The Way to a Duke's Heart: The Truth About the Duke (22 page)

“I imagine it will be quite cold and civil.”

“Civil?” she exclaimed. “
Civil?
When he was blackmailing your father?”

“I don’t think my father had much to do with it, in the end,” he said after a moment.

That only made her more nervous. She rubbed her hands together, wishing she hadn’t drunk the lemonade. There was a bitter taste in the back of her throat. “Why do you say that?”

He sighed. He sat down in the other chair and scrubbed his hands over his face. “When we first met,” he began, not quite looking at her, “what did you think of me?”

“I was all wrong,” she said quickly.

“But what was your first impression?”

Tessa bit her lip. “A wealthy, conceited, indolent rogue. A—A scoundrel, I suppose.”

He nodded. “Precisely. You wouldn’t be the first to call me so, with good reason.”

An awful feeling bloomed in her chest. “How did you offend Lord Worley?”

“Do you recall,” he said, more slowly than ever, “the other night, when you said your family sent you away to recover your nerves and your dignity?” Tessa gave a wary nod. “You were fortunate. I . . . I also had an ill-fated love affair in my youth. She was beautiful and coy, and I was young and impatient. My father disapproved and prevented the marriage, and in response I stormed off to London, vowing never to speak to him again.” His mouth bent bitterly, sadly. “What an arrogant little coxcomb I was.”

Tessa sat in mute anxiety, unable to open her mouth.

“I refused to see that he had valid reasons for stopping it. I refused to see anything but my own wounded pride, with the unfortunate result that I never stopped thinking I had been unfairly divided from my true love.”

She licked her lips and made a guess. “Lady Worley.”

He hesitated, then gave a slight nod.

And then she didn’t want to know any more. Something else he’d murmured stuck in her mind—about giving up married women—and she didn’t want to hear anything about the ravishingly beautiful Lady Worley who had been his first love, and almost his ruination. She rubbed her hands on her skirt and jumped to her feet.

“Well, then, you must let Lord Worley know he wasted his efforts,” she said in a loud, too-bright voice. “With Mr. Thomas’s letter, you have nothing to fear from him.”

He rose, too. “I’ll be back in a few days.”

“You will?” She dared a quick glance at him.

He seemed to become himself again. He gave her a sideways glance and a rueful smile. “Did you fear I wouldn’t?”

“You didn’t say,” she pointed out, not wanting to admit that yes, she did fear he wouldn’t come back to her. Here in this provincial town, she could ignore the fact that he was, or very soon would be, a duke. Here in the quiet of a Somerset cottage, she didn’t have to think about his intentions, as yet unstated and unclear. Here she could pretend that things would go on as they were, without the interference of family or the demands of a title or the allure of a more sophisticated woman he’d been in love with for years.

“I’ll come back,” he said. “Will you wait for me?”

She still had her doubts, but something inside her melted as always when he looked at her that way. “Yes,” she said, shoving aside the doubts. “I will.”

Chapter 19

U
ppercombe, the seat of the Earls of Worley, was a rambling estate from the time of the Tudors set deep in the Somerset hills above Kilmersdon. Charlie gave a cursory look for any signs of neglect as he rode up the winding drive, but there were none. He didn’t really expect to see any. If Worley had sent the letters, it wasn’t because of money, nor any other reason connected to Durham or even to Edward and Gerard.

It was because Charlie had had an affair with Lady Worley.

He had never forgotten how deeply it cut when Maria Gronow refused his frantic proposal to elope. She’d left him, bereft, standing on that little bridge in the woods near Lastings, after telling him she loved him desperately . . . but not desperately enough to defy his father and run away with him. When she’d married the Earl of Worley less than two months later, it had seemed his life was permanently blighted, forever robbed of the woman he loved through his father’s callous interference. For years he’d nursed a smoldering fury that his father had refused to bless the match, blaming Durham for his loss of Maria. He’d gone to London hell-bent on putting his thumb in the duke’s eye at every turn to repay some of the pain his father had caused him.

But after a year or two he had stopped thinking of Maria so much. A variety of other pleasures filled his hours. The Worleys didn’t spend much time in town, remaining in the country most of the year. Periodically Charlie would hear gossip that Lady Worley had borne another child, filling up the nursery at Uppercombe, and he told himself she must be blissfully happy. She must have fallen in love with Worley and become a devoted wife and mother, no longer the bewitching young siren who dreamed of being the toast of London on his arm. He told himself he was glad she was happy, and over time the scar across his heart ceased to ache when he thought of her.

If only he’d been wise enough to leave it that way.

He pulled up his horse in front of the house but remained in the saddle. Perhaps he should turn around and ride away. He’d found the marriage record, found Dorothy’s grave, and secured the proof he needed that his father had legally and legitimately wed his mother. His inheritance and title would be secure, and nothing Worley or anyone else did could change that. What was there to gain by stirring up old hurts and past mistakes?

Slowly, Charlie dismounted his horse. A servant came running up to take the reins, and he handed them over. He owed his brothers a full explanation, including any apology due for his own actions. He had earned whatever retribution was coming. And, he supposed, he should be man enough to face the consequences of his actions, whatever they might be.

