Julia Quinn - The Lost Duke of Wyndham

“Oh my God.”

It was him. Of course it wasn’t him, because it was John Cavendish, who had perished nearly three decades earlier, but by God, it looked exactly like the man standing next to her.

Grace’s eyes grew so wide they hurt, and she looked back and forth and back and forth and-

“I see no one is disagreeing with me now,” the dowager said smugly.

Thomas turned to Mr. Audley as if he’d seen a ghost. “Who are you?” he whispered.

But even Mr. Audley was without words. He was just staring at the portrait, staring and staring and staring, his face white, his lips parted, his entire body slack.

Grace held her breath. Eventually he’d find his voice, and when he did, surely he’d tell them all what he’d told her the night before.

My name isn’t Cavendish.

But it once was.

“My name,” Mr. Audley stammered, “my given name…” He paused, swallowed convulsively, and his voice shook as he said, “My full name is John Rollo Cavendish-Audley.”

“Who were your parents?” Thomas whispered.

Mr. Audley-Mr. Cavendish-Audley-didn’t answer.

“Who was your father?” Thomas’s voice was louder this time, more insistent.

“Who the bloody hell do you think he was?” Mr. Audley snapped.

Grace’s heart pounded. She looked at Thomas. He was pale and his hands were shaking, and she felt like such a traitor. She could have told him. She could have warned him.

She had been a coward.

“Your parents,” Thomas said, his voice low. “Were they married?”

“What is your implication?” Mr. Audley demanded, and for a moment Grace feared that they would come to blows again. Mr. Audley brought to mind a caged beast, poked and prodded until he could stand it no more.

“Please,” she pleaded, jumping between them yet again. “He doesn’t know,” she said. Mr. Audley couldn’t know what it meant if he was indeed legitimate. But Thomas did, and he’d gone so still that Grace thought he might shatter. She looked at him, and at his grandmother. “Someone needs to explain to Mr. Audley-”

“Cavendish,” the dowager snapped.

“Mr. Cavendish-Audley,” Grace said quickly, because she did not know how to style him without offending someone in the room. “Someone needs to tell him that…that…”

She looked to the others for help, for guidance, for something, because surely this was not her duty. She was the only one of them there not of Cavendish blood. Why did she have to make all of the explanations?

She looked at Mr. Audley, trying not to see the portrait in his face, and said, “Your father-the man in the painting, that is-assuming he is your father-he was his grace’s father’s…elder brother.”

No one said anything.

Grace cleared her throat. “So, if…if your parents were indeed lawfully married-”

“They were,” Mr. Audley all but snapped.

“Yes, of course. I mean, not of course, but-”

“What she means,” Thomas cut in sharply, “is that if you are indeed the legitimate offspring of John Cavendish, then you are the Duke of Wyndham.”

And there it was. The truth. Or if not the truth, then the possibility of the truth, and no one, not even the dowager, knew what to say. The two men-the two dukes, Grace thought with a hysterical bubble of laughter-simply stared at each other, taking each other’s measure, and then finally Mr. Audley’s hand seemed to reach out. It shook, quivered like the dowager’s when she was attempting to find purchase, and then finally, when it settled on the back of a chair, his fingers grasped tightly. With legs that were clearly unsteady, Mr. Audley sat down.

“No,” he said. “No.”

“You will remain here,” the dowager directed, “until this matter can be settled to my satisfaction.”

“No,” Mr. Audley said with considerably more conviction. “I will not.”

“Oh, yes, you will,” she responded. “If you do not, I will turn you in to the authorities as the thief you are.”

“You wouldn’t do that,” Grace blurted out. She turned to Mr. Audley. “She would never do that. Not if she believes that you are her grandson.”

“Shut up!” the dowager growled. “I don’t know what you think you are doing, Miss Eversleigh, but you are not family, and you have no place in this room.”

Mr. Audley stood. His bearing was sharp, and proud, and for the first time Grace saw within him the military man he’d said he once was. When he spoke, his words were measured and clipped, completely unlike the lazy drawl she had come to expect from him.

“Do not speak to her in that manner ever again.”

Something inside of her melted. Thomas had defended her against his grandmother before; indeed, he’d long been her champion. But not like this. He valued her friendship, she knew that he did. But this…this was different. She didn’t hear the words.

