Chapter 48

I was reading those thoughts on his face as clearly as if the duke was shouting them at the top of his lungs. When he turned toward me, I helped him.

“Your Grace, I must keep vigil at my cousin’s side, but you will conduct an investigation, won’t you?”

In a minute he would have rushed to embrace me, I swear.

“Of course, Your Highness. I swear on my honor!”

If you swore on something that you actually had, I might believe you. But a man whose wife had borne a vampire’s child, a man who, most likely, had forced her to do that himself?

Sir, the honor of your family has long since gone running, like a deer in the woods.

Why deer?

Well, maybe a moose. Wearing the horns of a cuckold.

I spent around four hours at Andre’s side, Tommy was nearby, also pretending to be appropriately distressed. But...

“Alex, but that was her doing.”

“So what?”

“Won’t we get revenge?”

My ass.

Avenge Lavinia’s help? I was in her debt. Maybe I won’t even kill her right away.

“Tommy, could we survive the war with Te