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“Please, Mrs. Audley,” Thomas said, dipping his head in a gesture of respect, “do not put yourself out on my accord. It was unforgivable for us to arrive without notice. I would not expect you to go to any great lengths. Although perhaps your finest room for my grandmother.” He tried not to sound too weary as he added, “It will be easier for everyone.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Audley said quickly. “Please, please, it’s chilly. You must all come inside. Jack, I do need to tell you—”
“Where is your church?” the dowager demanded.
Thomas nearly groaned. Could she not wait until they were even shown in?
“Our church?” Mrs. Audley asked, looking to Jack in complete confusion. “At this hour?”
“I do not intend to worship,” the dowager snapped. “I wish to inspect the records.”
“Does Vicar Beveridge still preside?” Jack asked, clearly trying to cut the dowager off.
“Yes,” his aunt replied, “but he will surely be abed. It’s half nine, I should think, and he is an early riser. Perhaps in the morning. I—”
“This is a matter of dynastic importance,” the dowager interrupted. “I don’t care if it’s after midnight. We—”
“I care,” Jack cut in. “You are not going to pull the vicar out of bed. You have waited this long. You can bloody well wait until morning.”
Thomas wanted to applaud.
“Jack!” Mrs. Audley gasped. She turned to the dowager. “I did not raise him to speak this way.”
“No, you didn’t,” Jack said, but he glared at the dowager.
“You were his mother’s sister, weren’t you?” the dowager said to Mrs. Audley.
Who looked rather startled by the sudden change of topic. “I am.”
“Were you present at her wedding?”
“I was not.”
Jack turned to her in surprise. “You weren’t?”
“No. I could not attend. I was in confinement. I never told you. It was a stillbirth.” Her face softened. “Just one of the reasons I was so happy to have you.”
“We shall make for the church in the morning,” the dowager declared. “First thing. We shall find the papers and be done with it.”
“The papers?” Mrs. Audley echoed.
“Proof of the marriage,” the dowager practically snarled. “Are you daft?”
That was too much. Thomas reached out and pulled her back, which was probably in her best interest, as Jack looked as if he might go for her throat.
“Louise was not married in the Butlersbridge church,” Mrs. Audley said. “She was married at Maguiresbridge. In County Fermanagh, where we grew up.”
“How far is that?” the dowager demanded, tugging at her arm.
Thomas held firm.
“Twenty miles, your grace,” Mrs. Audley replied before turning back to her nephew. “Jack? What is this all about? Why do you need proof of your mother’s marriage?”
Jack hesitated for a moment, then cleared his throat and said, “My father was her son,” with a nod toward the dowager.
“Your father,” Mrs. Audley gasped. “John Cavendish, you mean…”
Thomas stepped forward, feeling strangely prepared to take charge of the rapidly deteriorating situation. “May I intercede?”
Jack nodded in his direction. “Please do.”
“Mrs. Audley,” Thomas said, “if there is proof of your sister’s marriage, then your nephew is the true Duke of Wyndham.”
“The true Duke of—” Mrs. Audley covered her mouth in shock. “No. It’s not possible. I remember him. Mr. Cavendish. He was—” She waved her arms in the air, as if trying to describe him with gestures. Finally, after several attempts at a more verbal explanation, she said, “He would not have kept such a thing from us.”
“He was not the heir at the time,” Thomas told her.
“Oh, my heavens. But if Jack is the duke, then you—”
“Are not,” he finished wryly. He glanced over at Amelia and Grace, who were watching the entire exchange from just inside the front door. “I am sure you can imagine our eagerness to have this settled.”
Mrs. Audley could only stare at him in shock.
Thomas knew just how she felt.
Amelia wasn’t sure what time it was. Certainly after midnight. She and Grace had been shown to their room several hours earlier, and even though she had long since washed her face and donned her nightclothes, she was still awake.
For a long time she’d lain beneath her blankets, pretending there was some kind of music to Grace’s even, sleep-lulled breathing. Then she’d moved to the window, deciding that if she couldn’t sleep, she might as well have something better to look at than the ceiling. The moon was nearly full, its light rendering the stars a bit less twinkly.
Amelia sighed. She had enough trouble picking out the constellations as it was.
Somewhat apathetically, she located the Big Dipper.
Then the wind blew a cloud over it.
“Oh, it figures,” she muttered.
Grace began to snore.
