The Lost Duke of Wyndham (11 page)

“Not long.” He gave a rueful glance to his plate, which was almost clean. “I learned to eat quickly in the army.”

“By necessity, I imagine,” she said, taking a bite of her coddled eggs.

He let his chin dip very slightly to acknowledge her statement.

“The dowager will be down shortly,” she said.

“Ah. So you mean that we must learn to converse
quickly as well, if we wish to have any enjoyable discourse before the descent of the duchess.”

Her lips twitched. “That wasn't exactly what I meant, but—” She took a sip of her chocolate, not that that hid her smile. “—it's close.”

“The things we must learn to do quickly,” he said with a sigh.

She looked up, fork frozen halfway to her mouth. A small blob of egg fell to her plate with a slap. Her cheeks were positively flaming with color.

“I didn't mean
that
,” he said, most pleased with the direction of her thoughts. “Good heavens, I would never do
that
quickly.”

Her lips parted. Not quite an O, but a rather attractive little oval nonetheless.

“Unless, of course I had to,” he added, letting his eyes grow heavy-lidded and warm. “When faced with the choice of speed versus abstinence—”

“Mr. Audley!”

He sat back with a satisfied smile. “I was wondering when you'd scold me.”

“Not soon enough,” she muttered.

He picked up his knife and fork and cut off a piece of bacon. It was thick and pink and perfectly cooked. “And once again, there it is,” he said, popping the meat into his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, then added, “My inability to be serious.”

“But you claimed that wasn't true.” She leaned in—just an inch or so, but the motion seemed to say—
I'm watching you
.

He almost shivered. He liked being watched by her.

“You said,” she continued, “that you were frequently serious, and that it is up to me to figure out when.”

“Is that what I said?” he murmured.

“Something rather close to it.”

“Well, then.” He leaned in closer, too, and his eyes captured hers, green on blue, across the breakfast table. “What do you think? Am I being serious right now?”

For a moment he thought she might answer him, but no, she just sat back with an innocent little smile and said, “I really couldn't say.”

“You disappoint me, Miss Eversleigh.”

Her smile turned positively serene as she returned her attention to the food on her plate. “I couldn't possibly render judgment on a subject so unfit for my ears,” she murmured.

He laughed aloud at that. “You have a very devious sense of humor, Miss Eversleigh.”

She appeared to be pleased by the compliment, almost as if she'd been waiting for years for someone to acknowledge it. But before she could say anything (if indeed she'd
intended
to say something), the moment was positively assaulted by the dowager, who marched into the breakfast room trailed by two rather harried and unhappy looking maids.

“What are you laughing about?” she demanded.

“Nothing in particular,” Jack replied, deciding to spare Miss Eversleigh the task of making conversation. After five years in the dowager's service, the poor girl deserved a respite. “Just enjoying Miss Eversleigh's enchanting company.”

The dowager shot them both a sharp look. “My
plate,” she snapped. One of the maids rushed to the sideboard, but she was halted when the dowager said, “Miss Eversleigh will see to it.”

Grace stood without a word, and the dowager turned to Jack and said, “She is the only one who does it properly.” She shook her head and let out a short-tempered little puff of air, clearly lamenting the levels of intelligence commonly found in the servants.

Jack said nothing, deciding this would be as good a time as any to invoke his aunt's favorite axiom:
If you can't say something nice, say nothing at all
.

Although it
was
tempting to say something extraordinarily nice about the servants.

Grace returned, plate in hand, set it down in front of the dowager, and then gave it a little twist, turning the disk until the eggs were at nine o'clock, closest to the forks.

Jack watched the entire affair, first curious, then impressed. The plate had been divided into six equal, wedge-shaped sections, each with its own food selection. Nothing touched, not even the hollandaise sauce, which had been dribbled over the eggs with careful precision. “It's a masterpiece,” he declared, arching forward. He was trying to see if she'd signed her name with the hollandaise.

Grace gave him a look. One that was not difficult to interpret.

