And then it was back at Mr. Audley, who was still fumbling for any argument that would not leave him saddled with her. “I did not agree to this,” he said. “I signed no contract.”

“Neither did he,” said her father, motioning toward Thomas with a tilt of his head. “His father did it.”

“In his name,” Mr. Audley practically yelled.

But her father did not even blink. “That is where you are wrong, Mr. Audley. It did not specify his name at all. My daughter, Amelia Honoria Rose, was to marry the seventh Duke of Wyndham.”

“Really?” This, finally, from Thomas.

“Have you not looked at the papers?” Mr. Audley demanded of him.

“No,” Thomas said. “I never saw the need.”

“Good God,” Mr. Audley swore, “I have fallen in with a band of bloody idiots.”

Amelia saw no reason to contradict.

Mr. Audley looked directly at her father. “Sir,” he said, “I will not marry your daughter.”

“Oh, you will.”

And that was when Amelia knew her heart was broken. Because it wasn’t her father who said those words.

It was Thomas.

“What did you say?” Mr. Audley demanded.

Thomas strode across the room, stopping only when he was nearly nose-to-nose with Mr. Audley. “This woman has spent her entire life preparing to be the Duchess of Wyndham. I will not permit you to leave her life in shambles. Do you understand me?”

And all she could think was-No.

No. She didn’t want to be the duchess. She didn’t care one way or the other. She just wanted him. Thomas. The man she’d spent her whole life not knowing.

Until now.

Until he’d stood with her, looking down at some meaningless map, and explained to her why Africa was bigger than Greenland.

Until he’d told her that he liked her bossy.

Until he’d made her feel that she mattered. That her thoughts and opinions were worth something.

He had made her feel complete.

But here he was, demanding that she marry someone else. And she didn’t know how to stop it. Because if she spoke out, if she told them all what she wanted, and he rejected her again…

But Thomas wasn’t asking her if she understood. He was asking Mr. Audley. And Mr. Audley said, “No.”

Amelia took a gulp of air and looked up at the ceiling, trying to pretend that two men were not arguing over which of them had to marry her.

“No, I don’t understand,” Mr. Audley continued, his voice insultingly provoking. “Sorry.”

She looked back. It was hard to look away. It was like a carriage accident, except it was her own life being trampled.

Thomas was looking at Mr. Audley with murder in his eyes. And then, almost conversationally, said, “I believe I will kill you.”

“Thomas!” The cry sprang from her throat before she could stop to think, and she flew across the room, grabbing his arm to hold him back.

“You may steal my life away,” Thomas growled, pulling on her arm like an angry, aggrieved animal. “You may steal my very name, but by God you will not steal hers.”

So that was it. He thought he was doing the right thing. She wanted to cry with frustration. There would be no changing his mind. Thomas had spent his entire life doing the right thing. Never for himself. Always for Wyndham. And now he thought he was doing the right thing for her.

“She has a name,” Mr. Audley retorted. “It’s Willoughby. And for the love of God, she’s the daughter of an earl. She’ll find someone else.”

“If you are the Duke of Wyndham,” Thomas said furiously, “you will honor your commitments.”

“If I’m the Duke of Wyndham, then you can’t tell me what to do.”

“Amelia,” Thomas said with deadly calm, “release my arm.”

Instead, she tightened her grip. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Her father chose that moment to intercede-finally. “Er, gentlemen, this is all hypothetical at this point. Perhaps we should wait until-”

“I wouldn’t be the seventh duke, anyway,” Mr. Audley muttered.

Her father looked somewhat irritated at the interruption. “I beg your pardon?”

“I wouldn’t.” Mr. Audley looked over at Thomas. “Would I? Because your father was the sixth duke. Except he wasn’t. If I am.” And then, if that weren’t confusing enough: “Would he have been? If I was?”

“What the devil are you talking about?” Amelia’s father demanded.

“Your father died before his own father,” Thomas said to Mr. Audley. “If your parents were married, then you would have inherited upon the fifth duke’s death, eliminating my father-and myself-from the succession entirely.”

“Which makes me number six.”

“Indeed,” Thomas said tightly.

