"Like hell, she is!" Leo exploded, immediately taking off down the hallway. "Scarlett isn't a thing that can just be passed down like a house."

"I know," Will said, striding behind him. "And I agree with you, Leo. And surprisingly, so does the law. The contract should be null now that the Marriage Act passed. Men cannot marry their brother's widows."

"Right," Leo nodded, relief instantly flooding through him. "Then why are we even having this conversation?"

Will shook his head. "Humphries still wants to talk to you. I have a bad feeling, Leo."

Leo grunted. He was about to storm off to see Lord Humphries when he remembered that Scarlett would be waiting for him in bed, and he spun on his heel back to her room.

Leo didn't want her to come downstairs again. After everything she'd been through, she didn't need to get involved in this right now.

Peeking his head in, he saw that she was curled up in her bed. He walked closer, trying to keep his footsteps soft and quiet. Her eyelids were closed.

"Leo?" she murmured, peeking up at him.

"Shh," he insisted gently. "Rest now. Will wished to let me know he was leaving. I shall say goodbye to him and Emilia."

She nodded against the pillow. "I should go say thank you," she muttered, but she didn't move.

Leo couldn't help but chuckle. "You can tell them later."

Scarlett smiled a little and then turned over, tangling herself in the blankets and curling into an even tighter ball. Leo breathed a sigh of relief and then strode back into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

Will leaned against the wall, waiting for him. Leo gave him a pointed look. "She's not marrying him. I don't give a damn what he has to say."

"Come on," Will said tersely. "Let us learn what he wants."

Entering the parlor, Leo clenched his fists at the sight of the man he assumed was Lord Humphries. He was leaning back in a chair, twirling his eyeglasses around in his fingers. Leo immediately wanted to hit his smug expression off his face.

Damien stood by the window, his arms crossed tightly with a look of consternation. Emilia still sat at her card table, but she was no longer playing. She glanced at Will and Leo when they walked into the room, her eyes communicating her nervousness.

"Ah, Lord Farrington," the man said. He stopped spinning his spectacles but didn't stand.

"Don't talk to me like you know me," Leo snapped as he came around the corner into the room.

"But I do know you," Lord Humphries replied coolly. "You're the man that has been spending time with my wife."

He put his spectacles on and looked at Leo down his nose. "By arriving early, I had hoped I might find you, my lord. I hadn't expected an entire crowd, but the more, the merrier, I suppose. Where is she, by the way? Are you hiding her away?"

"She's not your wife," Leo growled. "And she never will be."

That was all the man needed to know. He wasn't going to tell him anything else regarding Scarlett.

"The contract I have here states otherwise," Lord Humphries replied, shrugging. "Her father was wise enough to include the clause knowing that my brother wasn't going to last long after their vows. A fine man, her father, for wanting to ensure she was provided for."

Damien immediately took a step forward. "Except years have passed since your brother's death, and you haven't been providing for her!" he yelled. "And now it's too late. If you had acted on this before, you could have married her. But no longer."

"Why, I have been providing for her," the other man protested lazily. "I may not have been ready to return to the wretchedness that is London, but I ensured she had a roof over her head. Why do you think I allowed her to stay in my home even though she no longer had a claim to it?"

"You may have allowed her access," Damien retorted, "but she pays all the expenses herself."

"Yes," he drawled. "And we all know how she manages to do that."

He gave a pointed look between Eades and Leo.

Leo felt as though he would be sick. He walked around Lord Humphries to stand near the fireplace, hoping to bring some warmth into his unfeeling limbs.

"I still intend to marry her," Lord Humphries went on to say. "And soon."

"No," Leo rebuked.

"Absolutely not," Damien echoed. "She's marrying Lord Farrington." Leo peered toward him, surprised by the announcement. Damien shrugged at his look. "Well, isn't she?"

Yes," Leo bit out. "Scarlett has already agreed to be my wife, so you might as well give me that paper," he said, pointing toward the contract. "Because it means nothing. Her father signed it, and he is dead. Your brother is dead. And unless you want to be dead too, I'd leave now." Leo tried to keep his words even, but anger was seeping into every part of him, and he struggled to maintain his composure.

Humphries pursed his lips in something akin to amusement. "Yes, I thought this might happen," he said, and dread crept into Leo's anger, mixing with it to create a nauseated feeling.

"I knew that my lady had quite the number of admirers. But I hadn't been certain who they were, so I asked my good friend Lord Symons to help me weed them out," Lord Humphries explained. At the mention of the slimy Symons, Leo gritted his teeth. "He placed some ridiculous bet at White's—said it'd been done before—but it was effective enough because it drew me to you, Lord Farrington."