“Is it a sundial?” he asked, all innocence.

“What are you talking about?” the dowager grumbled, picking up a fork.

“No! Don't ruin it!” he cried out—as best he could without exploding with laughter.

But she jabbed a slice of stewed apple all the same.

“How could you?” Jack accused.

Grace actually turned in her chair, unable to watch.

“What the devil are you talking about?” the dowager demanded. “Miss Eversleigh, why are you facing the window? What is he about?”

Grace twisted back around, hand over her mouth. “I'm sure I do not know.”

The dowager's eyes narrowed. “I think you do know.”

“I assure you,” Grace said, “I never know what he is about.”

“Never?” Jack queried. “What a sweeping comment. We've only just met.”

“It feels like so much longer,” Grace said.

“Why,” he mused, “do I wonder if I have just been insulted?”

“If you've been insulted, you shouldn't have to wonder at it,” the dowager said sharply.

Grace turned to her with some surprise. “That's not what you said yesterday.”

“What did she say yesterday?” Mr. Audley asked.

“He is a Cavendish,” the dowager said simply. Which, to her, explained everything. But she apparently held little faith in Grace's deductive abilities, and so she said, as one might speak to a child, “We are different.”

“The rules don't apply,” Mr. Audley said with a shrug. And then, as soon as the dowager was looking away, he winked at Grace. “What did she say yesterday?” he asked again.

Grace was not sure she could adequately paraphrase, given that she was so at odds with the overall sentiment, but she couldn't very well ignore his direct
question twice, so she said, “That there is an art to insult, and if one can do it without the subject realizing, it's even more impressive.”

She looked over to the dowager, waiting to see if she would be corrected. “It does not apply,” the dowager said archly, “when one is the
subject
of the insult.”

“Wouldn't it still be art for the other person?” Grace asked.

“Of course not. And why should I care if it were?” The dowager sniffed disdainfully and turned back to her breakfast. “I don't like this bacon,” she announced.

“Are your conversations always this oblique?” Mr. Audley asked.

“No,” Grace answered, quite honestly. “It has been a most exceptional two days.”

No one had anything to add to that, probably because they were all in such agreement. But Mr. Audley did fill the silence by turning to the dowager and saying, “I found the bacon to be superb.”

To that, the dowager replied, “Is Wyndham returned?”

“I don't believe so,” Grace answered. She looked up to the footman. “Graham?”

“No, miss, he is not at home.”

The dowager pursed her lips into an expression of irritated discontent. “Very inconsiderate of him.”

“It is early yet,” Grace said.

“He did not indicate that he would be gone all night.”

“Is the duke normally required to register his schedule with his grandmother?” Mr. Audley murmured, clearly out to make trouble.

Grace gave him a peeved look. Surely this did not require a reply. He smiled in return. He enjoyed vexing her. This much was becoming abundantly clear. She did not read too much into it, however. The man enjoyed vexing everyone.

Grace turned back to the dowager. “I am certain he will return soon.”

The dowager's expression did not budge in its irritation. “I had hoped that he would be here so that we might talk frankly, but I suppose we may proceed without him.”

“Do you think that's wise?” Grace asked before she could stop herself. And indeed, the dowager responded to her impertinence with a withering stare. But Grace refused to regret speaking out. It was not right to make determinations about the future in Thomas's absence.

“Footman!” the dowager barked. “Leave us and close the doors behind you.”

Once the room was secure, the dowager turned to Mr. Audley and announced, “I have given the matter great thought.”

“I really think we should wait for the duke,” Grace cut in. Her voice sounded a little panicked, and she wasn't sure why she was quite so distressed. Perhaps it was because Thomas was the one person who had made her life bearable in the past five years. If it hadn't been for him, she'd have forgotten the sound of her own laughter.

She liked Mr. Audley. She liked him rather too much, in all honesty, but she would not allow the dow
ager to hand him Thomas's birthright over breakfast.

