“Please, Mrs. Audley,” Thomas said, dipping his head in a gesture of respect, “do not put yourself out on my accord. It was unforgivable for us to arrive without notice. I would not expect you to go to any great lengths. Although perhaps your finest room for my grandmother.” He tried not to sound too weary as he added, “It will be easier for everyone.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Audley said quickly. “Please, please, it’s chilly. You must all come inside. Jack, I do need to tell you—”
“Where is your church?” the dowager demanded.
Thomas nearly groaned. Could she not wait until they were even shown in?
“Our church?” Mrs. Audley asked, looking to Jack in complete confusion. “At this hour?”
“I do not intend to worship,” the dowager snapped. “I wish to inspect the records.”
“Does Vicar Beveridge still preside?” Jack asked, clearly trying to cut the dowager off.
“Yes,” his aunt replied, “but he will surely be abed. It’s half nine, I should think, and he is an early riser. Perhaps in the morning. I—”
“This is a matter of dynastic importance,” the dowager interrupted. “I don’t care if it’s after midnight. We—”
“I care,” Jack cut in. “You are not going to pull the vicar out of bed. You have waited this long. You can bloody well wait until morning.”
Thomas wanted to applaud.
“Jack!” Mrs. Audley gasped. She turned to the dowager. “I did not raise him to speak this way.”
“No, you didn’t,” Jack said, but he glared at the dowager.
“You were his mother’s sister, weren’t you?” the dowager said to Mrs. Audley.
Who looked rather startled by the sudden change of topic. “I am.”
“Were you present at her wedding?”
“I was not.”
Jack turned to her in surprise. “You weren’t?”
“No. I could not attend. I was in confinement. I never told you. It was a stillbirth.” Her face softened. “Just one of the reasons I was so happy to have you.”
“We shall make for the church in the morning,” the dowager declared. “First thing. We shall find the papers and be done with it.”
“The papers?” Mrs. Audley echoed.
“Proof of the marriage,” the dowager practically snarled. “Are you daft?”
That was too much. Thomas reached out and pulled her back, which was probably in her best interest, as Jack looked as if he might go for her throat.
“Louise was not married in the Butlersbridge church,” Mrs. Audley said. “She was married at Maguiresbridge. In County Fermanagh, where we grew up.”
“How far is that?” the dowager demanded, tugging at her arm.
Thomas held firm.
“Twenty miles, your grace,” Mrs. Audley replied before turning back to her nephew. “Jack? What is this all about? Why do you need proof of your mother’s marriage?”
Jack hesitated for a moment, then cleared his throat and said, “My father was her son,” with a nod toward the dowager.
“Your father,” Mrs. Audley gasped. “John Cavendish, you mean…”
Thomas stepped forward, feeling strangely prepared to take charge of the rapidly deteriorating situation. “May I intercede?”
Jack nodded in his direction. “Please do.”
“Mrs. Audley,” Thomas said, “if there is proof of your sister’s marriage, then your nephew is the true Duke of Wyndham.”
“The true Duke of—” Mrs. Audley covered her mouth in shock. “No. It’s not possible. I remember him. Mr. Cavendish. He was—” She waved her arms in the air, as if trying to describe him with gestures. Finally, after several attempts at a more verbal explanation, she said, “He would not have kept such a thing from us.”
“He was not the heir at the time,” Thomas told her.
“Oh, my heavens. But if Jack is the duke, then you—”
“Are not,” he finished wryly. He glanced over at Amelia and Grace, who were watching the entire exchange from just inside the front door. “I am sure you can imagine our eagerness to have this settled.”
Mrs. Audley could only stare at him in shock.
Thomas knew just how she felt.
Amelia wasn’t sure what time it was. Certainly after midnight. She and Grace had been shown to their room several hours earlier, and even though she had long since washed her face and donned her nightclothes, she was still awake.
For a long time she’d lain beneath her blankets, pretending there was some kind of music to Grace’s even, sleep-lulled breathing. Then she’d moved to the window, deciding that if she couldn’t sleep, she might as well have something better to look at than the ceiling. The moon was nearly full, its light rendering the stars a bit less twinkly.
Amelia sighed. She had enough trouble picking out the constellations as it was.
Somewhat apathetically, she located the Big Dipper.
Then the wind blew a cloud over it.
“Oh, it figures,” she muttered.
Grace began to snore.
Amelia sat on the wide window ledge, letting her head lean up against the glass. She’d done this when she was younger and couldn’t sleep—go to the window, count the stars and the flowers. Sometimes she even climbed out, before her father had the majestic oak outside her window pruned back.
That had been fun.
She wanted that again. Fun. Tonight. She wanted to banish this grim despondency, this horrible sense of dread. She wanted to go outside, to feel the wind on her face. She wanted to sing to herself where no one could hear. She wanted to stretch her legs, still cramped from so much time in the carriage.
She hopped down from her perch and donned her coat, tiptoeing past Grace, who was mumbling in her sleep. (But sadly, nothing she could make out. She certainly would have stayed and listened, had Grace been making any sense.)