Lord Humphries crossed his legs in a lazy motion. "Symons said that you were the one I'd need to get rid of when I came to claim my wife."

"Why do you care?" Leo breathed harshly. "You clearly don't want her; otherwise, you would have come to London years ago."

Humphries waved off the question with a flick of his wrist. "I had a few matters of business that I needed to tie up in the country. Besides, I was still young when my brother died. I had no interest in getting married yet. You are both unmarried," he said, nodding toward Leo and Damien. "Surely you understand that."

Lord Humphries laughed a little bit. "Then, of course, once I was ready, that new law was announced saying that I could no longer have my bride. So I had to come up with a plan to ensure otherwise. See, she is perfect, and she is mine, Lord Farrington."

Leo could have scoffed. The man claimed himself to be young, but his appearance didn't lend to that notion. His physique indicated that Lord Humphries was a lazy man, and his brown hairline appeared to be receding. The clothes he wore were of fashion, but the fit was horribly off, as though he was trying to squeeze into a size much too small.

"You're not getting rid of me," Leo finally growled.

"Well, we shall see," Lord Humphries replied, sighing. "Once I learned that you would be my biggest obstacle in marrying Lady Humphries, I had Symons help me get into that ball your parents threw. And with the right amount of coin, I was able to find the servant willing to spill all your perfect family's little secrets."

Leo's mouth grew dry.

A crude smile spread across the man's unattractive face. "Leave Lady Humphries to me to do as I please, or I shall tell the ton about that brother of yours. The one you keep hidden in your parent's mansion."

Leo swore and spun around, away from Lord Humphries, so he wouldn't kill the man right there on the spot. He clutched the mantle, his fingers digging into the warm wood as he ducked his head and watched the flames lick against the grate. A hand clapped onto his shoulder that he was sure was Will's.

"You'd stoop so low to use a child as blackmail?" Leo heard Eades cry.

Humphries said something in return, but the words blurred together in Leo's head. A rushing sound filled his ears.

"Leo." He heard Will's voice. It was calm, low, and steady.

He twisted to look at him. "This isn't happening, Will. Scarlett wouldn't survive a marriage to him. And Maverick—" He choked on his words.

"She won't oblige to marrying you," Damien continued to protest when Leo turned wearily back around. "She doesn't have to. Your contract means nothing now."

Humphries rejected Eades' words. "There are other countries in which we can still get married. I've always hated London anyway."

Leo opened his mouth to exaggerate the point that Scarlett would never go anywhere with him, but Lord Humphries continued. "The lady will marry me. If she doesn't, I'll take away my house and all her possessions. They belong to me anyway. She'll have nowhere to go, and you lot will be forced to leave her alone unless you want to shoulder the responsibility for the Aston family scandal."

The room was quiet as Emilia, Will, Leo, and Damien attempted to find a way out of the situation that didn't damn an innocent woman or child. If people found out about Maverick, he would be forced to leave London, to be sent away.

"You don't know what you're doing," Will inserted, pinning Humphries with a dark glare. Emilia moved around the table, coming to stand next to Will.

Rolling his eyes in an insolent manner, Lord Humphries looked down his nose at Will. "You do not scare me, Lord Trotten. You were once the king's lackey, but no longer."

"But do you know who I am?" Emilia challenged, her eyes narrowing. "Do you know who my brother is?"

Lord Humphries appeared a little baffled, but then shrugged, ignoring Emilia's threat. "Lady Humphries will marry me," he insisted. "She's merely a woman. It's the way of the world for them."

That was it. That was Leo's breaking point. He stormed across the room, enjoying the way Lord Humphries' bulbous eyes grew wide.

But Leo didn't get very far before he heard a new feminine voice cut in.

"It isn't the way of the world if the Queen of England has a say in it," the voice announced, smooth and unbothered. "Which in this instance, she does."

Leo stopped, his arm still raised above Lord Humphries' revolting face. He looked up to see Adelaide standing in the doorway, lowering a golden-laced hood from around her head. Theo stood behind her with a prideful expression on his face.

"Oh, look," Emilia said, sticking her hand on her hip with a haughty glower. "Here's my brother coming just now. And more importantly, his wife."

Theo threw her a wink.

"When I came into this house," Addie continued, taking a step forward, "I heard your voice, Lord Humphries. And it sounds as though you are attempting to marry a woman against her will. And against the will that is the law of the country in which I rule."

Lord Humphries swallowed as Leo backed away for Adelaide to handle the situation. "Your Majesty, I—I," he stammered.

"Darling," Addie chimed, peering at Theo, who was now leaning against the wall inside the parlor. "What do we do with men who bear such little morality?" She raised a brow. "Such as my dear uncle Ernest?"

Theo smirked, happy to answer the question in his low voice.

"We get rid of them."