The butler was waiting when he reached the door. “Tell Lord Worley I’ve come about his letters,” Charlie told the man, placing one of his father’s calling cards on the butler’s salver. They were inarguably his now, embossed with the title
Duke of Durham
in elegant script above the ducal coat of arms. Edward had put them in with the rest of the duke’s papers, where Charlie found them after emptying the satchel.

He wasn’t left waiting long. The butler showed him into the library, where Lord Worley stood with one elbow propped on the mantel. He didn’t say a word until the butler had closed the door behind him. “Lord Gresham,” he said then, a trace of malice in his voice. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

“You may call me Durham,” replied Charlie. Neither man made any pretense of a bow.

Worley’s brow arched. “Precipitous, by the rumors one hears.”

Charlie just smiled. “You shouldn’t listen to rumors, sir.”

The earl’s lips curled into an expression every bit as sardonic as Charlie’s own. “Oh, but the pleasure they afford! The foibles of our fellow man are better than a farce on the stage. Surely you agree.”

“Of course. And one should credit them with as much truth as a farce on the stage. There is often more fiction at work in gossip than in the finest drama.”

“And yet, like some of those dramas, gossip is often based so closely on truth.”

Worley was enjoying this, Charlie could tell. “Or supposition, in your case,” he said, tired of prevarication. “An old story, fleshed out with threats and blackmail demands.”

“Well.” The other man rocked back on his heels, looking rather pleased with himself. “One doesn’t want to be ignored or overlooked.”

“And yet you didn’t sign your name. I daresay you would have received an immediate response if you hadn’t taken pains to conceal yourself.”

Worley gave a faint chuckle. “Do you think I didn’t want to be caught out? Do you think I didn’t want you to know I sent them? You’re as foolish and oblivious as gossip says, if so.” He leaned forward, his humor vanishing in a sudden glitter of hatred. “I wanted you to know, whelp,” he said savagely. “I didn’t think it would take even you this long to work it out, but I never planned to conceal it from
you
.”

“You shouldn’t have sent them to my father, in that case,” Charlie shot back. “He told no one for over a year. If you relished the thought of the agony you were causing me, know that it only began when he died and we discovered the letters in his effects.”

Worley’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, that was a miscalculation. I expected your brother Edward would open them and drag the entire affair into the light, demanding answers. I would have been delighted to see your own father enact my vengeance.”

“You underestimated my father and my brother. My brothers and I are all, in our own ways, very much Durham’s sons.” Charlie opened his arms wide in a gesture of defenselessness. “For instance, you can see I have no hesitation in confronting a man. I don’t ask unknowing and uninvolved people to send libelous blackmail letters for me.”

Worley’s smile was poisonous. “Ah, poor Mr. Scott. He finally told you.”

“I worked it out on my own,” replied Charlie evenly. “How did you know Hester Swynne was really Dorothy Cope?” That was the only link missing in the chain, as far as he could see.

The other man raised his eyebrows. “Oh, really—surely you wouldn’t have believed your father paid court to a lowly wench from Mells. It was only a guess, I admit, but it seemed to me there was more to it. I sent a chap out to ask some questions, and he found old Jeremiah Scott—and lo, the vein was even richer than expected. The man’s gone barmy with age, but a bottle of strong port loosened his lips remarkably, even to the point of confessing himself a bigamous husband. I expect it was a relief for him to tell the tale, after keeping it secret for so long. Durham actually married the tart! Isn’t it shocking what men will do to get a woman to open her legs?”

Charlie’s hands were in fists, and he took a deep breath, forcing his fingers to uncurl. Worley was savoring every bloody moment of this, and Charlie wanted to shake that damned triumph off his face. He dropped his hands. “Undoubtedly—which brings me to the reason for my visit. I was wrong to dally with Lady Worley.”

At her name, the earl flinched and his expression darkened. Then his mouth twisted, but this time in rage. “You were sick with love for her your whole life, weren’t you? Both of you were just waiting for me to cock up my toes, all these years. And the widowed Lady Worley would have become the next Duchess of Durham, as she wanted to be all along. I always wondered if you were truly enslaved by her, as she often claimed. I know she was a virgin when I married her, which can only mean she made you dance to her tune as she made me.”

Charlie was stunned almost speechless. “I never saw her,” he replied, just as harshly. “Yes, I wanted to marry her once, years ago. But she refused me. From the time she refused to elope with me in spite of my father’s wishes, I never saw her. She went to Bath and married you, and I never spoke to her again until . . .” He stopped.

When Worley looked at him again, his face no longer held any fury, but a sort of stony acceptance. “Until that night? I can almost believe it.”

That night. That one cursed night three years ago, when he’d encountered Maria at a ball in London. When he’d fallen, half drunk and feeling reckless, back into his old burning passion for her. He’d only meant to flirt outrageously with her, both as a sop to the echoes of his wounded youthful pride and to torment her with what might have been. By then he fully appreciated what it meant to be the handsome heir to a wealthy dukedom; at least a half-dozen ladies in the ballroom that night would have eloped with him on a moment’s notice, if he’d asked them. But Maria, the one girl who’d refused him, was all he could see, as he crossed the ballroom. She was still beautiful, still tapping her toe in time with the music as she watched, but when he swept a bow in front of her, she gasped in astonishment.

