Wentworth scowled. “It would have been so easy to dispose of you in Philadelphia. But who knew you’d have the most famed operative in Britain at your side?”

Bronwyn’s shoulders shook. “I trusted you! I trusted you with my life.”

“Look at the bright side, my lady. You thwarted an abduction.”

“The president was still killed!”

Wentworth waved his free hand. “Our friends needed incentive, and an abduction was never going to be decisive enough to turn the tide.”

Bronwyn broke into guttural laughter. “That’s not going to turn the tide, you stupid man. Whether you’re trying to preserve your lands or your privilege, people deserve equal rights. People like my mixed-race brother, like my friend Rawley who is a free Black man still fighting for others in America deserve to be heard. You might have shot a man who had these principles, but his values and opinions won’t stop with him.”

“Your brother,” Wentworth spat out, “isn’t worth the seat he occupies in the Lords.”

“Is that what you think?”

Valentine could see the thoughts racing through her head, the signs of self-doubt and recrimination, the fact that she hadn’t seen the scoundrel for what he was, but he could not comfort her. Not now, not even if every instinct in his body was roaring for him to protect and defend. To shield the one he loved most in the world. But he also knew that taking his attention away from Wentworth would be a mistake.

The man snorted. “It’s a fact.”

“So you were just going to kill me?” She wasn’t quite as adept at hiding the waver in her voice…addressing the man she’d trusted for an entire year.

He shrugged. “Accidents happen, and what on earth was the daughter of a peer doing gallivanting to America anyway? Meeting a clandestine lover? Caught in a lover’s quarrel in a tavern?” Valentine cringed, remembering that he had wondered the same at first. Wentworth lowered his gun in a show of good faith, but neither Valentine nor Bronwyn lowered theirs. “Give me the list or destroy it, and we can all move on from this. You’ll never hear from me again.”

“You know I cannot do that.” Valentine’s jaw was hard. “I took the same oaths you did, only I still honor mine.”

Wentworth narrowed his eyes, beginning to sense he was losing the battle. “What’s it to you? You have no leg to stand on here. You have no proof besides hearsay from a boy with no claim to me. My word as an upstanding officer of Britain will stand.”