The Lost Duke of Wyndham (5 page)

Jack couldn't even imagine how long it would take a newcomer to find his way around inside. Or how long it would take to find the poor fellow once he got himself lost.

And so he stood and stared, trying to take it in. What would it have been like to grow up there? His father had done so, and by all accounts he'd been a nice enough fellow. Well, by
one
account, he supposed—his Aunt Mary was the only person he knew who'd known his father well enough to pass along a story or two.

Still, it was difficult to imagine a family living
there. His own home in Ireland had not been small by any standards, but still, with four children it often felt as if they were constantly crashing into one another. You couldn't go ten minutes or even ten steps without being swept into a conversation with a cousin or a brother or an aunt or even a dog. (He'd been a good dog, God rest his furry little soul. Better than most people.)

They had
known
each other, the Audleys. It was, Jack had long since decided, a very good—and very uncommon—thing.

After a few minutes there was a small flurry of movement at the front door, then three women emerged. Two were blond. It was too far away to see their faces, but he could tell by the way they moved that they were young, and probably quite pretty.

Pretty girls, he'd long since learned, moved differently than the plain ones. It did not matter if they were aware of their beauty or not. What they
weren't
was aware of their plainness. Which the plain ones always were.

Jack quirked a half smile. He supposed he was a bit of a scholar of women. Which, he'd often tried to convince himself, was as noble a subject as any.

But it was the third girl—the last to emerge from the castle—who captured his breath and held him motionless, unable to look away.

It was the girl from the carriage the night before. He was sure of it. The hair was the right color—shiny and dark, but it wasn't such a unique shade that it couldn't be found elsewhere. He knew it was her because…because…

Because he did.

He
remembered
her. He remembered the way she moved, the way she felt pressed up against him. He remembered the soft breath of the air between their bodies when she'd moved away.

He'd liked her. He didn't often get the chance to like or dislike the people he waylaid, but he'd been thinking to himself that there was something rather appealing about the flash of intelligence in her eyes when the old lady had shoved her at him, giving him permission to hold a gun to her head.

He'd not approved of that. But he'd appreciated it all the same, because touching her, holding her—it had been an unexpected pleasure. And when the old lady returned with the miniature, his only thought had been that it was a pity he didn't have time to kiss her properly.

Jack held himself quietly as he watched her move in the drive, glancing over her shoulder, then leaning forward to say something to the other girls. One of the blondes linked arms with her and led her off to the side. They were friends, he realized with surprise, and he wondered if the girl—his girl, as he was now thinking of her—was something more than a companion. A poor relation, maybe? She was certainly not a daughter of the house, but it seemed she was not quite a servant.

She adjusted the straps of her bonnet, and then she (What was her name? He wanted to know her name) pointed to something in the distance. Jack found himself glancing the same way, but there were too many
trees framing the drive for him to see whatever had captured her interest.

And then she turned.

Faced him.

Saw
him.

She did not cry out, nor did she flinch, but he knew that she saw him in the way she…

In the way she simply
was
, he supposed, because he could not see her face from such a distance. But he knew.

His skin began to prickle with awareness, and it occurred to him that she'd recognized him, too. It was preposterous, because he was all the way down the drive, and not wearing his highwayman's garb, but he knew that she knew she was staring at the man who had kissed her.

The moment—it could only have lasted seconds—stretched into eternity. And then somewhere behind him a bird cawed, snapping him from his trance, and one thought pounded through his head.

Time to go
.

He never stayed in one spot for long, but here—this place—it was surely the most dangerous of all.

He gave it one last look. Not of longing; he did not long for this. And as for the girl from the carriage—he fought down something strange and acrid, burning in his throat—he would not long for her, either.

Some things were simply untenable.

 

“Who was that man?”

Grace heard Elizabeth speak, but she pretended not
to. They were sitting in the Willoughbys' comfortable carriage, but their happy threesome now numbered four.

The dowager had, upon rising from her bed, taken one look at Amelia's sun-kissed cheeks (Grace did think that she and Thomas had taken quite a long walk together, all things considered), and gone into a barely intelligible tirade about the proper decorum of a future duchess. It was not every day one heard a speech containing dynasty, procreation, and sunspots—all in one sentence.

But the dowager had managed it, and now they were
all
miserable, Amelia most of all. The dowager had got it into her head that she needed to speak with Lady Crowland—most probably about the supposed blemishes on Amelia's skin—and so she invited herself along for the ride, giving instructions to the Wyndham stables to ready a carriage and send it after them for the return journey.

Grace had come along, too. Because, quite frankly, she didn't have any choice.

“Grace?” It was Elizabeth again.

Grace sucked in her lips and positively glued her eyes to a spot on the seat cushion just to the left of the dowager's head.

