One Dance with a Duke (Stud Club #1)(30)

“Gone?” Amelia said. “Gone where?”

“Precisely what I’d like to know.” Bellamy shot Spencer a murderous look. “Care to tell us, Morland?”

“How should I know where it’s gone? Wasn’t it with Harcliffe’s belongings?”

Ashworth shook his head. “We’ve gone through everything, twice. It wasn’t on his body, either. Must have been stripped by his attackers.”

“Simple robbery, then,” Spencer said. “Or perhaps he’d already lost it in a wager.”

“Never,” Bellamy said. “Leo would never have risked that token, and you know it. You know you had no other way of getting it from him.”

“What the hell are you suggesting?” A cold, leaden weight settled in Spencer’s gut. “Surely you don’t mean to suggest I had some hand in Harcliffe’s death?”

Bellamy only raised his eyebrows.

“Surely you don’t mean to suggest it,” Spencer repeated coolly, “because if you did slander my character in such an outrageous, unfounded manner, I would have to demand satisfaction.”

“So you can get my token, too? Pry it from my cold, dead hands?”

Amelia wedged herself between them. “Why are the two of you so determined to kill one another? Mr. Bellamy, with all due respect and sympathy—your charges make no sense. If His Grace already had possession of this token, why on earth would he offer Lily twenty thousand pounds for it?”

Fortunately someone in the room had some sense. And more fortunate still, she was the one he was marrying.

“Guilt. Blood money, to ease his conscience.” Bellamy gave him a cold stare. “I’ve remembered something, Morland. You were there in the card room the other night, when Leo and I made plans to attend the boxing match.”

Was he? Spencer supposed he could have been, but he certainly hadn’t been paying attention to Harcliffe and Bellamy. His sole focus had been winning Faraday’s token. “What if I were? So were a dozen other gentlemen.”

“None of them had a reason to kill Leo. You’ve destroyed fortunes in pursuit of Osiris already. Why should I believe you’d stop at violence? You knew exactly where Leo was going to be that night. You knew I was meant to be with him. Were you hoping to get us both in one blow?”

“You’re mad.”

“You’re sickening,” Bellamy said. “My gut twists, to think I almost allowed you to marry Lily. And it makes perfect sense, why you wouldn’t. Imagine, sitting across the table from her every day for the rest of your life, knowing you were responsible for her brother’s death. Keeping company with your own damning guilt.”

“Stop this,” Lily said. “Julian, you don’t know what you’re saying. This is nonsensical. We have no reason to believe that missing token had anything to do with Leo’s death. And simply because His Grace declined to—”

Bellamy ignored her. “Couldn’t stand the thought of it, could you? No, you’d sooner pay Lily off.” He jerked his chin toward Amelia. “And shackle yourself to the first available female just to settle the matter.”

It had been fourteen years since Spencer had lashed out at a man in a moment of blinding white fury—but he hadn’t forgotten how to land a punch. His knuckles made a satisfying thwack as they connected with Bellamy’s jaw, sending the man sprawling. The bank draft fluttered to the carpet as Bellamy struggled to his feet.

Spencer hauled back his fist for another punch, but before he could swing, Beauvale leapt forward to grab his arm.

“You see?” accused Bellamy, rubbing his jaw. “He’s dangerous. He wants to kill me, too.”

“I do now,” Spencer ground out. He shrugged out of Beauvale’s grip.

“And need we guess who’s next? Everyone knows what you did to Ashworth at Eton.”

“Oh, do they?” Spencer turned to the soldier. “And what, precisely, did I do to Ashworth at Eton?” Damn it, he’d been sent down for that fight. He’d tacitly accepted all the blame. The blackguard had better not sell him out at his own wedding.

Ashworth shrugged. “Obviously something less than killing me.”

“Julian, please.” Lily went to Bellamy’s side. She touched a finger to the corner of his mouth, where blood oozed from his cracked lip. “I know you are hurting and angry. I know you want someone to blame, some means of avenging Leo’s death. But surely you’re mistaken.”

“Am I?”

The room went quiet. Uncomfortably quiet, as all eyes trained on Spencer. He felt the keen scrutiny of every person in the room: Bellamy, Lily, Ashworth, Beauvale, the curate … Amelia.

She spoke first. “You are mistaken, Mr. Bellamy. I was there when he learned of Leo’s death. It took His Grace completely by surprise, I assure you.”

Bellamy dabbed his bleeding lip with the back of his hand. “Forgive me, but your assurances aren’t worth much.”

The knave. Spencer wanted to grind him into this revolting pink carpet and cast both pieces of refuse out onto the street. But he wouldn’t waste the effort. There were more effective ways of wounding a man. Julian Bellamy came from nothing. In the eyes of the ton, he was nothing. And there was no one so well positioned to remind him of it as the fourth Duke of Morland.