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Chapter Fifty-Two
“Well,” said the Duke of Alderleaf upon entry, looking Thomas up and down. “Even beaten near an inch of death, you truly are the spitting image of your late father.”
“Your Grace,” Thomas said, deciding to let the Duke of Alderleaf say his piece first, so that Thomas could get a feel for his current perspective.
The Duke of Alderleaf held up a hand. His face was stern, but not without sympathy. “I hope you shall not oppose the two of us taking a moment to discuss some pressing matters?”
Thomas shook his head mutely. After a moment of no response from the Duke, for good measure, Thomas motioned to the same chair the Constable had just recently occupied.
Once Evelina’s father had taken his seat, inching down slowly and gritting his teeth from obvious physical discomfort, he turned his eyes back to Thomas. “Tell me what is transpiring between you and my daughter.”
A strong wave of exhaustion, coupled with an odd burst of excitement, passed over Thomas. This was a very, very risky conversation to have just now, when he was in devastating physical pain, and even more tumultuous emotional pain. Yet, was it possible the Duke of Alderleaf may yet be able to be won over to his side?
Considering he’d now been proven innocent withoutanysort of doubt. Gerard’s dastardly actions had seen to that.
Perhaps it was the pain. Perhaps it was the delirium. But Thomas could not manage to find the energy to do anything short of tell the Duke of Alderleaf exactly what he thought of Lady Evelina with the utmost honesty.
“Your daughter,” Thomas began, “is like no other woman I have ever met.”
He went onto explain how impressed he had been by her conversation skills. Her intelligence. Her sharp wit, that still managed to make him laugh, without ever making jokes at the expense of others.
“Beyond all of that, she put her trust in me when I had very little faith in myself,” Thomas said, and only after the words left his mouth did he realize they were true.
He had come back to London terrified of his inability to fill his father’s shoes. Yet during the time when they were trying to get to the bottom of the feud between their families, Evelina had put her faith in Thomas to solve the situation, even when he had felt he hadn’t deserved that faith.
She’d had faith in him, right up until he’d told her of his distrust in her family. Yet even after that, she’d wanted them to be together. She’d fled her engagement ball…charged across the city, bucking the confines of propriety…all for Thomas.
Thomas didn’t go into all of that, of course. He didn’t want to scandalize the father of the woman he loved any more than he already had.
But something in his expression must have matched what the Duke of Alderleaf had been hoping to see, for he sat back with a small, exhausted smile on his face. “You are not how I expected you to be,” the Duke admitted.
“In what way?” Thomas couldn’t help but ask.
The Duke of Alderleaf sighed. His eyes took on a glazed, reminiscent look. “Your Father was a good man. I always thought so, even when we were business competitors. I found him intelligent, a good leader, a better conversationalist. I trusted him enough to financially invest in several new ships on blind faith, under the agreement that we would merge certain of our interests.” He shook his head. “It did quite a number on me, when I thought he had gone back on our deal, though no official contracts had been signed. I assumed that if he had been so seemingly honest in person, only to double cross me in practice, his children would be the same way.”
“It seems that one of them was,” Thomas said under his breath, more to himself than the Duke of Alderleaf, though he refrained from mention anything about Gerard’s true parentage.
As far as he was concerned, he and Gerard did share the same father. They’d grown up with the same influences, the same foundation, after all.
It made the situation in its entirety hurt all the worse.
“Yes…” said the Duke of Alderleaf, apparently having heard Thomas after all, “from what the Constable was saying, it does seem that way.” His eyes took on a sharper, shrewder look. “But despite everything, you would not stop until you got to the truth. I can certainly appreciate the merits of that level of determination and cunning.”
Something about the tone of his voice pulled Thomas’ mind more firmly into the present. “Your Grace,” he said, feeling as though he truly had nothing to lose by at the very least trying. “Given what has transpired with Lord Wilmore’s role in the merger fallout as well, would I be correct in assuming that your blessing of his engagement to Lady Evelina has been revoked?”
The Duke of Alderleaf’s eyebrows shot up. With a bitter laugh, he said, “That is the least of it. The scandal of that ball, and now with all of this… thetonwill be talking about these past events for decades to come.”
Thomas supposed that was true, though the scandal attached to Lady Evelina would certainly lessen to some degree because of Jerome’s shady dealings. Not to mention the whole thing would be overshadowed by the tale of Gerard’s ongoing treachery.
“I know that after everything that has happened, you would likely prefer to have nothing to do with my family,” Thomas said. “But I must say that had it not been for Lady Evelina, I never would have gotten to the bottom of what happened to my own Father, and would undoubtedly be dead as well myself. If there is any chance at all of your blessing…I should be honored to make Lady Evelina my bride.”
The Duke of Alderleaf, to Thomas’ surprise, looked as though he’d been waiting for that very proposal. With a small smile, he said, “It would ease my soul to see at least one good thing come of all this treachery. For all that I have learned these past twenty-four hours, I cannot imagine a more fitting outcome.”
The bottom dropped out of Thomas’ stomach. Had he heard what he thought he had? They really had the Duke of Alderleaf’s blessing?
Now Thomas truly felt like he was dreaming.
“There’s no need to act so surprised,” the Duke of Alderleaf said, slowly pressing to his feet. “From what I’ve heard, it sounds like you were operating under some misconceptions about me and my involvement with the merger as well. It seems as though we have both been tasked with learning the truth about one another, absent from rumors and distorted pasts.”
