Page 7 of A Very Bellamy Christmas

“You tried to blackmail me,” she seethed.

“If we are being precise, it was Chatham I blackmailed.” Andrew smirked. “And I didn’t just try; I succeeded.”

The duchess took a step toward him.

Chatham hastily placed his body between Andrew and his tall skinny wife, a woman currently, and convincingly, garbed in men’s clothing.

The duchess was not a pretty woman, nor even a handsome one, but she was distinctive looking with her bright orange hair, pale as milk skin, and gaunt, tall body. Her most attractive feature by far was her eyes which were not only a striking pale green but also broadcast her keen intelligence to anyone who bothered to look.

Andrew met his cousin’s gaze. Sylvester, the Duke of Chatham, was a man he’d known since Chatham’s father, the old duke, had taken Andrew into his home when he’d been orphaned at the tender age of four.

For a good chunk of his life, Andrew and Chatham had been as close as brothers. Andrew had idolized and worshipped the other man up until the day Sylvester had married Mariah, the woman Andrew loved.

That had been eleven years ago, and Andrew had hated his cousin with a passion every day since.

“Married, hmm?” Andrew met the older man’s gaze and sneered. “Congratulations, Syl.”

An explosion of white sparks and a crack of pain were Chatham’s answer.

Andrew, suddenly flat on his back, blinked up at his cousin through stars.

“I told you not to call me Syl,” the duke said in a cool voice.

Lord Fowler gave a hoot of laughter. “I have been waiting for you to plant him a facer for years, Chatham.”

The duke ignored his friend’s cheering and held Andrew’s gaze.

Andrew shifted his jaw from side to side to make sure it still worked before saying, “You wouldn’t have got in that hit if both my eyes were working.”

“Where is Lady Selina?” Chatham asked, extending a hand to help Andrew up.

Andrew considered stringing his cousin along for a bit—he’d not gotten under Chatham’s skin so effectively in years, and it wasn’t for a lack of trying, either—but he was bloody exhausted and, quite frankly, the jig was up.

He disregarded his cousin’s hand and pushed to his feet without any assistance. The room tilted, but he managed to not embarrass himself by falling onto his arse for a second time.

“I don’t know where she is,” he admitted. “But wherever she went, she emptied my pockets first.”

Fowler sneered. “She wouldn’t have got far if she’d been forced to rely on that. But she emptied mine, too, and I had enough money in my purse to get her to Moscow and back.”

Fowler was a bloody mountain of a man—outweighing Andrew by at least three stone—and Andrew felt a burst of pride when he noticed the giant baron had swelling over one eye and a nasty cut on his cheek from their little set-to.

Any pride he felt, however, was dashed when he recalled just why they had been fighting.

Andrew was used to being viewed as a villain—hell, he cultivated it—but this time he was truly ashamed of his behavior. He had abducted Lady Selina Bellamy and would have ruined the woman—maybe he already had—if Fowler hadn’t stumbled onto the two of them at this inn and commenced to thrash Andrew for the woman’s honor.

While they had been fighting like a pair of street curs, Lady Selina had rescued herself by robbing them both and absconding, leaving Andrew to face the wrath of his cousin and Selina’s sister.

Was he ashamed?

Yes. But not because of what he’d tried to do—elope with Lady Selina—but because of why.

If he had loved Lady Selina as he had pretended all Season, then abducting her would have still been scandalous, but not cruel. Instead, Andrew had absconded with her to get back at Chatham because he had mistakenly believed the duke was in love with Lady Selina.

The moment Andrew had been scheming toward for years—depriving his cousin of a woman he loved—had finally presented itself. And Andrew had seized the opportunity with both hands.

It turned out he’d been right about Chatham being in love, but he’d mistaken which Bellamy sister his cousin had lost his heart to.

Somewhere between sitting in the carriage with Lady Selina and listening to her disparage his character, and getting knocked unconscious—briefly—by one of Fowler’s Christmas ham sized fists, Andrew had accepted what a complete and utter arsehole he was for using Lady Selina in his ongoing war against Sylvester.