“Who was it?” Elizabeth persisted.

“No one,” Grace said quickly. “Are we ready to depart?” She looked out the window, pretending to wonder why they were delayed on the drive. Any moment now they would leave for Burges Park, where the Willoughbys lived. She had been dreading the journey, short though it was.

And then she'd seen
him
.

The highwayman. Whose name wasn't Cavendish.

But once was.

He had left before the dowager emerged from the castle, turning his mount in a display of horsemanship so expert that even she, who was no equestrienne, recognized his skill.

But he had seen her. And he had recognized her. She was certain of it.

She'd
felt
it.

Grace tapped her fingers impatiently against the side of her thigh. She thought of Thomas, and of the enormous portrait that had passed by the doorway of the sitting room. She thought of Amelia, who had been raised since birth to be the bride of a duke. And she thought of herself. Her world might not be quite what she wanted, but it was hers, and it was safe.

One man had the power to send it all crashing down.

Which was why, even though she would have traded a corner of her soul for just one more kiss from a man whose name she did not know, when Elizabeth remarked that it looked as if she knew him, she said, sharply, “I do not.”

The dowager looked up, her face pinched with irritation. “What are you talking about?”

“There was a man at the end of the drive,” Elizabeth said, before Grace could deny anything.

The dowager's head snapped back in Grace's direction. “Who was it?” she demanded.

“I don't know. I could not see his face.” Which wasn't a lie. Not the second part, at least.

“Who was it?” the dowager thundered, her voice rising over the sound of the wheels beginning their rumble down the drive.

“I don't know,” Grace repeated, but even she could hear the cracks in her voice.

“Did you see him?” the dowager asked Amelia.

Grace's eyes caught Amelia's. Something passed between them.

“I saw no one, ma'am,” said Amelia.

The dowager dismissed her with a snort, turning the full weight of her fury on Grace. “Was it he?”

Grace shook her head. “I don't know,” she stammered. “I couldn't say.”

“Stop the carriage,” the dowager yelled, lurching forward and shoving Grace aside so she could bang on the wall separating the cabin and the driver. “Stop, I tell you!”

The carriage came to a sudden stop, and Amelia, who had been sitting face front beside the dowager, tumbled forward, landing at Grace's feet. She tried to get up but was blocked by the dowager, who had reached across the carriage to grab Grace's chin, her long, ancient fingers digging cruelly into her skin.

“I will give you one more chance, Miss Eversleigh,” she hissed. “Was it he?”

Forgive me
, Grace thought.

She nodded.

T
en minutes later Grace was in the Wyndham carriage, alone with the dowager, trying to remember just why she'd told Thomas he shouldn't commit his grandmother to an asylum. In the last five minutes the dowager had:

Turned the carriage around.

Shoved Grace out and to the ground, where she'd landed awkwardly on her right ankle.

Sent the Willoughby sisters on their way without the slightest explanation.

Had the Wyndham carriage brought around.

Outfitted aforementioned carriage with six large footmen.

Had Grace tossed inside. (The footman doing the tossing had apologized as he'd done so, but still.)

“Ma'am?” Grace asked hesitantly. They were speeding along at a rate that could not be considered
safe, but the dowager kept banging her walking stick against the wall, bellowing at the driver to move faster. “Ma'am? Where are we going?”

“You know very well.”

Grace waited one careful moment, then said, “I'm sorry, ma'am, I don't.”

The dowager speared her with an angry stare.

“We don't know where he is,” Grace pointed out.

“We will find him.”

“But, ma'am—”

“Enough!” the dowager ground out. Her voice was not loud, but it contained sufficient passion to silence Grace immediately. After a moment passed, she stole a glance at the older woman. She was sitting ramrod straight—too straight, really, for a ride in the carriage, and her right hand was bent and angled like a claw, pulling back the curtain so she might see outside.

Trees.

That's all there was to see. Grace couldn't imagine why the dowager was staring out so intently.

“If you saw him,” the dowager said, her low voice cutting into Grace's thoughts, “then he is still in the district.”

Grace said nothing. The dowager wasn't looking at her, in any case.

“Which means,” the icy voice continued, “that there are only a very few places he might be. Three posting inns in the vicinity. That is all.”

Grace rested her forehead in her hand. It was a sign of weakness, something she usually tried not to display in front of the dowager, but there was no maintaining a stiff facade now. They were going to kidnap
him. She, Grace Catriona Eversleigh, who had never so much as nicked a ha'penny ribbon from a fair, was going to be party to what had to be a high crime. “Dear Lord,” she whispered.

“Shut up,” the dowager snapped, “and make yourself useful.”

