He hadn’t slept a wink last night, worrying about how crushed Dahlia would be when all her illusions were shattered and hating the fact she was going to be made a laughingstock all over again. That he would be inadvertently responsible for that weighed heavily on his mind, too. It made no difference that he’d had no hand in the duplicity, had made no promises or even spoken to the girl in at least five years. The unpalatable falsehood had been done in his name; therefore, once he had said his piece to his malicious, lying sire, he would call upon poor Miss Regis himself to break the bad news as gently as he was able.
An onerous task he was dreading.
“Lord Bellingham?” The butler was clearly stunned to see him. “We weren’t expecting you for hours.”
Giles was all out of silly, flippant comments. “Where is he?”
“In his study, my lord…” The butler tried to keep up withhim as he stalked down the hallway. “Allow me to announce you… please… you know how he hates to be interrupted without prior warning.” The servant practically threw himself against his master’s door as a barricade before Giles could storm in. His expression pleading. “Please, my lord… I would urge you to remember that, in your absence, it is the staff who will inevitably suffer his wrath afterward.”
Giles knew that better than anyone and would normally do his utmost to mitigate their suffering, but today it couldn’t be helped. “Step aside, Carruthers, and make yourself scarce. I daresay this morning will not be pretty for any of us.”
Carruthers’s face blanched but he nodded in resignation, too used to the noxious family dynamics to doubt that for a second. “I am sorry, my lord.”
“Not as sorry as I am.”
But much to his astonishment, the duke did not explode in temper when Giles flung open the door. His eyes flicked up coldly, then returned to his ledger and remained there even when Giles shouted as he loomed over his desk.
“Dahlia Regis! Have you no thought for anyone’s feelings whatsoever that you would embroil an innocent lady inourfeud andyourdeception so callously?”
The duke’s pen scratched some figures unperturbed. “Close the door, Carruthers.” Only when it clicked shut did he deign to look at Giles properly, his expression bland for once rather than furious. “Who told you?”
“That is none of your business.”
“Just as this is none of yours.” He had the gall to pick up his pen again until Giles tried to snatch it away.
“You have already signed the settlements and placed an engagement notice inThe Times, but apparentlythatis none of my business also?”
“I have long given up all hope of you ever stepping up to do your duty, runt.”
“So you thought if you planned every detail of my nuptials behind my back, I might not notice any of it until after the deed was done? The last time I checked,Your Grace”—Giles had never been given leave to call the man Father, nor ever felt that emotional connection with the man to want to—“a groom has to be present at his wedding for the ceremony to be legally binding!”
“The groom will be present!” The duke stood, his mouth curled in the familiar snarl of raw hatred as he slammed his fist onto the desk. “Because the groom is me!”
“What?” Giles could not have been more surprised if the old man had performed a naked dance on the table. “Youare marrying Dahlia Regis?” He took several steps backward as that unsavory news marinated. “You?”
“The settlements have indeed been signed, the bride is delighted, and the announcement inThe Timeswill say as much tomorrow.”
“But she is younger than me!” A good few years younger. Poor Dahlia might be considered to be mature by debutante standards, but she was still young enough to be the duke’s daughter. “She is less than half your age! That is…obscene!”
“Obscene?” The duke’s eyes bulged. “You think I lack the vigor, runt? Or the stamina? I can assure you, I still have plenty of both!” As his father laughed in his face, an image Giles did not want in his mind materialized regardless. Of poor, hapless Dahliasprawled under the decrepit duke, wide-eyed and mortified as he panted and heaved above her. “I’ll have you know I can still sire an heir!”
A statement that made him want to vomit. “As hideous as that foul prospect is to contemplate, it does beggar the question: Why? Unless you are plotting my demise and need a spare.”
“I need an heir—not a damn spare boy! A proper heir as a contingency! Sired in legal, irrefutable wedlock for all the world to see!” While Giles reeled at this new and twisted development in the fetid cesspool that had always been their relationship, his father slumped back in the chair looking older and more tired than he had ever seen him despite the customary flash of anger. “The situation is now too precarious to risk leaving the dukedom solely to you…”
“The situation hasalwaysbeen precarious.” His gut churned at this unforeseen and worrying development. “Yet it has never seemed to bother you enough to rectify your lie before today.”
Although it had always bothered Giles.
From the moment he had discovered four years ago that his real mother was his father’s mistress instead of his wife, the deception had weighed heavily on his mind. It had also spun his world on its axis. Shifted things, altered everything, and denied him the happy future family of his own that he had always dreamed of. And he had such plans for that, but most especially to do everything for his children that his hostile parents had denied him growing up.
“Things change…” The old man couldn’t look at him. “Needs must. I can no longer risk leaving sleeping dogs lie.” The duke stood and began to pace. Wringing his hands in uncertaintywhen Giles had never witnessed him uncertain before. “If doubt is cast from any quarter, I must ensure my line is secure—even from beyond the grave.”
Doubt? Another shocking deviation from the duke’s usual insufferable arrogance on the topic when he had never harbored any doubts about the secret coming out before. Something had to have changed.
Something catastrophic.
Giles’s head spun as the ominous dawning of his worst nightmare manifested on the horizon like a conquering army. As much as he feared the weight of perpetuating theDirty Secretfor a lifetime, the alternative petrified him more. “What’s happened?” He sank into a chair as he contemplated the worst, more panicked than he had ever been in his life. People depended on him. Without his mockery of a title, he couldn’t help them at all. “Who knows?”
