Chapter 48

***Fitz POV***

After informing my brother I was cutting him loose, I found myself in a fistfight on the bank of the Thames that left me a bloodied mess.

My downfall began after finding him drunk and on the verge of being thrown out of a gentlemans club. This was the same week Kitty had announced her engagement to the Viscount Donegan.

A dour, elderly man in his fifties he was one of the richest men in England. The "seasons phoenix" Kitty had been described. The rags gaily noted how through sheer grit and scraping to fellow gentry she ascended back through the ranks. Though the younger, more desirable titled men had been bagged like pheasants, she had eventually secured the richest available suitor.

Paying James's obscene tab for the last time, I tried to carry him back to his lodgings. “She’s marrying that old fucker you know,” he grunted. I knew he meant Kitty. The one who got away, his golden ticket to a better life.

“You need to leave her alone,” I warned.

"She swore to me she ca