The house was quiet, which she’d expected, given the hour. She had some experience sneaking through sleeping households, although her past exploits had been limited to pranks on her sisters—or revenge for their pranks on her. She kept her footsteps light, her breathing even, and before she knew it, she was in the hall, pushing open the front door and slipping out into the night.
The air was crisp and tingling with dew, but it felt glorious. Hugging her coat close, she moved across the lawn toward the trees. Her feet were freezing—she hadn’t wanted to risk the noise her shoes would have made—but she didn’t care. She’d happily sneeze tomorrow if it meant freedom tonight.
Freedom.
Grinning and laughing, she broke into a run.
Thomas couldn’t sleep.
This did not surprise him. Indeed, after he’d bathed the dust from his body, he changed into a fresh shirt and breeches. A nightshirt would be of no use this night.
He’d been shown to a very fine bedchamber, second only to the one given to his grandmother. The room was not overly large, nor were the furnishings obviously new or expensive, but it was all of fine quality, lovingly cared-for and warm and welcoming. There were miniatures on the desk, placed artfully in the corner where they could be gazed upon while one was writing one’s correspondence. There had been miniatures on the mantel in the drawing room, too, lovingly displayed in a row. The frames were a bit worn, the paint rubbed down where they’d been picked up and admired.
These miniatures—these people in the miniatures—they were loved.
Thomas had tried to imagine a similar display at Belgrave and almost laughed. Of course, portraits of all the Cavendishes had been painted, most more than once. But the paintings hung in the gallery, formal documents of grandeur and wealth. He never looked at them. Why would he? There was no one he wished to see, no one whose smile or good humor he wished to recall.
He wandered to the desk and picked up one of the little portraits. It looked like Jack, perhaps a decade younger.
He was smiling.
Thomas found himself smiling, although he was not certain why. He liked thi
s place. Cloverhill, it was called. A sweet name. Fitting.
This would have been a nice place to grow up.
To learn to be a man.
He set the miniature down and moved to the nearby window, leaning both hands against the sill. He was tired. And restless. It was a noxious combination.
He wanted this done.
He wanted to move forward, to find out—no, to know who he was.
And who he wasn’t.
He stood there for several minutes, staring out over the tidy lawn. There was nothing to see, not in the dead of night, and yet he could not seem to make himself move. And then—
His eyes caught a flash of movement, and he drew closer to the glass. Someone was outside.
Amelia.
It couldn’t be, and yet it indisputably was she. No one else had hair of that color.
What the devil was she doing? She wasn’t running off; she was far too sensible for that, and besides, she was not carrying a bag. No, she seemed to have decided to take a stroll.
At four in the morning.
Which was decidedly not sensible.
“Daft woman,” he muttered, grabbing a robe to throw over his thin shirt as he dashed out of his room. Was this what his life might have been, had he managed to marry her? Chasing her down in the middle of the night?
Less than a minute later he exited through the front door, which he noted had been left an inch ajar. He strode across the drive and onto the lawn where he’d seen her last, but nothing.
She was gone.
Oh, for the love of—he did not want to yell out her name. He’d wake the entire household.
He moved forward. Where the devil was she? She couldn’t have gone far. More than that, she wouldn’t have gone far. Not Amelia.
“Amelia?” he whispered.
Nothing.
“Amelia?” It was as loud as he dared.
And then suddenly there she was, sitting up in the grass. “Thomas?”
“Were you lying down?”
Her hair was down, hanging down her back in a simple braid. He didn’t know that he’d ever seen her this way. He couldn’t imagine when he could have done. “I was looking at the stars,” she said.
He looked up. He couldn’t not, after such a statement.
“I was waiting for the clouds to pass,” she explained.
“Why?”
“Why?” she echoed, looking at him as if he was the one who’d just made an incomprehensible statement.
“It is the middle of the night.”
“Yes, I know.” She tucked her feet under her, then pushed down against the ground with her hands and stood. “But it’s my last chance.”
“For what?”
She gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t know.”
He started to say something, to scold her, shake his head at her foolishness. But then she smiled.
She looked so beautiful he almost felt struck.
“Amelia.” He didn’t know why he was saying her name. He had nothing specific to tell her. But she was there, standing before him, and he had never wanted a woman—no, he had never wanted anything—more than he wanted her.
On a damp lawn, in the middle of Ireland, in the middle of the night, he wanted her.
Completely.
He hadn’t let himself think about it. He desired her; he’d long since given up pretending he didn’t. But he had not let himself dream it, not let himself see it in his mind—his hands on her shoulders, sliding down her back. Her dress, falling away beneath his hungry fingers, exposing her perfect—
“You need to go inside,” he said hoarsely.
She shook her head.
He took a long, haggard breath. Did she know what she risked, remaining out here with him? It was taking all his strength—more than he’d ever dreamed he possessed—to keep himself rooted to his spot, two proper paces away from her. Close…so close, and yet not within his reach.
“I want to be outside,” she said.
