“How is father?” Vincent asked.
The duchess stood in the center of the hall. “He is the same, still fixated on the weather, watching the horizon and counting the clouds.” She glanced around and lowered her voice. “I must inform you, Vincent, that he does not remember what you told him in the garden or the letters you showed him. He believes Letitia is still here and that nothing has changed, that you are still engaged to her. He says he sees her at night.”
Vincent glanced at Cassandra. “He must be looking at the portrait of the first duchess.”
“That is what we have concluded.”
“Where is he?”
“In the drawing room.”
Cassandra, still holding their sleeping baby in her arms, felt a surge of apprehension. “Perhaps you should go and see him first, on your own.”
“No, we will go together.”
The duchess nodded and led the way to the drawing room, where they found the duke, along with Devon and Rebecca, who were drinking tea on the opposite side of the room.
“Theodore?” the duchess said, entering first and approaching the duke carefully. “I have good news. Vincent is home.”
The duke’s hair was wild about his head, his expression anxious as he turned from the window to face them. He wore no shoes.
Cassandra stopped just inside the door.
“Hello Father,” Vincent said, giving him a moment to take in their presence. “Devon, Rebecca.” They all greeted him. “There is someone here I wish you to meet.”
“Who is this?” the duke asked.
Vincent gestured toward Cassandra and June. “First of all, I want you to meet your granddaughter, June Marie Sinclair.”
The duke stared, bewildered, then padded across the room toward them. He stood before Cassandra, looking into her eyes. “This is not the first duchess.”
“No, Father. This is the woman I love.” Vincent looked across the room at Devon, who gave him an encouraging nod.
The duke’s surprisingly calm gaze dropped to June, who was wrapped in a blanket, awake now and wiggling happily in Cassandra’s arms. “This is your child?” he asked her.
“Yes, Your Grace,” she said.
“May I hold her?”
“Of course.” Not knowing what to expect, Cassandra placed her baby daughter into his arms. Vincent was watching his father carefully.
The duke carried June to the center of the room. He swung back and forth, rocking her, murmuring quiet words Cassandra could not hear, nor could she see his face, for he had turned his back on them.
At last he faced them. “This is my grandchild?” he said to Vincent.
“Yes, Father.”
Cassandra braced herself for the worst, but then the duke threw his head back and laughed out loud. Seconds later his laughter turned to sobbing. “Vincent, my son, she looks like you when you were this age. She has the same dark, intelligent expression.”
Vincent’s voice was quiet. “Do you even remember what I looked like?”
Tears filled the duke’s clear eyes. “I remember everything. You were a beautiful child. I wept when I first held you.”
Cassandra looked across at Vincent and felt the most wonderful joy at his astonishment.
The duke looked back down at June in his arms and spoke playfully, bouncing at the knees. “What a remarkable girl you are, just like your father. You have his eyes. Will you be a fast runner like he was? He used to win all the races against his brothers.”
Vincent’s gaze rushed to meet Cassandra’s. It was as if his joy and hers were mingling and humming between them. He knew she understood everything. She understood all that existed in the wondrous depths of his heart and soul.
Just then the duke seemed to remember that she was still standing there. He approached and placed June back in her arms.
“You’re the mother?”
“Yes.”
He nodded and took a step back, studying her with intense scrutiny. Vincent came to stand beside her.
“What happened to the other one?” the duke asked pointedly. “The one I picked out for you?”
“She left,” Vincent replied.
He frowned, trying to understand. “Was she the fairy?”
“Yes, she was dressed as a fairy when she first came to Mother’s birthday ball.”
The duke narrowed his eyes, as if seeking to understand. “She didn’t love you, did she? She wanted to poison you in your bed.”
“You are thinking of the first duchess, Father. But you are correct about Lady Letitia. She did not love me.”
Cassandra noticed that Devon and Rebecca had risen to their feet and were watching and listening intently.
The duke looked at Cassandra again. “Do you love him?”
“With all my heart and soul, Your Grace. I would give my life for him, and for our child.”
She met Rebecca’s gaze across the room. Rebecca smiled warmly.
Stepping forward, the duke touched June’s little cheek with the back of a finger. “She is a lovely child. I’ve never been a grandfather before.”
Cassandra smiled at him. “Then today is a very special day.”
The duke nudged Vincent. “You have not yet introduced me to this beauty.”
Vincent slid his arm around Cassandra’s waist. “No, Father, I have not yet done so. Please allow me to present, to all of you, Cassandra Sinclair, Lady Vincent. My wife, as of yesterday.”
Adelaide gasped and covered her face with both hands.
Vincent met his brother’s gaze. Devon nodded at him with approval.
The duke’s eyebrows lifted. “We have another bride of Pembroke?”
“We do,” Vincent said, smiling.
The duke’s mouth fell open. “That is why the sun has been shining.”
“I believe so.”
The duke looked at Cassandra with the cheerful, magnanimous innocence of a child. “I am so pleased.”
