The duke’s gaze dropped. And there was Leo’s answer. Incredulousness filled him, the final blow to send him reeling.

Slowly, Caine reached out and flipped open the file. “What are these?”

Over. It was all over. Leo couldn’t breathe.

The prince consort leaned on the back of his chair, his fingers digging into it as he gave Leo a vicious smile. “Photographs, Your Grace, of your wife’s bastard’s half brother in the rookeries. Indeed, it explains a great deal about Barrons’s dabbling in matters that didn’t concern him.” Blade’s duel with Vickers flashed to mind. “My man has been digging. Turns out the boy’s name is Charlie Todd, son of the late Sir Artemus Todd, over whom you once held patronage.” The prince consort’s voice turned soft, as if in sympathy.

“Barrons had to know the truth. There’s no other reason for him to visit the rookeries so often, and he did take in the boy’s older sister, Miss Lena Todd, last year. Gave her a debut, in fact. Why else, if not to give his sister a chance? I’m so terribly, terribly sorry to reveal the truth of your wife’s betrayal in such a manner, but I cannot allow her bastard to interrupt my court anymore.”

Everyone’s eyes were on Leo. The aging Duke of Morioch actually laughed under his breath, the sound cutting through Leo like a knife.

Caine slowly closed the file. “I see. And what do you intend to do with the boy?”

“I would see him named rogue—”

Destroyed. His entire reputation and all he’d worked for shattered. But worse than that, worse than everything…his father wouldn’t even look at him.

“—except he has not only taken the benefits of the craving virus illegally, but he has lied to the court. To you and me, to all of us. And his allegiance has been made clear over the years in the way he’s perverted justice by seeing the Devil of Whitechapel freed after his duel and—”

“During the incident with me and Mercury?” A new voice spoke up. Lynch. “I do recall Barrons standing in support of myself when you would have left me on the executioner’s block.” A brief smile. “Erroneously, of course.” Slowly he let his gaze run across all of the Council members, including the very silent Lady Aramina. “In fact I rather recall Barrons standing in defense of several that sit here today.”

“Perhaps I should revisit the judgment of that action too,” the prince consort spat.

“In the wake of Goethe’s sudden disappearance, that would leave us down…three councilors, would it not? How…inconvenient.” Lynch barely blinked.

Movement shifted at the table as each duke tried not to look at any of the others. Lynch’s words were a reminder that those who had stood against the prince consort in the past were slowly being whittled away.

“Only two,” the prince consort replied after a long, drawn-out moment. “Caine holds his seat—Barrons only held his vote during his…incapacitation.”

Leo finally managed to look along the table to the person sitting at the very end in her creamy skirts and pearl-net bodice. His mind went white-hot with betrayal.

The photographs loomed in front of her. Aramina stared at them, her face dead-pale. As if feeling the weight of his gaze, she slowly looked up and flinched.

Barrons let out a soft exhale of a laugh. The one time he’d misjudged someone so completely… “You treacherous bitch,” he whispered under his breath, knowing that she heard him.

“Judgment, my prince?” Morioch called.

“Let us not be hasty,” Caine retorted, drumming his fingers in a slow, controlled pattern on the table.

“You would have to put it to a vote,” Lynch pointed out. “And you know what mine will be.”

“As mine,” Malloryn added.

Auvry, damn him. Leo let out a harsh breath. Their differences over the past year had torn them apart, but they’d once been friends. He wasn’t alone here. Their votes wouldn’t be enough to save him—Lynch and Auvry couldn’t turn the tide of the Council—but it was a welcome balm for the ache in his chest that cleaved him in two.

The prince consort leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped over his middle. “No, no, I don’t think we’ll put it to a vote. I think we’ll let the queen decide.”

Only she could overrule the entire Council, though she did so rarely.

Lynch let out a breath. “Very well. Exile? Banishment? What shall we—”

“Execution,” the prince consort breathed into the room.

Leo’s head jerked up. What?

“What do you say, my love?” The prince consort slid his hand over his wife’s, where it rested on the table. “For the sin of lying about his birth, he could be absolved, but I fear his intentions go far deeper than that. He has moved against us, plotted for years to commit treason—”

“Treason?” Lynch demanded in shock.

“And your proof?” For the first time Barrons found his voice—and his feet. There was no way he was going to let the bastard pin this on him.

“The Devil of Whitechapel—”

“Sir Henry?” he countered. “Whom the queen knighted herself? How was aiding him during that duel treason?”

“For the simple reason that he’s plotting to overthrow me. He’s been stockpiling weapons in the rookery for months. Far more than are needed to defend that hellhole, and you’ve been meeting with him regularly. Or do you deny it?”

Deny something that was, in essence, the truth? For in a way, they had been preparing to commit treason.

“Your very silence condemns you.” The prince consort gestured to the pair of Coldrush Guards. “Arrest him.” He looked down at his wife. “On my lady’s command.”

The queen stared blankly at the table in front of her. Everyone’s breath caught. She wasn’t always obedient, but something about the vacant way she stared raised the hackles down Leo’s spine. The prince consort had done something to her. Hurt her or threatened her after the incident the other day.

The queen jerked her head in a nod. “Y-yes.”

No.

“Send him to the Tower to be executed.” The prince consort’s smile spread, and he caressed his wife’s face, ignoring her flinch. “I want his head mounted on the walls.”

Executed.