CHAPTER ONE
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1864“Damn you to hell! Do you hear me!”
Over the desk one pair of blazingly angry eyes met another pair, cold but no less angry. The man with the blazing eyes backed off first, swinging away to move into the large bay window and stand with his back to the other man.
“Damn you!” he repeated in a more controlled tone. “You are a smug hypocrite and you don’t even have the honesty to admit that you hate me.”
The man behind the desk shrugged wearily.
“Would admitting it make any difference, John?”
“It would be honest. Why not just say that I’m a thorn in your flesh and that your world would be a brighter place if I died tomorrow – or preferably today?”
Charles Baxter, tenth Earl of Hartley, thought for a moment before saying quietly, “in other words, you’d like me to behav
