And then everyone turned and looked at him. Wonderful. Thomas said nothing, refusing to give any indication that she deserved a reply.

“I will remain,” Audley finally said, and although he sounded resigned, as if he hadn’t been offered a choice, Thomas was not fooled. The man was a thief, for God’s sake. A thief who had been given a chance to legally snatch one of the highest titles in the land. Not to mention the riches that accompanied it.

Riches that were unfathomable. Even, at times, to him.

“Most judicious of you,” the dowager said, clapping her hands together. “Now then, we-”

“But first,” Audley cut in, “I must return to the inn to collect my belongings.” He glanced around the drawing room, as if mocking the opulence. “Meager though they are.”

“Nonsense,” the dowager said briskly. “Your things will be replaced.” She looked down her nose at his traveling costume. “With items of far greater quality, I might add.”

“I wasn’t asking your permission,” Audley responded coolly.

“Nonethe-”

“Furthermore,” he cut in, “I must make explanations to my associates.”

Thomas started to intercede. He could not have Audley spreading rumors across the county. Within a week it would be all over Britain. It wouldn’t matter if the claims were proved baseless. No one would ever judge him in the same way again. There would always be whispers.

He might not really be the duke.

There was another claim, hadn’t you heard? His own grandmother supported it.

It would be a bloody nightmare.

“Nothing approaching the truth,” Audley added dryly, with a look in his direction. It made Thomas uncomfortable. He did not like that he could be read so easily. And by this man, most especially.

“Don’t disappear,” the dowager directed. “I assure you, you will regret it.”

“There’s no worry of that,” Thomas said, echoing what they all had to know. “Who would disappear with the promise of a dukedom?”

Audley seemed not amused. Thomas didn’t much care.

“I will accompany you,” Thomas told him. He needed to take this man’s measure. He needed to see how he conducted himself, how he behaved with no female audience to woo.

Audley gave him a mocking smile, and his left eyebrow rose, just like-good God, it was frightening-the dowager’s. “Need I worry for my safety?” he murmured.

Thomas forced himself not to respond. The afternoon hardly needed another fistfight. But the insult was acute. His entire life he had put Wyndham first. The title, the legacy, the lands. Nothing had ever been about him, about Thomas Cavendish, a gentleman born in the English county of Lincolnshire; who loved music but abhorred the opera; who preferred to ride astride rather than in a carriage, even when the weather was inclement; who loved strawberries, especially with clotted cream; who had taken a first at Cambridge and could recite most of the sonnets of Shakespeare but never did, because he preferred to linger over each word in his own mind. It never seemed to matter that he found satisfaction in manual labor, or that he had no patience for inefficiency. And no one cared that he had never acquired a taste for port, or that he found the current habit of snuff asinine at best.

No, when the time came to make a decision-any decision-none of this had ever mattered. He was Wyndham. It was that simple.

And apparently, that complicated. Because his loyalty to his name and his legacy was unchecked. He would do what was right, what was proper. He always did. It was laughable, really, too ironic to contemplate. He did the right thing because he was the Duke of Wyndham. And it seemed the right thing might very well mean handing over his very name to a stranger.

If he wasn’t the duke…Did that make him free? Could he then do whatever he wished, rob coaches and despoil virgins and whatever it was men with no encumbrances chose to do?

But after all he had done, for someone to suggest that he would put his own personal gain above his duty to his family name-

It did not cut to the bone. It burned.

And then Audley turned to Grace, offering her that annoyingly smarmy smile, and said, “I am a threat to his very identity. Surely any reasonable man would question his safety.” It was all Thomas could do to keep his hands-fisted though they were-at his sides.

“No, you’re wrong,” Grace said to Audley, and Thomas found himself oddly comforted by the fervor in her voice. “You misjudge him. The duke-” She stopped for a moment, choking on the word, but then squared her shoulders and continued. “He is as honorable a man as I have ever met. You would never come to harm in his company.”

“I assure you,” Thomas said smoothly, regarding his new cousin with a cool eye, “whatever violent urges I possess, I shall not act upon them.”

Grace turned her temper upon him at that. “That is a terrible thing to say.” And then, more quietly, so that only he could hear. “And after I defended you.”