Amelia sat on the wide window ledge, letting her head lean up against the glass. She’d done this when she was younger and couldn’t sleep—go to the window, count the stars and the flowers. Sometimes she even climbed out, before her father had the majestic oak outside her window pruned back.
That had been fun.
She wanted that again. Fun. Tonight. She wanted to banish this grim despondency, this horrible sense of dread. She wanted to go outside, to feel the wind on her face. She wanted to sing to herself where no one could hear. She wanted to stretch her legs, still cramped from so much time in the carriage.
She hopped down from her perch and donned her coat, tiptoeing past Grace, who was mumbling in her sleep. (But sadly, nothing she could make out. She certainly would have stayed and listened, had Grace been making any sense.)
The house was quiet, which she’d expected, given the hour. She had some experience sneaking through sleeping households, although her past exploits had been limited to pranks on her sisters—or revenge for their pranks on her. She kept her footsteps light, her breathing even, and before she knew it, she was in the hall, pushing open the front door and slipping out into the night.
The air was crisp and tingling with dew, but it felt glorious. Hugging her coat close, she moved across the lawn toward the trees. Her feet were freezing—she hadn’t wanted to risk the noise her shoes would have made—but she didn’t care. She’d happily sneeze tomorrow if it meant freedom tonight.
Freedom.
Grinning and laughing, she broke into a run.
Thomas couldn’t sleep.
This did not surprise him. Indeed, after he’d bathed the dust from his body, he changed into a fresh shirt and breeches. A nightshirt would be of no use this night.
He’d been shown to a very fine bedchamber, second only to the one given to his grandmother. The room was not overly large, nor were the furnishings obviously new or expensive, but it was all of fine quality, lovingly cared-for and warm and welcoming. There were miniatures on the desk, placed artfully in the corner where they could be gazed upon while one was writing one’s correspondence. There had been miniatures on the mantel in the drawing room, too, lovingly displayed in a row. The frames were a bit worn, the paint rubbed down where they’d been picked up and admired.
These miniatures—these people in the miniatures—they were loved.
Thomas had tried to imagine a similar display at Belgrave and almost laughed. Of course, portraits of all the Cavendishes had been painted, most more than once. But the paintings hung in the gallery, formal documents of grandeur and wealth. He never looked at them. Why would he? There was no one he wished to see, no one whose smile or good humor he wished to recall.
He wandered to the desk and picked up one of the little portraits. It looked like Jack, perhaps a decade younger.
He was smiling.
Thomas found himself smiling, although he was not certain why. He liked thi
s place. Cloverhill, it was called. A sweet name. Fitting.
This would have been a nice place to grow up.
To learn to be a man.
He set the miniature down and moved to the nearby window, leaning both hands against the sill. He was tired. And restless. It was a noxious combination.
He wanted this done.
He wanted to move forward, to find out—no, to know who he was.
And who he wasn’t.
He stood there for several minutes, staring out over the tidy lawn. There was nothing to see, not in the dead of night, and yet he could not seem to make himself move. And then—
His eyes caught a flash of movement, and he drew closer to the glass. Someone was outside.
Amelia.
It couldn’t be, and yet it indisputably was she. No one else had hair of that color.
What the devil was she doing? She wasn’t running off; she was far too sensible for that, and besides, she was not carrying a bag. No, she seemed to have decided to take a stroll.
At four in the morning.
Which was decidedly not sensible.
“Daft woman,” he muttered, grabbing a robe to throw over his thin shirt as he dashed out of his room. Was this what his life might have been, had he managed to marry her? Chasing her down in the middle of the night?
Less than a minute later he exited through the front door, which he noted had been left an inch ajar. He strode across the drive and onto the lawn where he’d seen her last, but nothing.
She was gone.
Oh, for the love of—he did not want to yell out her name. He’d wake the entire household.
He moved forward. Where the devil was she? She couldn’t have gone far. More than that, she wouldn’t have gone far. Not Amelia.
“Amelia?” he whispered.
Nothing.
“Amelia?” It was as loud as he dared.
And then suddenly there she was, sitting up in the grass. “Thomas?”
“Were you lying down?”
Her hair was down, hanging down her back in a simple braid. He didn’t know that he’d ever seen her this way. He couldn’t imagine when he could have done. “I was looking at the stars,” she said.
He looked up. He couldn’t not, after such a statement.