Grace grit her teeth. How the devil did the dowager think she
could
be useful? Surely any manhandling that needed doing would be performed by the footmen, each of whom stood, as per Belgrave regulations, five feet eleven inches tall. And no, she did not mistake their purpose on the journey. When she had looked askance at the dowager, the reply had been a terse, “My grandson might need convincing.”

Now, the dowager growled, “Look out the window,” speaking to her as if she'd turned idiot overnight. “You got the best look at him.”

Dear God, she would gratefully forfeit five years off her life just to be anywhere but inside this carriage. “Ma'am, I said—he was at the end of the drive. I didn't really see him.”

“You did last night.”

Grace had been trying not to look at her, but at that, she could not help but stare.

“I saw you kissing him,” the dowager hissed. “And I will warn you now. Don't try to rise above your station.”

“Ma'am, he kissed
me
.”

“He is my grandson,” the dowager spat, “and he may very well be the true Duke of Wyndham, so do not be getting any ideas. You are valued as my companion, but
that is all
.”

Grace could not find the outrage to react to the insult. Instead, she could only stare at the dowager in horror, unable to believe that she had actually spoken the words.

The true Duke of Wyndham.

Even the very suggestion of it was scandalous. Would she throw over Thomas so easily, strip him of his birthright, of his very name? Wyndham was not just a title Thomas held, it was who he was.

But if the dowager publicly championed the highwayman as the true heir…dear God, Grace could not even imagine the depth of the scandal it would create. The impostor would be proven illegitimate, of course—there could be no other outcome, surely—but the damage would be done. There would always be those who whispered that
maybe
Thomas wasn't really the duke, that maybe he ought not be so secure in his conceits, because he wasn't truly entitled to them, was he?

Grace could not imagine what this would do to him. To all of them.

“Ma'am,” she said, her voice quavering slightly. “You cannot think that this man could be legitimate.”

“Of course I can,” the dowager snapped. “His manners were impeccable—”

“He was a highwayman!”

“One with a fine bearing and perfectly correct accent,” the dowager retorted. “Whatever his current station, he was brought up properly and given a gentleman's education.”

“But that does not mean—”

“My son died on a boat,” the dowager interrupted,
her voice hard, “after he'd spent eight months in Ireland. Eight bloody months that were supposed to be four weeks. He went to attend a wedding. A wedding.” Her body seemed to harden as she paused, her teeth grinding together at the memory. “And not even of anyone worth mentioning. Just some school friend whose parents bought themselves a title and bludgeoned their way into Eton, as if that could make them better than they were.”

Grace's eyes widened. The dowager's voice had descended into a low, venomous hiss, and without even meaning to, Grace moved closer to the window. It felt toxic to be so close to her right now.

“And then…” the dowager continued. “And then! All I received was a three-sentence note, written in someone else's hand, reporting that he was having such a fine time that he believed he was going to remain.”

Grace blinked. “He didn't write it himself?” she asked, unsure why she found this detail so curious.

“He signed it,” the dowager said brusquely. “And sealed it with his ring. He knew I couldn't decipher his scrawl.” She sat back, her face contorting with decades old anger and resentment. “Eight months,” she muttered. “Eight stupid, useless months. Who is to say he did not marry some harlot over there? He had ample time.”

Grace watched her for several moments. Her nose was in the air, and she gave every indication of haughty anger, but something was not quite right. Her lips were pinching and twisting, and her eyes were suspiciously bright.

“Ma'am—” Grace said gently.

“Don't,” the dowager said, her voice sounding as if it might crack.

Grace considered the wisdom of speaking, then decided there was too much at stake to remain silent. “Your grace, it simply cannot be,” she began, somehow maintaining her courage despite the withering expression on the dowager's face. “This is not a humble country entail. This is not Sillsby,” she added, swallowing the lump that formed in her throat at the mention of her childhood home. “We are speaking of Belgrave. Of a dukedom. Heirs apparent do not simply vanish into the mist. If your son had had a son, we would have known.”

The dowager stared at her for an uncomfortably sharp moment, then said, “We will try the Happy Hare first. It is the least uncouth of all the local posting inns.” She settled back against the cushion, staring straight ahead as she said, “If he is anything like his father, he will be too fond of his comforts for anything less.”

 

Jack was already feeling like an idiot when a sack was thrown over his head.

So this was it, then. He knew he'd stayed too long. The whole ride back he'd berated himself for the fool he was. He should have left after breakfast. He should have left at dawn. But no, he had to get drunk the night before, and then he had to ride out to that bloody castle. And then he'd seen
her
.

If he hadn't seen
her
, he would never have remained
at the end of the drive for so long. And then he wouldn't have ridden off with such speed. And had to rest and water his mount.

And he certainly wouldn't have been standing by the trough like a bloody bull's-eye when someone attacked him from behind.

“Bind him,” a gruff voice said.