“Miss Eversleigh—”
the dowager bit off, clearly beginning a blistering set-down.

“I agree with Miss Eversleigh,” Mr. Audley put in smoothly. “We should wait for the duke.”

But the dowager waited for no one. And her expression was one part formidable and two parts defiant when she said, “We must travel to Ireland. Tomorrow if we can manage it.”

J
ack's usual response when delivered unpleasant tidings was to smile. This was his response to pleasant news as well, of course, but anyone could grin when offered a compliment. It took talent to curve one's lips in an upward direction when ordered, say, to clean out a chamber pot or risk one's life by sneaking behind enemy lines to determine troop numbers.

But he generally managed it. Excrement…moving defenseless among the French…he always reacted with a dry quip and a lazy smile.

This was not something he'd had to cultivate. Indeed, the midwife who'd brought him into the world swore to her dying day that he was the only baby she'd ever seen who emerged from his mother's womb smiling.

He disliked conflict. He always had, which had made his chosen professions—the military, followed by gen
teel crime—somewhat interesting. But firing a weapon at a nameless frog or lifting a necklace from the neck of an overfed aristocrat—this was not conflict.

Conflict—to Jack—was personal. It was a lover's betrayal, a friend's insult. It was two brothers vying for their father's approval, a poor relation forced to swallow her pride. It involved a sneer, or a shrill voice, and it left a body wondering if he'd offended someone.

Or disappointed another.

He had found, with a near one hundred percent success rate, that a grin and a jaunty remark could defuse almost any situation. Or change any topic. Which meant that he very rarely had to discuss matters that were not of his choosing.

Nonetheless, this time, when faced with the dowager and her unexpected (although, really, he should have expected it) announcement, all he could do was stare at her and say, “I beg your pardon?”

“We must go to Ireland,” she said again, in that obey-me tone he expected
she
had been born with. “There is no way we shall get to the bottom of the matter without visiting the site of the marriage. I assume Irish churches keep records?”

Good God, did she think
all
of them were illiterate? Jack forced down a bit of bile and said quite tightly, “Indeed.”

“Good.” The dowager turned back to her breakfast, the matter good and settled in her mind. “We shall find whoever performed the ceremony and obtain the register. It is the only way.”

Jack felt his fingers bending and flexing beneath the
table. It felt as if his blood were going to burst through his skin. “Wouldn't you prefer to send someone in your stead?” he inquired.

The dowager regarded him as she might an idiot. “Who could I possibly trust with a matter of such importance? No, it must be me. And you, of course, and Wyndham, since I expect he will want to see whatever proof we locate as well.”

The usual Jack would never have let such a comment pass without his own, exceedingly ironic,
One would think,
but this current Jack—the one who was desperately trying to figure out how he might travel to Ireland without being seen by his aunt, uncle, or any of his cousins—actually bit his lip.

“Mr. Audley?” Grace said quietly.

He didn't look at her. He refused to look at her. She'd see far more in his face than the dowager ever would.

“Of course,” he said briskly. “Of course we must go.” Because really, what else could he say?
Terribly sorry, but I can't go to Ireland, as I killed my cousin
?

Jack had been out of society for a number of years, but he was fairly certain this would not be considered good breakfast table conversation.

And yes, he knew that he had not pulled a trigger, and yes, he knew that he had not forced Arthur to buy a commission and enter the army along with him, and yes—and this was the worst of it—he knew that his aunt would never even dream of blaming him for Arthur's death.

But he had known Arthur. And more importantly, Arthur had known him. Better than anyone. He'd
known his every strength—and his every weakness—and when Jack had finally closed the door on his disastrous university career and headed off to the military, Arthur had refused to allow him to go alone.

And they both knew why.

“It might be somewhat ambitious to try to depart tomorrow,” Grace said. “You will have to secure passage, and—”

“Bah!” was the dowager's response. “Wyndham's secretary can manage it. It's about time he earned his wages. And if not tomorrow, then the next day.”

“Will you wish for me to accompany you?” Grace asked quietly.