“Is it really you?” she’d asked, sounding almost fearful before a joyous smile blazed across her face. “It is—oh, thank the heavens above, it
is
!”

The rest of the night had passed in a blur. She was miserable in her marriage. After four daughters and three miscarriages, Worley was displeased with her as a wife. He kept her virtually a prisoner at Uppercombe, only bringing her to London for brief trips every other year. He was abrupt with her and made shocking, even cruel demands of her in his quest for a son. She confessed to Charlie, in a voice choking with sobs, that she bitterly regretted refusing him; that she hadn’t known a moment of happiness since that day; and that she had never stopped loving him, even as she was forced to give herself to her cold and abusive husband. It was a tale of loneliness and despair, and Charlie, still under the influence of that remembered adoration as well as a large quantity of drink, believed every word.

As the hours passed and the wine flowed, Maria poured out all her troubles and laments into his too-sympathetic ear. When she exclaimed at the lateness of the hour, he took her hand and pulled her into a dark corner to kiss her. He declared he wanted to protect her, to save her from her tragic lot. And when she clasped his hand and told him to come home with her, that Worley was away for the night and her heart might break forever if Charlie didn’t make love to her just once, he went without a second thought.

It was the next morning when he realized the stupidity of his actions. From the moment he opened his eyes and saw that he was in another man’s bed, with a wife not his own, he repented of the reckless decision to come home with her. He didn’t know Lord Worley personally, but the man’s reputation was not the forgiving and forgetting sort. Charlie’s scandals to that point had been mere trifles compared to carrying on an affair with a jealous man’s wife. When Maria awoke and began murmuring about seeing him again, even hinting that Charlie might help her divorce her husband, he knew he’d made a horrifying mistake.

By the time he extricated himself from her tears and arms, he felt he’d made the narrowest escape of his life. He had gone to bed with her because he’d spent too much of his life dreaming of doing it, but it hadn’t changed anything. She was still married to someone else, and he was surprised to find he didn’t want her as badly as he had once thought. In the clear light of morning he realized he no longer loved her. And the thought of being drawn into a criminal conversation suit for adultery with Lady Worley was simply unthinkable. It was enough to make him swear off ever bedding another married woman again, let alone Maria Worley, and breathe a sigh of relief that it hadn’t been worse.

But now it was clear he hadn’t completely escaped. Somehow Lord Worley had discovered his wife’s infidelity and focused his vengeance on him, even though it happened almost three years ago and Charlie hadn’t seen Maria since. It seemed an extreme reaction to one night’s sin. Blackmailers went to prison, and if Durham had discovered him in time, Worley would have suffered a great deal worse. If Worley truly wanted to punish Charlie, a suit for criminal damages would have done it very well, socially and financially. He understood the source of Worley’s anger, but not its methods.

“It was only one night,” he said, “undertaken in a rash moment and swiftly regretted. I’ve not seen her since.”

Worley’s grim expression faded, and suddenly he looked old. “I hated you for years,” he said softly, almost to himself. “Everything I did she compared to you, and I was always found wanting.” He turned and moved slowly across the room. “I lived with that; I lived with the knowledge she would have left me for you at any moment. Every time I denied her anything, she flung it in my face that I was her second choice, that fate had stolen her true love from her. And because I was a fool, I accepted it and told myself she was mine and always would be, no matter what she said in anger.” He pulled the bell for the servant. “But this went too far.”

A servant tapped at the door almost at once. “Bring Lord Cranston,” Worley told the maid, who curtsied and disappeared.

“What did you hope to gain?” Charlie demanded, struggling to hold his temper in check. He had sinned with the man’s wife—he admitted it—but he had done what he could to mitigate it. He would have understood if Worley had called him out, or demanded some other form of direct retribution, but this cowardly blackmail scheme had upset his brothers’ lives and ruined his father’s final months on earth and, perversely, left his own life relatively unscathed. The intentional cruelty to his family left him furious. “There was no scandal of that night. She left London and I never saw her again. If your honor required satisfaction, why not challenge me to a duel? Why torment my father on his deathbed? If you’d done any investigation you would have realized there was no basis for your threats. Dorothy Cope died decades ago. My mother’s marriage was valid. What did you gain?”

The earl’s eyes flashed. “Gain?” He gave a harsh bark of laughter. “As much as I longed to put a bullet into you, it wasn’t worth the trouble. Why should I subject myself to any danger? It wasn’t my intent to roil Durham’s last days, but his secret marriage was the perfect opportunity. What could hurt Charles de Lacey, reprobate rake and useless fop, more than losing his inheritance and being declared a bastard? I don’t care if it’s true or not. I don’t care if it upset your brothers’ pampered lives a little, or sent Durham to his grave thinking his lies had caught up to him at last. You had to be punished, no matter what the cost.”