“Besides, if I were present, I’d have to object on principle to save the girl and we all know how much I loathe to do the decent thing, no matter how dreadful and dismal her life is destined to be as his duchess.” The last fluffy lump of temperamental soufflé disappeared into his mouth. “What ifthatgot into the papers? I’d never live it down.” He grinned as if he wasn’t the least bit bothered by that awful prospect. “And I should like it noted that the Sentinel isn’t the only one who can do alliteration well, as in one sentence I manageddecent,dreadful,dismal,destined, andduchess.”
Diana shot him a withering look. “Yet your pitiful effort still lacked the cadence of the Sentinel and still resembled the turgid prose ofhisless talented colleagues.”
“Poor Dahlia.” Vee always felt deeply for others.
“Poor Dahlia indeed, Miss Vee.” Giles’s over-bright smile fooled no one this time.
Olivia reached for his hand and squeezed. “Your father has always been an odd fruit, Giles dear, and for what it’s worth, I never liked him. If we get an invitation, we shall decline in outraged solidarity.”
“That’s very decent of you, and I appreciate the sentiment, but rather than declining, can you at least send the harridan Miss Diana in your stead? I might not want to witness the event itself, but I would love to read her pithy record of it inThe London Tribuneas that is bound to be a hoot and I do like to laugh.” He nudged her playfully with his arm, forcing her to notice how solid it was and sending a waft of his attractive spicy cologne up her left nostril. “Will you do that for me, Miss Diana, Goddess of the Hunt and determined Hunter of the Truth? Even though you hate me as much as the duke does?”
“I really am just a nitpicking grammarian.”
“And I, Miss Truth Hunter, am the Queen of Sheba.” Giles whispered this much too close to her ear, sending a ripple of awareness everywhere.
Payne chose that moment to approach the table on stealthy feet. “I am sorry to interrupt, but you have a visitor, my lord.”
“Another one?” Hugh went to stand but the butler stayed him with a white-gloved hand.
“Not you, my lord, but Lord Bellingham.”
Before the perplexed Giles could stand as well, his unconventional butler hobbled in. “Dalton, what the blazes are you doing here?”
The usually insolent one-eyed sailor’s expression was subdued behind his black leather eye patch, and something about it raised all of Diana’s journalistic hackles. Whatever news his servant had come to deliver, she knew it would be bad for Giles. Without thinking, she groped for his hand beneath the table, and as if he, too, sensed trouble, his fingers laced with hers tight. Very tight. And something odd happened.
Something very odd.
Because it felt as if that was exactly where her hand was always meant to be.
“I am afraid I come as the bearer of grave tidings. Very grave tidings indeed…Your Grace.”
Chapter Four
“It was his heart.”
“He had one then?”
Carruthers winced at the flippant comment, then sighed at the truth of it as he helped Giles out of his coat. “So the physician claims—and an ailing one that he took pills for, although His Grace never let on that secret, either.” How typical of the duke to keep them all in the dark till the bitter end. “The doctor said he had been taking them for several years. He had to leave a half an hour ago and said he would be available at home first thing if you have any further questions about your father’s condition, but he did tell me to inform you that in his professional opinion, His Grace’s heart attack was inevitable. They both knew he was living on borrowed time. That he had lasted this long was apparently a miracle.”
“Only the good die young, Carruthers.” Relieved of his coat, and with no further excuse to linger in his father’s hallway without purpose, Giles stared at the staircase, wincing. “Is he still up there?” Nausea swamped him at the prospect. He wanted to blame the soufflé and the mad dash across Mayfair, but he knew it wasfear. He had dreaded this day for four long years, and so much more since the shocking revelations of this morning.
“We thought it best to leave His Grace in situ until Your Grace had paid your final respects. Besides, we did not know Your Grace’s wishes for His Grace’s remains.” The rising bile burned Giles’s throat. “Or Your Grace’s wishes on everything else, for that matter. Did His Grace inform Your Grace of his final wishes?”
“Stop!”
The butler eyed his raised palm and stared at his feet. “My apologies, Your Grace… I am a tad overwhelmed myself, Your Grace.”
“Please stop calling me that.” Giles rubbed his temple as he tempered his tone. It was hardly the butler’s fault that the mere mention of his fraudulent title made him queasy. “I am not ready to be a duke.”
“But you are a duke, Your Grace.”
“Not in here.” He tapped his forehead. “Not yet.” And likely never in the eyes of the law. “Please allow me a little leeway to get used to it.” He threw out his palms, more overwhelmed than he had ever been in his life, now that all his father’s lies had finally come home to roost. Because Your Grace felt wrong—was wrong—in every conceivable way.
“Very well… Your… um…” Carruthers eyed his shoes in discomfort. “What do you want me to do?”
“Fetch me some port.” For a man who rarely drank, Giles suddenly needed a stiff one. He stared at the stairs again and steeled his shoulders. “I’ll take it in the drawing room once I’ve seen him.”
On leaden feet he climbed the steps slowly while the acid churned and his mind raced. It still failed to comprehend anythingbut the enormity of the situation. This morning, he had had the rug pulled out from under him, was only just scrambling back up and coming to terms with the possibility of being exposed as an impostor one day, only to have the ground beneath him suddenly crumble, too, now thatone dayhad come. Leaving Giles with no clue where he stood or how he was supposed to feel about any of it.