Jack was just about to interject that,
damn
yes, she'd be going, or else he would not, but the dowager gave her a haughty look and replied, “Of course. You do not think I would make such a journey without a companion? I cannot bring maids—the gossip, you know—and so I will need someone to help me dress.”

“You know that I am not very good with hair,” Grace pointed out, and to Jack's horror, he laughed. It was just a short little burst of it, tinged with a loathsome nervous edge, but it was enough for both ladies to stop their conversation, and their meal, and turn to him.

Oh. Brilliant. How was he to explain this?
Don't mind me, I was simply laughing at the ludicrousness of it all. You with your hair, me with my dead cousin
.

“Do you find my hair amusing?” the dowager asked sharply.

And Jack, because he had absolutely nothing to lose, just shrugged and said, “A bit.”

The dowager let out an indignant huff, and Grace positively glared at him.

“Women's hair always amuses me,” he clarified. “So much work, when all anyone really wants is to see it down.”

They both seemed to relax a bit. His comment may have been risqué, but it took the personal edge off the insult. The dowager tossed one last irritated look in his direction, then turned to Grace to continue their previous conversation. “You may spend the morning with Maria,” she directed. “She will show you what to do. It can't be that difficult. Pull one of the scullery maids up from the kitchen and practice upon her. She'll be grateful for the opportunity, I'm sure.”

Grace looked not at all enthused, but she nodded and murmured, “Of course.”

“See to it that the kitchen work does not suffer,” the dowager said, finishing the last of her stewed apples. “An elegant coiffure is compensation enough.”

“For what?” Jack asked.

The dowager turned to him, her nose somehow looking pointier than usual.

“Compensation for what?” he restated, since he felt like being contrary.

The dowager stared at him a moment longer, then must have decided he was best ignored, because she turned back to Grace. “You may commence packing my things once you are done with Maria. And after that, see to it that a suitable story is set about for our absence.” She waved her hand in the air as if it were a trifle. “A hunting cottage in Scotland will do nicely.
The Borders, I should think. No one will believe it if you say I went to the Highlands.”

Grace nodded silently.

“Somewhere off the well-trod path, however,” the dowager continued, looking as if she were enjoying herself. “The last thing I need is for one of my friends to attempt to see me.”

“Do you have many friends?” Jack asked, his tone so perfectly polite that she'd be wondering all day if she'd been insulted.

“The dowager is much admired,” Grace said quickly, perfect little companion that she was.

Jack decided not to comment.

“Have you ever been to Ireland?” Grace asked the dowager. But Jack caught the angry look she shot him before turning to her employer.

“Of course not.” The dowager's face pinched. “Why on earth would I have done so?”

“It is said to have a soothing effect on one's temperament,” Jack said.

“Thus far,” the dowager retorted, “I am not much impressed with its influences upon one's manners.”

He smiled. “You find me impolite?”

“I find you impertinent.”

Jack turned to Grace with a sad sigh. “And here I thought I was meant to be the prodigal grandson, able to do no wrong.”

“Everyone does wrong,” the dowager said sharply. “The question is how little wrong one does.”

“I would think,” Jack said quietly, “that it is more important what one does to rectify the wrong.”

“Or perhaps,” the dowager snapped angrily, “one could manage not to make the mistake in the first place.”

Jack leaned forward, interested now. “What did my father do that was so very very wrong?”

“He died,” she said, and her voice was so bitter and full of chill that Jack heard Grace suck in her breath from across the table.

“Surely you cannot blame him for that,” Jack murmured. “A freak storm, a leaky boat…”

“He should never have stayed so long in Ireland,” the dowager hissed. “He should never have gone in the first place. He was needed here.”

“By you,” Jack said softly.

The dowager's face lost some of its usual stiffness, and for a moment he thought he saw her eyes grow moist. But whatever emotion came over her, it was swiftly tamped down, and she stabbed at her bacon and bit off, “He was needed here. By all of us.”

