“Nothing…” Distracted, the duke stared sightless at the wall. “Nobody knows the truth… I am sure of it…” As if he realized he had revealed a chink in his impenetrable armor, his jaw hardened. “I merely want a contingency in case something does.” He sat and picked up his pen again as if his ledger were more important than this hideous, frightening conversation. “Read nothing more into it than that.” The duke waved him away to return to the numbers he put more stock in than anything. “You are dismissed.”
Stubborn, arrogant, and secretive to the bitter end—but Giles knew a lie when he saw one. The duke was suddenly scared of something, and that alone was terrifying.
“So despite nothing whatsoever happening to justify your abrupt change of heart”—not that he believed for one second the duke possessed that sympathetic organ—“and nobody knowingenough of the truth to use it against us as a weapon, you now plan to plant a son in the unfortunate Dahlia’s belly with all haste just in case somebody at some indeterminate point in the future might announce to everyone that I am, in fact, not your heir but your bastard?”
“Never use that word!” The duke practically foamed at the mouth as his head snapped up. “Never use that filthy word in my presence!”
Giles threw up his palms. “Then what else am I?”
“You are my heir!”
“Of course I am.” The bile stung his throat exactly as it always did when he contemplated the unpalatable reality that had been forced upon him. “Never mind that we both know you have willingly committed intentional fraud for three decades to perpetuate that lie!”
“I did what needed to be done.” As always, his father’s arrogant, dismissive shrug made his blood boil. “Unlike you, I did what my father ordered and put my duty first!”
“Never mind that what you call duty, the law calls illegal.” That was met with stony indifference. “If it comes out, you could face criminal charges!”
And so, too, could Giles. Because in a court of law, what else could his silence be viewed as but complicity? It made no difference that he had held his tongue solely for all the many people who depended on the house of Harpenden for their living. The duke was a skinflint as well as a vicious and vindictive tyrant—but his only brother, the real heir, was worse. His feckless uncle Gervais would spend or whore or gamble those livelihoods away in no time. Bleed the ramshackle Shropshire estate dry. That odious, manipulative monster would be a fate worse than death for all those innocent people when they had suffered enough. Undeniable facts that had all been used ruthlessly by the duke to ensure Giles’s silence. Nobody wanted to give Gervais Sinclair any excuse to leave wherever it was he had been banished to. Especially Giles. That his silence had also preserved his selfish sire’s hide had been a necessary evil for the greater good. “If the wolves are circling and yourDirty Secretever gets out, we could both go to jail.”
It was telling that the duke did not deny it could get out. “At worst, you will be stripped of the title you have never had any respect for and get your name rubbished in the press, but as that is a daily occurrence anyway, I daresay it will not damage your shocking reputation any more thanyoualready have. What concerns me is the legacy of Harpenden.”
It said a great deal about their relationship that the duke put those things over his only son. And there was no doubting Giles was his son irrespective of who his mother had been. They were the spitting image of each other. Both tall, both dark. Both in possession of the legendary dimpled, square Sinclair chin that graced every ancestral portrait on the crumbling walls of Harpenden Hall, going all the way back through the centuries to time immemorial.
“Butyoucould go to jail, Your Grace.” A scenario that would be disastrous to their loyal tenants if Daft Dahlia were left in control of everything while the brand-new legitimate heir grew up on her watch.
“I could…” The duke’s hand shook slightly as he picked up his quill again, and that small, uncharacteristic sign of weakness set more alarm bells ringing. It was too human an emotion for aman who had never displayed any beyond anger and disgust. “But for a duke it is unlikely. Besides, if it comes to it…if it comes to it…” He sucked in a wobbly breath. “In the first instance I can blame your mother for the deception. Claim I was cuckolded and only just learned of the truth myself. Everyone knew she lacked moral fiber and took lovers on the side.”
“Which one? The duchess or the harlot?”
“Watch your mouth, runt!” The duke eyed him coldly through gritted teeth before he returned his attention to the ledgers. “Ifit comes to it, a good lawyer could argue that I was duped—she did leave this house with my child in her womb—as our physician will indeed testify.”
“I daresay there is also another physician or witness somewhere in Shropshire who can attest to the fact that she returned with it empty.”
“There isn’t—of that I made damn sure.”
Which was about as much detail as Giles had ever managed to get from the duke on the dubious subject of his birth. Any mention of his actual mother incurred fury and rigid silence. And hatred. A burning, seething hatred, as if he blamed Giles for the crime of being born.
“Then what the blazes is this wedding all about? Unless it is about the dowry?”
Which was bizarre when the duke had always been fastidious over money. Unless the neglected estate had finally caught up with him and the income had dwindled. “Do you need money?”
Because if he did—or rather if the estate and the people who depended upon it did—then Giles would gladly supply some. “Irrespective of our many differences, if you are in some sortof trouble and I can help in any way, I will. You can trust me on that.”
“I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw you! You have no respect for duty. No respect for tradition or history. No respect whatsoever for our bloodline or the cruel sacrifices I made for our legacy!”
“What sacrifices have you ever made for me?” A laughable comment when he had barely seen either of his parents growing up. “You visited Shropshire twice a year to scrutinize your accounts and spared me five minutes each time!”
Another flagrant truth ignored with a disgusted snarl. “You are flippant and irreverent and see everything about the noble house of Harpenden as one big joke. You care more about the silliness in life than the duty that is required to live it properly. You are just like your m…”
“Mother?”
The duke’s eyes swirled momentarily with something that, if Giles hadn’t known better, looked a lot like pain before they shuttered.
He flicked open his pocket watch, then clicked it closed. The customary signal their time was up.
“The wedding is next Saturday.” The usual disgusted resentment returned to the old man’s expression, as if he could barely look at Giles without feeling incensed. “It goes without saying, runt, that you are not invited.”
Chapter Three
