“Oh, for God’s sake,” Jack swore. His hands were shaking. His whole body was shaking. “I am giving it to you. On a bloody silver platter. You stay the duke, and I shall leave you alone. I’ll even be your scout in the Outer Hebrides. Anything. Just tear the page out.”

“If you didn’t want the title, why didn’t you just say that your parents hadn’t been married at the outset?” Thomas shot back. “I asked you if your parents were married. You could have said no.”

“I didn’t know that I was in line to inherit when you questioned my legitimacy.”

Thomas stared down at the register. Just one book—no, just one page of one book. That was all that stood between him and everything that was familiar, everything he thought was true.

It was tempting. He could taste it in his mouth—desire, greed. Fear, too. A galling dose of it.

He could tear out that page and no one would be the wiser. The pages weren’t even numbered. If they removed it carefully enough, no one would realize it was gone.

Life would be normal. He would return to Belgrave precisely as he’d left, with all the same possessions, responsibilities, and commitments.

Including Amelia.

She should have been his duchess by now. He should never have dragged his feet.

If he tore out that page…

“Do you hear that?” Jack hissed.

Thomas perked up, his ear instinctively tilting toward the window.

Horses.

“They’re here,” Thomas said.

It was now or never.

He stared at the register.

And stared.

“I can’t do it,” he whispered.

And then—it happened so fast—Jack pushed by him, knocking him aside. Thomas just managed to snap his face back when he saw Jack with his hands on the register…ripping it apart.

Thomas hurled himself forward, landing hard on Jack as he tried to grab the torn page from his fingers, but Jack slid out from his grasp, launching himself toward the fire.

“Jack, no!” Thomas yelled, but Jack was too quick, and even as he caught hold of his arm, Jack managed to hurl the paper into the fire.

Thomas staggered back, horrified by the sight of it. The center caught the flame first, bursting a hole through the middle of the page. Then the corners began to curl, blackening until they crumbled.

Soot. Ashes.

Dust.

“God in heaven,” Thomas whispered. “What have you done?”

Amelia had thought that she’d never again have to ponder the words worst day and of my life in the same sentence. After the scene in the Belgrave drawing room, when two men had nearly come to blows over which one of them would be forced to marry her—well, one didn’t generally think such depths of humiliation could be achieved twice in one lifetime.

Her father, however, had apparently not been informed of this.