“As am I, Your Grace,” she replied, laughing uncontrollably as tears of joy filled her eyes.
“The curse is thwarted again,” he said simply, his bushy eyebrows lifting.
“It seems so, Father,” Devon said, approaching.
The duchess hugged Vincent and Cassandra. “Congratulations to you both. I couldn’t be happier.”
While the others were fussing over June, Vincent approached his brother. “May I have a word with you?” he asked.
“Of course,” Devon replied.
They moved to the other side of the room where they could speak in private.
“I cannot begin to pretend that we have not had our differences over the past few years,” Vincent said.
“We have,” Devon agreed.
“What happened between you and MaryAnn caused me great pain—a pain that I did not even want to put behind me. I preferred wallowing in my bitterness.”
“Vincent—”
He put up a hand. “Let me finish.” He met his brother’s clear blue eyes. “I know that you suffered, too, Devon. It could not have been easy, receiving that letter from the woman your brother intended to marry, and then having to tell us all that she was dead. I know you did not encourage her affections, and it was wrong of me to punish you for so long afterward. I should have forgiven you. I am deeply sorry.”
His brother closed his eyes and bowed his head. “If you only knew how I have longed to hear you say those words. I have suffered from my guilt, more than you could ever know. I have wished I could go back in time and do it all differently. I would never have gone to see her. I would have ignored her letter. I would have gone away—anything to change the way it turned out. Perhaps then MaryAnn would still be alive and you would have had your wedding day.”
Vincent shook his head. “We would not have been happy. She did not love me, and that was what I wanted most of all—to marry a woman who truly loved me.”
“And now you have.”
“Yes.”
“I hope we can be friends again…”
&nbs
p; Vincent held out his hand. “Friends and brothers. Loyal to the end.”
“Loyal to the end.” They looked meaningfully into each other’s eyes and shook on it.
Vincent noticed their mother watching them, so he and Devon returned to where the others were gathered in a circle around June.
The duchess took hold of her husband’s hand. “I hope you will sleep well tonight, Theodore.”
“I dare say I will,” he replied. “A lovely bride and a grandchild all in the same day.” He laughed out loud and threw his arms up into the air. “Now all we need is for the other two to come home. Where the devil is Blake, anyway? Does anyone know? The man has bloody well disappeared into thin air. I dare say, he best get himself back here dressed in wedding attire, or he’ll face my wrath.”
“Indeed,” Vincent said, meeting Devon’s gaze with a hint of amusement. “It’s time he and Garrett both learned how truly wonderful a wedding day can be.” He touched Cassandra’s cheek. “When one is marrying the right woman, of course.”
Devon moved to stand beside Rebecca, and smiled. “You are a wise man, Vincent, for more insightful words were never spoken.”
Chapter 24
I have been making love for forty-eight hours straight, and have hardly slept a wink. One would think I’d be exhausted.
I suppose, when one is in love, amazing things are possible.
—from the journal of Cassandra Sinclair,
Lady Vincent,
July 16, 1874
I am eager to move into Langley Hall,” Vincent said to Cassandra two days later, slipping his arm around her waist as they strolled through the palace gallery at sunrise. They had been up all night making up for lost time, and were on their way to the breakfast room for some much needed sustenance.
“As am I,” she replied. “I have spent many hours daydreaming about the library and the grounds and the lake. You told me once that you intend to teach June to fish one day. Do you still wish to do that?”
“Of course. I will take her digging for worms and show her how to row a boat.”
“That sounds perfectly lovely.”
“You can come, too,” he said. “Do you know how to cast a line?”
Cassandra stopped suddenly in the gallery. “Good heavens, is this the first duchess?”
Vincent looked up. “Yes. The resemblance to my former fiancée is rather hair-raising, don’t you think?”
“Disturbingly so,” she replied. “This woman has the same ruthless look in her eyes.”
They stood hand in hand, staring at it.
“I should count myself lucky that you saved me from the fate of becoming her husband,” he said. “I would have been miserable.”
Cassandra squeezed his hand. “I cannot bear to think of it.”
They moved on, walking past the other family portraits.
“That is the first duke,” Vincent said, stopping again under an impressive painting of a heavily bearded aristocrat. “Remember I told you about him? He was a trusted friend of King Henry VIII, who awarded him the dukedom in the 1500s.”
“And he chose this site to build his palace on the ruins of an old abbey,” she said, “where his father, the prior, was murdered.”
“Yes.” Vincent pulled her close. “Because he committed the terrible sin of falling in love with a woman who was forbidden to him.”
“A monk with a mistress,” she said with a sigh, “murdered as a punishment for his passions. It is not exactly the stuff of fairy tales.”
“No, certainly not.”
They continued on, but Cassandra stopped again. “My word, this looks like Iris.” She strode toward a tiny oval miniature of a woman, framed and hanging next to the larger portrait of the duke.
“That is the mother of the first duke, the prior’s mistress. We know so little about her life. This is all we have left of her. Even her name is a mystery.”
