancient artifacts before her eyes fell on the new Earl of Westix. The smile drained from her lips, along with all the color from her face.

And it was not only Lottie looking at Westix, for he was staring as intently at her, his face equally pale.

“Lottie?” Charles asked, from where he stood holding Eleanor’s shoulders.

Westix opened his mouth and closed it, then opened and closed it again.

Lottie was not so indecisive. She marched forward, drew her hand back and slapped him across the face.

Westix touched his cheek. “Lottie, I’m so sorry...”

Lottie. Charles was rankled. The Earl was uncomfortably familiar with her.

“You lied to me,” Lottie said sharply. “You swore to come back for me and you never did. I waited—” Her voice cracked.

Realization slammed into Charles with the suddenness of an unexpected punch to the gut. He recalled Lottie’s refusal to discuss the man who had ruined her, the insistence she’d placed on helping Eleanor. And now here was Westix, standing there, saying Lottie’s given name when he hadn’t been in London in four years.

Good God.

Westix was Lottie’s lover.

Charles’s hands rolled into fists, ready to exact vengeance for the woman whose life had been ruined—whose good prospects had been dashed by the Earl’s lust.

Without so much as a passing thought Charles released Eleanor. He lunged with his arm cocked back and let his fist slam into Westix’s face.

Eleanor and Lottie screamed in unison.

It was Eleanor, though, who grabbed Charles’s coat in an effort to draw him away. “Charles, explain yourself.”

He let himself to be pulled away—for Eleanor’s and Lottie’s sakes. Certainly not for the piece of rubbish standing before him with a reddened cheek on one side of his face and a blackening eye on the other.

“He ruined Lottie, Eleanor!” Charles snarled. “She was a vicar’s daughter—a woman with many prospects. Your brother seduced her and abandoned her. If he hadn’t robbed her of her virtue when her father died she wouldn’t have had to—”

“Charles.” Lottie put a hand on his tense arm. “I believe this is a conversation I ought to have with the Earl myself, rather than see my scandal aired so publicly.”

Charles’s anger clenched into a searing knot in his gut. “Very well.”