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“He’s a pig.” Nan’s round blue eyes bored into hers. They brimmed with indignation. Lavinia bit her lip. Cranbrook had dared to pinch and fondle her, a darling of the ton.

What abuses did he mete out to his maids?

She’d been focused on herself, her own woes. She hadn’t considered that Nan was living a kind of hell in Cranbrook’s service. That they might make a common cause.

“Old goat.” Lavinia nodded her understanding. “That’s what I call him.”

For a moment, a smile flickered on Nan’s lips. Then she tugged away her hand, tossed her head.

“Pig,” she insisted. “I rather like goats. Hurry.”

“I won’t forget this,” Lavinia said hoarsely. It was the only promise she could make. She could remember, bear witness. Beyond that, she had no power.

Nan shot down the hall.

Lavinia spun and started in the opposite direction.

She was crossing the entrance hall when something made her stop short. A peculiar exhaustion. She was too tired to cry. And dear God, she was too tired to run. She’d done so much of both.

In her novel, her duchess had fled from her vile husband, but then she’d returned with a vengeance, plundering his estate, demanding recompense.

Lavinia whirled at the door and arrowed back into the house, charged up the marble staircase.

She had been waiting years to tell Cranbrook what she thought of him. That night he groped her under the table, she’d bitten her tongue because Papa wanted him for a client. That night he pressed against her in the library at the Sambourns’ ball, she’d swallowed her cry because she wasn’t meant to be in the library in the first place. She’d been waiting on George, who’d arranged the little tryst . . . and then neglected to appear.

All through the weeks of her engagement, she’d endured Cranbrook’s foul kisses and roaming hands. On the train to Bodmin, she’d let him chafe her leg and take sick pleasure in her fear and pain. All because his money and his title were meant to save them, save her, her mother, her father.

To hell with them. To hell with all of it. She was saving herself now.

Her stomach kicked inside her as she turned down the hall. She passed doors shut tight in their frames, then reached a door that stood slightly open. The air in Cranbrook’s study was close. It stank of him. Cologne. Whiskey. Animal excitement. Rotting flowers. Her nostrils flared.

He was an obscenity.

She hovered on the threshold. The study was dim, the curtains drawn. Her courage failed her. She couldn’t take another step forward, couldn’t keep her eyes trained across the room to where he sat behind his desk. But she could still speak. She had that power, at least.

“Goat.” She hurled the word. “Pig.” Her heart pounded, and she swallowed bile. “You make me ill.” She found she could step into the room, after all. She was still staring at the carpet. Even in the gloom, she could tell it was red, red as roses. Strawberry red.

“You made me make myself ill, just so I could get away from you.” She drew a deep breath. “Do you know what I was doing, instead of honeymooning with you in Fowey? I was gamboling by the sea with a handsome gardener.” She shut her eyes—that feeling of being free, yet being held—it would sustain her now. “I didn’t just abandon you,” she said, louder now. “I gloried in my adulterous abandonment. You can divorce me, or not. I don’t need the bloody High Court to tell me I’m not your property. I’m telling you. It’s over. If you touch me ever again, if you touch Nan ever again, if you touch any woman, ever, I’ll . . .” She made her shaking hands into fists. What? What would she do? Attack him with a cutlass?

She stepped forward, chest heaving.

“I swear,” she said, and fumbled. “I swear that I’ll . . .” She took another step as more words clogged her throat. She felt strangled by them. But maybe it didn’t matter what she said. What mattered was her resolve, her fearlessness, her power. She forced herself to lift her chin, to stare straight at him.

She shuddered.

Cranbrook sat in his chair behind his desk, yes, but he sat slumped at an odd angle. His eyes gleamed unevenly, one slitted, the other bulging. His teeth showed in a yellow wedge.

His face was livid, his cheeks sunken.

Her shudder—it prolonged. Intensified. She was shaking, but she edged closer. Blood roared in her ears.

He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. How long had he been like that? How soon after Granite-face and Tweed departed had it happened?

He’d suffered a fit, an attack.

She stood utterly still.

There was no way she could bring herself to reach out, press her fingers to his neck, or his wrist.