Grace suddenly stood. “I will go find Maria now, your grace, if that is amenable.”

Jack rose along with her. There was no way she was leaving him alone with the dowager. “I believe you promised me a tour of the castle,” he murmured.

Grace looked from the dowager to him and back again. Finally the dowager flicked her hand in the air and said, “Oh, take him about. He should see his birthright before we leave. You may have your session with Maria later. I will remain and await Wyndham.”

But as they reached the doorway, they heard her add softly, “If that is indeed still his name.”

 

Grace was too angry to wait politely outside the doorway, and indeed, she was already halfway down the hall before Mr. Audley caught up with her.

“Is this a tour or a race?” he asked, his lips forming that now familiar smile. But this time it did nothing but raise her ire.

“Why did you bait her?” she burst out. “Why would you do such a thing?”

“The comment about her hair, do you mean?” he asked, and he gave her one of those annoying innocent whatever-could-I-have-done-wrong looks. When of course he had to have known, perfectly well.

“Everything,” she replied hotly. “We were having a perfectly lovely breakfast, and then you—”

“You might have been having a perfectly lovely breakfast,” he cut in, and his voice held a newly sharp edge. “I was conversing with Medusa.”

“Yes, but you didn't have to make things worse by provoking her.”

“Isn't that what his holiness does?”

Grace stared at him in angry confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“Sorry.” He shrugged. “The duke. I've not noticed that he holds his tongue in her presence. I thought to emulate.”

“Mr. Aud—”

“Ah, but I misspoke. He's not holy, is he? Merely perfect.”

She could do nothing but stare. What had Thomas done to earn such contempt? By all rights Thomas should be the one in a blackened mood. He probably
was
, to be fair, but at least he'd taken himself off to be furious elsewhere.

“His grace, it is, isn't it?” Mr. Audley continued, his voice losing none of his derision. “I'm not so uneducated that I don't know the correct forms of address.”

“I never said you were. Neither, I might add, did the dowager.” Grace let out an irritated exhale. “She shall be difficult all day now.”

“She isn't normally difficult?”

Good heavens, she wanted to hit him. Of course the dowager was normally difficult. He knew that. What could he possibly have to gain by remarking upon it other than the enhancement of his oh so dry and wry persona?

“She shall be worse,” she ground out. “And I shall be the one to pay for it.”

“My apologies, then,” he said, and he offered a contrite bow.

Grace felt suddenly uncomfortable. Not because she thought he was mocking her, but rather because she was quite sure he was not. “It was nothing,” she mumbled. “It is not your place to worry over my situation.”

“Does Wyndham?”

Grace looked up at him, somehow captured by the directness of his gaze. “No,” she said softly. “Yes, he does, but no…”

No, he didn't. Thomas did look out for her, and had, on more than one occasion, interceded when he felt she was being treated unfairly, but he never held his tongue with his grandmother just to keep the peace. And Grace would never dream of asking him to. Or scold him for not doing so.

He was the duke. She could not speak to him that way, no matter their friendship.

But Mr. Audley was…

She closed her eyes for a moment, turning away so he could not see the turmoil on her face. He was just Mr. Audley for now, not so very far above her. But the dowager's voice, soft and menacing, still rang in her ears—

If that is indeed still his name.

She was speaking of Thomas, of course. But the counterpart was true as well. If Thomas was not Wyndham, then Mr. Audley
was
.

And this man…this man who had kissed her twice and made her dream of something beyond the walls of this castle—he would
be
this castle. The dukedom wasn't just a few words appended to the end of one's name. It was lands, it was money, it was the very history of England placed upon one man's shoulders. And if there was one thing she had learned during her five years at Belgrave, it was that the aristocracy were different from the rest of humanity. They were mortals, true, and they bled and cried just like everyone else, but they carried within them something that set them apart.

It didn't make them
better
. No matter the dowager's lectures on the subject, Grace would never believe that. But they were different. And they were shaped by the knowledge of their history and their roles.