It was enough to set every pore in his body into fighting mode. A man did not spend his life so close to the noose without preparing for those two words.

It didn't matter that he couldn't see. It didn't matter that he had no idea who they were or why they'd come for him. He fought. And he knew how to fight, clean
and
dirty. But there were three of them at least, possibly more, and he managed only two good punches before he was facedown in the dirt, his hands yanked behind his back and bound with…

Well, it wasn't rope. Almost felt like silk, truth be told.

“Sorry,” one of his captors mumbled, which was odd. Men in the business of tying up other men rarely thought to offer apologies.

“Think nothing of it,” Jack returned, then cursed himself for his insolence. All his little quip earned him was a mouth full of burlap dust.

“This way,” someone said, helping him to his feet.

And Jack could do nothing but obey.

“Er, if you please,” the first voice said—the one who'd ordered him bound.

“Care to tell me where I'm going?” Jack inquired.

There was quite a bit of hemming and hawing. Min
ions. These were minions. He sighed. Minions never knew the important things.

“Er, can you step up?”

And then, before Jack could oblige, or even say, “Beg pardon,” he was roughly hoisted into the air and tumbled into what had to be a carriage.

“Put him on a seat,” a voice barked. He knew that voice. It was the old lady. His grandmother.

Well, at least he wasn't off to be hanged.

“Don't suppose someone will see to my horse,” Jack said.

“See to his horse,” the old lady snapped.

Jack allowed himself to be moved onto a seat, not a particularly easy maneuver, bound and blindfolded as he was.

“Don't suppose you'll untie my hands,” he said.

“I'm not stupid,” was the old lady's reply.

“No,” he said with a false sigh. “I didn't think you were. Beauty and stupidity never go as hand in hand as one might wish.”

“I am sorry I had to take you this way,” the old lady said. “But you left me no choice.”

“No choice,” Jack mused. “Yes, of course. Because I've done so much to escape your clutches up to now.”

“If you had intended to call upon me,” the old lady said sharply, “you would not have ridden off earlier this afternoon.”

Jack felt himself smile mockingly. “She told you, then,” he said, wondering why he'd thought she might not.

“Miss Eversleigh?”

So that was her name.

“She had no choice,” the old lady said dismissively, as if the wishes of Miss Eversleigh were something she rarely considered.

And then Jack felt it. A slight brush of air beside him. A faint rustle of movement.

She was there. The elusive Miss Eversleigh. The silent Miss Eversleigh.

The delicious Miss Eversleigh.

“Remove his hood,” he heard his grandmother order. “You're going to suffocate him.”

Jack waited patiently, affixing a lazy smile onto his face—it was not, after all, the expression they would expect, and thus the one he most wished to display. He heard her make a noise—Miss Eversleigh, that was. It wasn't a sigh exactly, and not a groan, either. It was something he couldn't quite place. Weary resignation, perhaps. Or maybe—

The hood came off, and he took a moment to savor the cool air on his face.

Then he looked at her.

It was mortification. That's what it had been. Poor Miss Eversleigh looked miserable. A more gracious gentleman would have turned away, but he wasn't feeling overly charitable at the moment, and so he treated himself to a lengthy perusal of her face. She was lovely, although not in any predictable manner. No English rose was she, not with that glorious dark hair and shining blue eyes that tilted up ever-so-slightly at the edges. Her lashes were dark and sooty, in stark contrast to the pale perfection of her skin.

Of course, that paleness might have been a result of her extreme discomfort. The poor girl looked as if she might cast up her accounts at any moment.

“Was it that bad, kissing me?” he murmured.

She turned scarlet.

“Apparently so.” He turned to his grandmother and said in his most conversational tone, “I hope you realize this is a hanging offense.”

“I am the Duchess of Wyndham,” she replied with a haughty lift of her brow. “Nothing is a hanging offense.”

“Ah, the unfairness of life,” he said with a sigh. “Wouldn't you agree, Miss Eversleigh?”

She looked as if she wanted to speak. Indeed, the poor girl was most definitely biting her tongue.

“Now if
you
were the perpetrator in this little crime,” he continued, allowing his eyes to slide insolently from her face to her bosom and back, “this would all be so very different.”

Her jaw tightened.

“It would be,” he murmured, allowing his gaze to fall to her lips, “rather lovely, I think. Just think—you, me, alone in this exceedingly luxurious carriage.” He sighed contentedly and sat back. “The imagination runs wild.”

He waited for the old lady to defend her. She did not.

“Care to share your plans for me?” he asked, propping one ankle over the opposite knee as he slouched in his seat. It wasn't an easy position to achieve, with his hands still stuck behind him, but he was damned if he'd sit up straight and polite.

The old lady turned to him, her lips pinched. “Most men would not complain.”