“But honest,” Audley acknowledged with a nod.

The two men locked eyes, and a silent truce was met. They would travel to the inn together. They would not ask questions, they would not offer opinions…Hell, they would not even speak unless absolutely necessary.

Which suited Thomas perfectly.

Chapter 7

Your eye’s gone black.”

That was the first thing Audley said to him on the journey, nearly an hour after they’d departed.

Thomas turned and looked at him. “Your cheek is purple.”

They were almost to the posting inn where Audley had his belongings stashed, and so they had slowed their gait down to a walk. Audley was riding one of the horses from the Belgrave stables; he was, Thomas could not help but note, an extremely accomplished rider.

Audley touched his cheek, and not with any delicacy. He patted it briskly, the three central fingers of his right hand. “It’s nothing,” he said, apparently assessing the injury. “Certainly not as bad as your eye.”

Thomas gave him a haughty look. Because, really, how could he know? The cheek was purple, quite lividly so.

Audley looked at him with remarkable blandness, then said, “I have been shot in the arm and stabbed in the leg. And you?”

Thomas said nothing. But he felt his teeth clenching together, and he was painfully aware of the sound of his breath.

“The cheek is nothing,” Audley said again, and he looked forward anew, his eyes focusing on the bend in the road, just up ahead.

They were nearly to the posting inn. Thomas knew the area well. Hell, he owned half of it.

Or thought he owned it. Who knew any longer? Maybe he wasn’t the Duke of Wyndham. What would it mean if he was merely another random Cavendish cousin? There were certainly enough of them. Maybe not as first relations, but the country was positively awash with seconds and thirds.

It was an interesting question. Interesting, of course, being the only word he could use that did not make him want to explode in mad laughter. If he wasn’t the Duke of Wyndham, who the hell was he? Did he own anything? Have a stick or stone or rubbly little patch of land to call his own?

Was he even still betrothed to Amelia?

Good God. He looked over his shoulder at Audley, who, damn him, looked cool and unperturbed as he stared at the horizon.

Would he get her? Lands, title, every last penny in his accounts-tally ho, mateys! Let’s toss in the fiancée while we’re at it.

And judging from Grace’s reaction to the annoying sod, Amelia would be head over heels for him at first sight.

He snorted in exasperation. If the day descended any further, he’d reach the seventh level of hell before nightfall. “I’m getting a pint,” he announced.

“Of ale?” Audley asked in surprise, as if he could not imagine the Duke of Wyndham drinking anything so plebeian.

“While you do whatever it is you wish to do,” Thomas said. He glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “I assume you don’t need me to help you fold up your unmentionables.”

Audley turned, his eyebrows arched. “Not unless you have a preference for other men’s undergarments. Far be it for me to put a halt to your jollies.”

Thomas met his stare with cool purpose. “Don’t make me hit you again.”

“You’d lose.”

“You’d die.”

“Not at your hand,” Audley muttered.

“What did you say?”

“You’re still the duke,” Audley said with a shrug.

Thomas gripped his reins with far greater vigor than was necessary. And even though he knew exactly what Audley was saying, he found himself gripped-by a peevish little need to make him spell it out. And so, his tone sharp and clipped-and yes, quite ducal-he said, “By this you mean…”

Audley turned. He looked lazy, and self-possessed, and completely at ease with himself, which infuriated Thomas because Audley was-or looked to be-everything that he himself normally was.

But not now. His heart was pounding, and his hands felt itchy, and more than anything the world seemed somewhat dizzy. It wasn’t him. He did not feel off-balance. Everything else did. He was almost afraid to close his eyes, because when he opened them the sky would be green and the horses would be speaking French, and every time he tried to take a step, the ground would not be quite where he expected it.

And then Audley said, “You are the Duke of Wyndham. The law is always on your side.”

Thomas really wanted to hit him again. Especially since it would prove Audley right. No one would dare cross him here in the village. He could beat Audley to a bloody pulp, and his remains would be swept neatly aside.

All hail the Duke of Wyndham. Just think of all the perks of the title he’d never got around to taking advantage of.