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“No,” Gareth said again “It can’t be I look like you I—”

For a moment Lord St Clair remained silent Then he said, bitterly, “An unhappy coincidence, I assure you”

“But—”

“I could have turned you out at your birth,” Lord St Clair cut in, “sent your , tossed you both into the street But I did not” He closed the distance between them and put his face very close to Gareth’s “You have been acknowledged, and you are legitimate” And then, in a voice furious and low: “You owe me”

“No,” Gareth said, his voice finally finding the conviction he was going to need to last hih the rest of his days “No I won’t do it”

“I will cut you off,” the baron warned “You won’t see another penny froe, your—”

“No,” Gareth said again, and he sounded different He felt changed This was the end, he realized The end of his childhood, the end of his innocence, and the beginning of—

God only knehat it was the beginning of

“I ah with you,” his father—no, not his father—hissed “Through”

“So be it,” Gareth said

And he walked away

Chapter 1

Ten years have passed, and we meet our heroine, who, itflower The scene is the annual Sins to rotate in his grave

“Why do we do this to ourselves?” Hyacinth Bridgerton wondered aloud

“Because we are good, kind people,” her sister-in-law replied, sitting in—God help them—a front-row seat