“Then I am not bound to honor the contract,” Mr. Audley declared. “No court in the land would hold me to it. I doubt they’d do so even if I were the seventh duke.”

“It is not to a legal court you must appeal,” Thomas said quietly, “but to the court of your own moral responsibility.”

Amelia swallowed. How like him that was, how upstanding and true. How did one argue with a man such as that? She felt her lips begin to tremble, and she looked to the door, measuring how many steps it would take to remove her from this place.

Mr. Audley stood stiffly, and when he spoke, his words were rigid as well. “I did not ask for this.”

Thomas just shook his head. “Neither did I.”

Amelia lurched back, choking down the cry of pain in her throat. No, he’d never asked for any of this. He’d never asked for the title, for the lands, for the responsibility.

He’d never asked for her.

She’d known it, of course. She’d always known he hadn’t picked her, but she’d never thought it would hurt this much to hear him say it. She was just another of his many burdens, foisted onto him by virtue of his birth.

With privilege came responsibility. How true that was.

Amelia inched back, trying to get as far away from the center of the room as she could. She didn’t want anyone to see her. Not like this, with eyes that threatened tears, hands that shook.

She wanted to fly away, to leave this room and-

And then she felt it. A hand in her own.

She looked down first, at the two hands entwined. And then she looked up, even though she knew it was Grace.

Amelia said nothing. She didn’t trust her voice, didn’t even trust her lips to mouth the words she wanted to say. But as her eyes met Grace’s, she knew that the other woman saw what was in her heart.

She gripped Grace’s hand and squeezed.

Never in her life had she needed a friend as much as she did in that moment.

Grace squeezed back.

And for the first time that afternoon, Amelia did not feel completely alone.

Chapter 15

Four days later, at sea

It was an uncommonly peaceful crossing, or so the captain told Thomas as dusk began to fall. Thomas was grateful for that; he’d not quite been made physically ill by the rise and fall of the Irish Sea, but it had been a close thing. A bit more wind or tide or whatever it was that made the small ship go up and down and his stomach would surely have protested, and in a most unpleasant manner.

He’d found that it was easier to remain on deck. Below, the air was thick, the quarters tight. Above, he could attempt to enjoy the tang of the salt air, the crisp sting of it on his skin. He could breathe.

Farther down the railing he could see Jack, leaning against the wood, gazing out at the sea. It could not have escaped him that this was the site of his father’s death. Closer to the Irish coast, Thomas supposed, if his mother had managed to make it ashore.

What must it have been like, not to know one’s father? Thomas rather thought that he’d prefer to have not known his, but by all accounts John Cavendish had been a much more amiable fellow than his younger brother Reginald.

Was Jack wondering what his life might have been, if not for a storm? He’d have been raised at Belgrave, certainly. Ireland would have been nothing but a familiar land-the spot where his mother was raised. He might have had the opportunity to visit from time to time, but it would not have been home.

He would have attended Eton, as all of the Cavendish boys did, and then gone on to Cambridge. He would have been enrolled at Peterhouse, because only the oldest of the colleges would do for the House of Wyndham, and his name would have been added to the long list of Cavendish Petreans inscribed on the wall of the library the family had donated hundreds of years earlier, back when the dukes had still been earls and the church was still Catholic.

It would not have mattered what he studied, or even if he did study. Jack would have been graduated no matter his marks. He would have been the Wyndham heir. Thomas was not sure what he would have had to do to get himself dismissed; he could not imagine that anything less than complete illiteracy would have done the trick.

A season in London would have followed, as it had for Thomas. Jack would have made merry there, Thomas thought dryly. His was just the sort of wit that made a young unmarried ducal heir even more wildly attractive to the ladies. The army would certainly not have been permitted. And it went without saying that he would not have been out robbing coaches on the Lincoln Road.

What a difference a storm made.

As for Thomas, he had no idea where he might have ended up. Farther north, most likely, at some house provided by his mother’s father. Would his father have been brought into business? Managing factories? It was difficult to imagine anything Reginald Cavendish would have detested more.

What might he have done with his life, had he not been born the only son of a duke? He could not imagine the freedom. From his earliest memories, his life had been mapped ahead of him. Every day he made dozens of decisions, but the important ones-the ones that mattered in his own life-had been made for him.