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CHAPTER1
Hampshire
Kellitch Hall
The gentleman who opened the door of the palatial mansion could only be the duke himself. His bearing was that of a man confident of his consequence and influence in the world. He wore a charcoal frockcoat and icy-blue waistcoat that fit flawlessly on his lean, muscular frame. His midnight-black hair needed a trim, and the angles of his jaw were savage and elegant. This gentleman could only be Ethan Benedict, Duke of Bainbridge, a man who has been an object of fascination, and salacious gossip in high society for several years. He appeared younger than she had imagined, less dissipated, but hauntingly lonely. Lady Verity Stanton couldn’t say what gave her that impression. Perhaps it was the rigid set of his shoulders or the flat, unsmiling mouth.
Or probably it was the way his figure framed the doorway of the fine house before her. It was constructed of stone of pale ochre, with a double frontage enclosing the main entrance. The three stories were lined with high windows and topped with a decorate railing, interspersed with small pillars. The central façade was classical in white marble with four large, smooth pillars and a triangular tympanum above, also in white. Three classical statues were at the corners of the triangle and looked down on the duke and the basket beneath them. Verity felt their stone gaze upon her, and for a few moments considered whether they wanted to point out the interlopers to their rake of an owner.
Gripping the jacket of her small friend, she pulled him in a crouch to hide from the chilling gaze that swept across the forecourt and into the woodlands. From where she hid, Verity could not discern the color of his eyes, but she felt the piercing depth of them intently when his gaze caught sight of the carriage that rattled down the gravel paved road, clearly running away from whatever they had laid at his front door. His eyes followed the passage of the hurtling carriage.
Verity and Artie had been too late. After seeing her sister’s letter, Verity had mounted her horse and rode with Artie like the hounds of Hell chased them, and they still had been too late. Catherine had abandoned little Thomas in a basket on the devil’s doorstep and run away.
“He looks like the bloody devil,” Artie murmured.
Worrying minds do think alike.
“I read in a few scandal sheets that they called him the Devil Duke,” she whispered.
“Wot was Catherine thinking?” Artie asked in a furious whisper, crouched at her side behind a large willow tree near the forecourt of the manor. “How could she do this to our family?”
Or what is left of our family, Verity thought, an ache gripping her throat in an awful hold. “She believes this is what is best for little Thomas.” Or so the very silly, selfish letter she left behind claimed.
“Nonsense,” Artie hissed, his voice wobbling with his tears. “What would this bleedin’ nob know about taking care of a baby?”
“I am a nob,” she whispered.
He squared his bony shoulders and lifted his chin. “You are different. Yer a disgraced nob, with no fine reputation. As you normally say, Lady Verity, ‘‘tis a fine distinction indeed.’”
She turned her thoughts to Artie’s remark and her heart felt a measure of amusement to hear her own words tossed back at her, but Verity could not smile. In truth, not even the fiercest of storms could have ripped her attention from the man standing in the open doorway, staring down at the basket on the ground as if it held the rarest of creatures. And perhaps to him, the little baby boy swaddled in several layers of blanket was a creature.
“Why is he just staring at little Thomas?” Artie fretted a bit too loudly.
“Do speak softer,” she whispered, rubbing her thighs through her cloak. Her legs ached from crouching and holding herself still, lest she command the duke’s attention. “Once he closes the door, run as fast as you can and take Thomas from the basket and bring him to me. We will make our way home as fast as we can.”
“Are yer so certain he’ll leave Thomas?”
Verity froze. “Of course. What would a duke want with a baby left on his doorstep?”
“He would be bloody cold-hearted to close the door on little Thomas.”
“Perhaps he will return inside and send out one of his servants to take him. We will use that window of opportunity to grab Thomas and be away as quickly as possible.”
“What if he takes ‘im up ‘imself?”
“The duke has a reputation of being cold and indifferent to others' pain,” Verity said. “Why would he deign to do something servants can do?”
That was surely crediting the dissolute duke, whom they claimed indulged in every manner of sin, with too much kindness. Verity felt an odd pinch of guilt to think so little of a man she only knew by reputation.
“Is he little Thomas’s father?”
No, that honor belonged to the dead Earl of Preston. “He is not.”
Verity’s blood turned icy in her veins when the duke stooped down and picked up the basket before standing. The duke stood there for a long time, just staring at the baby in his arms. His dark head lifted, and once more he stared after the carriage that had long disappeared around the twisting bend in the mud-logged country road. He reached for something in the basket, and her breath hitched to see that it was a note of some sort. After reading, the duke flicked it away, and the wind tossed it far from his reach.
“Do not take your eyes from that note, Artie,” she whispered. “Once the duke leaves, follow it and retrieve it for me.”
“Yes.”
