CHAPTER ONE Sir Tobias Aldridge was contemplating an act of cold-blooded murder. Failing that, an act of barbarous incivility. By nature, Toby wasn’t one to hold a grudge. As a gentleman of rank, wealth, and unarguable good looks, he’d never received a slight he couldn’t simply laugh off. He called every man friend, and no man enemy. Until now. “So that’s him.” Toby glared at the man twirling a fair-haired beauty across the gleaming parquet—Benedict “Gray” Grayson. The scoundrel who’d stolen Toby’s bride, his future, and his very respectability, then returned to a bloody hero’s welcome. “That’s him. Here, have a brandy.” His host, Jeremy Trescott, the Earl of Kendall, extended a glass. Toby accepted the drink and downed a quick, blistering swallow. “I could call him out,” he murmured behind the glass. “I could call him out and shoot him dead tonight, in your garden.” Jeremy shook his head. “You’re not going to do that.” “Why not? You don’t think I have it in me?” Toby gave a bitter laugh. “Don’t you read the papers, Jem? That affable Sir Toby is a phantom of the past, and good riddance to him. Where did honor and decency get me, I ask you? Jilted, and replaced by a thieving, unprincipled bastard.” “Gray’s not a bastard. He’s the legitimate nephew of a duchess.”