He met her eyes, which was a mistake, because everything she was feeling—every hurt, and wrong, and insecurity—he saw them, hovering in her amazing eyes.
It tore through him.
“I was upstairs,” she continued, “and it was stuffy, and hot. Only it wasn’t hot, but it felt like it should be.”
It was the damnedest thing, but he understood.
“I’m tired of feeling trapped,” she said sadly. “My whole life, I’ve been told where to be, what to say, who to talk to…”
“Who to marry,” he said softly.
She gave a small nod. “I just wanted to feel free. If only for an hour.”
He looked at her hand. It would be so easy to reach out, to take it in his. Just one step forward. That was all it would take. One step, and she would be in his arms.
But he said, “You need to go inside.” Because it was what he was supposed to say. It was what she was supposed to do.
He could not kiss her. Not now. Not here. Not when he had absolutely no faith in his ability to break it off.
To end a kiss with a kiss. He didn’t think he could do it.
“I don’t want to marry him,” she said.
Something within him curled and tightened. He’d known this; she’d made it more than clear. But still…now…when she stood there in the moonlight…
They were impossible words. Impossible to bear. Impossible to ignore.
I don’t want him to have you.
But he didn’t say it. He could not let himself say it. Because he knew, come morning when all was revealed, Jack Audley would almost certainly be proven as the Duke of Wyndham. And if he said it, if he said to her, right now—be with me…
She would do it.
He could see it in her eyes.
Maybe she even thought she loved him. And why wouldn’t she? She had been told her entire life that she was supposed to love him, to obey him, to be grateful for his attentions and for the luck that had bound her to him so many years ago.
But she didn’t really know him. Right now he wasn’t even sure he knew himself. How could he ask her to be with him when he had nothing to offer?
She deserved more.
“Amelia,” he whispered, because he had to say something. She was waiting for it, for his reply.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to do it.”
“Your father—” he said, his voice choked.
“He wants me to be a duchess.”
“He wants what’s best for you.”
“He doesn’t know.”
“You don’t know.”
The look she gave him was devastating. “Don’t say that. Say anything else, but don’t say I don’t know my own mind.”
“Amelia…”
“No.”
It was a horrible sound. Just that one syllable. But it came from deep within her. And he felt it all. Her pain, her anger, her frustration—they sliced through him with startling precision.
“I’m sorry,” he said, because he did not know what else to say. And he was sorry. He wasn’t sure what for, but this horrible aching feeling in his chest—it had to be sorrow.
Or maybe regret.
That she wasn’t his.
That she would never be his.
That he could not set aside the one little piece of him that knew how to be upstanding and true. That he could not say to hell with it all and just take her, right here, right now.
That, much to his surprise, it turned out that it wasn’t the Duke of Wyndham who always did the right thing.
It was Thomas Cavendish.
The one piece of himself he would never lose.
Chapter 18
It was ironic, Amelia had thought more than once during the journey to Cloverhill that she had recently become so enamored of cartography. Because she was only just now coming to realize how thoroughly her own life had been mapped out by others. Even with all her plans torn asunder, her new map, with whatever routes her life was meant to take, was being drawn by others.
/> Her father.
The dowager.
Even Thomas.
Everyone, it seemed, had a hand in her future except for her. But not tonight.
“It’s late,” she said softly.
His eyes widened, and she could see his confusion.
“But not too late,” she whispered. She looked up. The clouds had blown off. She hadn’t felt the wind—she hadn’t felt anything except for him, and he hadn’t even touched her. But somehow the sky was clear. The stars were out.
That was important. She didn’t know why, but it was.
“Thomas,” she whispered, and her heart was skipping. Pounding.
Breaking.
“Thom—”
“Don’t,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Don’t say my name.”
Why?
It was on the tip of her tongue, desperate to be voiced, but she didn’t ask. Somehow she knew she shouldn’t. Whatever the answer was, she didn’t want to hear it. Not now, not when he was staring down at her with such a hot, sad intensity.
“No one is here,” she whispered. It was true. Everyone was asleep. And she wasn’t sure why she was saying something so obvious. Maybe she just wanted him to know…without saying it so clearly. If he leaned down, if he kissed her…
She would welcome it.
He shook his head. “Someone is always here.”
But he was wrong. It was the middle of the night. Everyone was asleep. They were alone, and she wanted…she wanted…
“Kiss me.”
His eyes flared, and for a moment it almost looked as if he were in pain. “Amelia, don’t.”
“Please.” She smiled, as cheekily as she could manage. “You owe it to me.”
“I—” First he looked surprised, then amused. “I owe it to you?”
“For twenty years of engagement. You owe me a kiss.”
He slid into a reluctant smile. “For twenty years of engagement, I should think I’d owe you several.”
She wet her lips. They’d gone dry from the fast rush of her breath. “One will suffice.”
“No,” he said softly, “it wouldn’t. It would never be enough.”
She stopped breathing. He was going to do it. He was going to kiss her. He was going to kiss her, and by God, she would kiss him back.