She felt them.

And as she watched Mr. Audley’s face, her eyes slid to his mouth. It came back to her…the touch of his lips, his kiss, his breath, and the bittersweet shock when he was through, because she hadn’t wanted it…and then she hadn’t wanted it to end.

There was perfect silence, stillness even, save for the widening of the dowager’s eyes. And then, just when Grace realized that her hands had begun to tremble, the dowager bit off, “I am your grandmother.”

“That,” Mr. Audley replied, “remains to be determined.”

Grace’s lips parted with surprise, because no one could doubt his parentage, not with the proof propped up against the drawing room wall.

“What?” Thomas burst out. “Are you now trying to tell me that you don’t think you are the son of John Cavendish?”

Mr. Audley shrugged, and in an instant the steely determination in his eyes was gone. He was a highwayman rogue again, devil-may-care and completely without responsibility. “Frankly,” he said, “I’m not so certain I wish to gain entry into this charming little club of yours.”

“You don’t have a choice,” the dowager said.

“So loving,” Mr. Audley said with sigh. “So thoughtful. Truly, a grandmother for the ages.”

Grace clamped a hand over her mouth, but her choked laughter came through nonetheless. It was so inappropriate…in so many ways…but it was impossible to keep it in. The dowager’s face had gone purple, her lips pinched until the lines of anger drew up to her nose. Not even Thomas had ever provoked such a reaction, and heaven knew, he had tried.

She looked over at him. Of everyone in the room, surely he was the one with the most at stake. He looked exhausted. And bewildered. And furious, and amazingly, about to laugh. “Your grace,” she said hesitantly. She didn’t know what she wanted to say to him. There probably wasn’t anything to say, but the silence was just awful.

He ignored her, but she knew he’d heard, because his body stiffened even more, then shuddered when he let out a breath. And then the dowager-oh why would she never learn to leave well enough alone?-bit off his name as if she were summoning a dog.

“Shut up,” he snapped back.

Grace wanted to reach out to him. Thomas was her friend, but he was-and he always had been-so far above her. And now she was standing here, hating herself because she could not stop thinking about the other man in the room, the one who might very well steal Thomas’s very identity.

And so she did nothing. And hated herself even more for it.

“You should remain,” Thomas said to Mr. Audley. “We will need-”

Grace held her breath as Thomas cleared his throat.

“We will need to get this sorted out.”

They all waited for Mr. Audley’s response. He seemed to be assessing Thomas, taking his measure. Grace prayed he would realize just how difficult it must have been for Thomas to speak to him with such civility. Surely he would respond in kind. She wanted him so badly to be a good person. He’d kissed her. He’d defended her. Was it too much to hope that he was, underneath it all, a white knight?

Jack had always prided himself on being able to spot the irony in any situation, but as he stood in the Belgrave drawing room-correction, one of the Belgrave drawing rooms, surely there were dozens-he could find nothing but stark, cold reality.

He’d spent six years as an officer in His Majesty’s army, and if he’d learned one thing from his years on the battlefield, it was that life could, and frequently did, turn on a single moment. One wrong turn, one missed clue, and he could lose an entire company of men. But once he returned to Britain, he’d somehow lost sight of that. His life was a series of small decisions and insignificant encounters. It was true that he was living a life of crime, which meant he was always dancing a few steps ahead of the hangman’s noose, but it wasn’t the same. No one’s life depended upon his actions. No one’s livelihood, even.

There was nothing serious about robbing coaches. It was a game, really, played by men with too much education and too little direction. Who would have thought that one of his insignificant decisions-to take the Lincoln road north instead of south-would lead to this? Because one thing was for certain, his carefree life on the road was over. He suspected that Wyndham would be more than happy to watch him ride away without a word, but the dowager would not be so accommodating. Miss Eversleigh’s assurances aside, he was quite certain the old bat would go to extensive lengths to keep him on a leash. Maybe she would not turn him over to the authorities, but she could certainly tell the world that her long-lost grandson was gadding about the countryside robbing coaches. Which would make it damned difficult to continue in his chosen profession.

And if he was truly the Duke of Wyndham…