For a long time Cassandra stared at the small portrait, marveling at the resemblance to the maid who had been so kind to her. “Another remarkable similarity,” she said, “don’t you think?”
Vincent took a step forward. “Yes, you are right, my darling. Perhaps that is why Iris looked so familiar to me when she came to your room that day. She looks like my ancestor.”
They joined hands and continued on to the breakfast room, unaware of Iris sweeping the ash out of the grate at the far end of the gallery, watching them and smiling at the sight of their happiness. She finished her job, brushed her hands together to dust off the ash, then turned and disappeared into the corridor.
“Do you think there will ever be a day,” Cassandra asked, as they began to eagerly inhale the aroma of coffee and bacon, eggs and toast, “when we will not be completely besotted with each other?”
Vincent stopped her in the corridor and backed her up against the wall. “Not a chance in heaven, my angel,” he replied, and then pressed his lips to hers and gave her the most perfect kiss. It was deep and wet and erotic, and before breakfast no less.
“You have always made me weak in the knees,” she sighed breathlessly, her eyes still closed as he stepped back. “And I suspect you always will.”
“Then you have answered your own question, darling. The rapture will go on.”
With a smile, she took his hand. “In that case, we are absolutely obligated to get some breakfast, if we are to sustain ourselves for the everlasting, undying rapture—which will continue on throughout the day, I hope?”
He grinned wolfishly. “Indeed. Will you let me serve you up a plate?”
“I would be most obliged if you would. I shall sit myself down and conserve my strength for later.”
And together they strolled blissfully into the breakfast room.
Epilogue
The scandal over Lord Vincent Sinclair’s secret marriage to his mistress, Lady Colchester, was, in a word, colossal. For years it was talked about in every fashionable drawing room from London to France, and all the young, marriageable daughters of good families were firmly reminded to never, under any circumstances, dash out of a ballroom with a stranger, no matter how handsome or charming he proved himself to be. The couple was criticized, rejected, openly excluded from every respectable guest list for five seasons straight, and it mattered not one bit that they were out of the country. They were added to the lists regardless, just so the host or hostess could have the pleasure of striking them off.
And so, the lovers traveled. They rode camels over Egyptian deserts, fed elephants in India, sailed the seven seas, and steamed their way across America by train, first class all the way. They were as happy as anyone could ever be.
By the tenth season, the details of the scandalous affair and Lady Colchester’s terrible fall from grace began to grow somewhat sketchy, and soon, stories began to circulate about the unparalleled beauty of the illegitimate daughter of the affair, who possessed all the exquisite features of her mother—the golden hair, the entrancing blue eyes, and the captivating, mysterious allure that had, by some miracle, tamed a wild, black lion.
Back at Pembroke Palace, the duke, in his seventy-ninth year, passed away peacefully in his sleep, and a new age began for the Pembrokes. His Grace, Devon Sinclair, along with his wife, Rebecca, Duchess of Pembroke and Countess of Creighton, a peeress in her own right, held a ball to welcome their brother and sister-in-law home from their world travels, along with their four children—two boys and two girls, who became fast friends with the duke’s many children. They amused themselves by searching for ghosts in the subterranean passages of the palace, where the boys howled in the dark corners to frighten the girls.
The ball held in their honor was an enormous success, and Lord and Lady Vincent’s names were immediately added back to every relevant guest list that season.
Eight years later, Lady June, widely regarded as the most beautiful young woman to enter society in half a century, was presented at court, and two years after that, she married a handsome young viscount—for love—and they, like their p
arents, lived a long and prosperous life blessed with many children, and much joy and laughter.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Deborah Hale for all her help in the plotting stages, and Michelle Phillips, my cousin and friend, for reading the early draft. I especially want to thank my editor, Erika Tsang, for her insightful comments about Vincent, which inspired me greatly during revisions. Thank you to my husband, Stephen, for all the support and hard work producing the video trailers for my books. Finally, a huge thank you to my young daughter, Laura, for her creative contribution to this book—Letitia’s birthmark. Thank you for brainstorming with me.
About the Author
JULIANNE MACLEAN fell in love with some of the classic romances—Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and, Pride and Prejudice—while completing her degree in English literature. Then she decided that she needed a “real job,” but after a brief stint as a government auditor, she realized she just didn’t care enough about numbers matching up. So a month before her wedding, she sat down and wrote the first paragraph of a romance. Now fourteen years, a husband, and a daughter later, Julianne is a happy, fulfilled, stay-at-home mom and a devoted romance writer.
Julianne would love to hear from readers and can be reached via e-mail through her website at www.juliannemaclean.com or by regular mail: c/o Avon Books, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.
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By Julianne MacLean
THE MISTRESS DIARIES
IN MY WILDEST FANTASIES
SURRENDER TO A SCOUNDREL
PORTRAIT OF A LOVER
LOVE ACCORDING TO LILY
MY OWN PRIVATE HERO
AN AFFAIR MOST WICKED
TO MARRY THE DUKE
If You’ve Enjoyed This Book,
The Mistress Diaries Page 24