The person he’d sought so hard to send away, had become . . . something more. Someone more. Edwina now represented a lifeline in this hell as he braced for the first meeting with his father, and . . . the London Season.
And yet, she was curtsying. Nay, not just curtsying. This had been the manner of a reverent, deep, formal movement reserved for kings and queens.
Not . . . him. And certainly not from this woman. The woman who’d hiked her skirts up and danced merrily about the taproom, singing lustily?
And now she was curtsying to him?
“Don’t do that,” he said quietly. “You’re not a damned servant.”
She stared back at him, confusion in her hazel gaze. “I don’t—”
“You do know,” he interrupted, cutting her off. “You do know.”
Edwina dampened her mouth, and for one infuriating moment he believed she intended to continue feigning puzzlement. She sighed.
Edwina stole a glance around at the closed panel and the footman staring straight ahead, his hands behind him, prepared for his next directive. When she looked back at Rafe, she spoke in a whisper. “You are my charge. As such, curtsies are . . . required, Mr. Audley.”
Her charge?
Like a child with a tutor.
Like a lady with a governess.
He took two angry steps toward her, eliminating all the physical distance she’d erected, even as the intangible divide, which she and this place had put up between them, remained. “And enough with that,” he said tightly. “I’ll not be Mr. Audley to you, here.”
“You have to be,” she said simply, in nearly inaudible tones he strained to hear, and only the clear way she moved her lips, enunciating each one, confirmed that which she said.
“The hell I do,” he snarled. Furious at her for insisting on it. Furious with society for making it so. And furious at the circumstances that had changed between them.
He tried again. “You agreed to call me Rafe.”
She cast a sideways, pointed look at the servant.
“I don’t give a damn about him,” he snarled.
“You need to, Rafe,” she said gently, in a concession that did little to calm the torrent of emotion simmering inside.
She was, aside from Cailin, the only friend he had in this place. Now, she’d attempt to take that away? She’d reduce the bond they’d shared to the original one of servant and charge that she’d first come to him with?
But isn’t that really all she is, and all you are to one another? A voice jeered at him with that reminder. She had been. Something, however, had shifted. Changed. Just without his knowing, and to realize it, in this moment when she was determined to maintain nothing more than a professional relationship with him, left him shaken. Confused.
The door opened, and they looked over.
“His Grace is ready to see you.”
All his muscles went taut.
His Grace is ready to see you . . . a damned summons for a son. Nothing had changed. Nor had he expected it, too. It was, however, a reminder of his place and it wasn’t with this family.
“It is not because of you, Rafe.” She lightly brushed her fingers against his in what could have been perceived by anyone around them as an accidental caress. “This is how all meetings play out between fathers and sons of the peerage.”
Was that assurance coming from the unlikely friend he found in her? Or from the woman who was employed by his father? Either way, restless as he was, Rafe appreciated what she was doing.
The footman cleared his throat, and Rafe and Edwina glanced back toward the door.
“You will do wonderfully,” she said softly.
All of his muscles coiled tight. “I don’t give a damn about that.” His mother would have. It would have been all that mattered to her: that Rafe proved himself to be capable of the etiquette and decorum a duke would expect.
“Of course you don’t,” she murmured, allowing him that lie. And with that, she left.
Rafe stared after her a moment, watching as she reached the end of the hall; she paused, looking back, and smiled.
Had he ever truly resented or disliked that smile? How, when it filled a person with such lightness, driving back all tension and unease? Even now it accounted for his ability to complete the walk to that door, and enter the room.
The duke and duchess stood in the middle of the office, their hands entwined.
The moment they spied him, they swiftly disentangled their fingers. But it was too late. He’d already spied that tender touch.
The affection and warmth . . . and love between the pair. Rafe hardened his jaw. His mother would have sold her soul for a fraction of the affection known by the other woman.
The duchess must have seen something in his eyes, for she looked up at the duke and murmured something.
His Grace nodded.
She offered her husband a smile, not unlike the encouraging one Edwina had just bestowed upon Rafe in the hall, and he hated that parallel connection. Because whatever these two had was nothing like what he and Edwina shared.
And more, it was easier to not see the duke and duchess as real people, a couple capable of love and warmth. Because none of that fit with what he expected of them. Nay, what he knew of them.
Her Grace made a regal march across the office and stopped before Rafe, startling him. “I am so very happy you are here, Rafe,” she said softly, warmly, and honestly.
Surely she couldn’t want him here? He, the man whom her husband had sired on another woman. And yet, in her eyes there was none of the resentment that should be there.
Unnerved, he managed only to bow his head, grateful when she left.
And then he was alone with the duke.
Father and son eyed one another.
So this was him. The duke his mother had so loved. Similar in height to Rafe, His Grace was also of a like wiry strength. He possessed a thick head of black hair, barely dusted with gray, and then only along his temples. This man was certainly not what Rafe would have expected of a duke. Rafe had expected a paunch from age. Heavy jowls. A monocle as he studied Rafe.
“So you are him,” the duke murmured. “My son.”
My son.
Rafe’s shoulders went taut. From the earliest years of Rafe’s life, he had longed to have this man, a stranger, utter those words to him. But of course, he would have had to know Rafe. But he hadn’t. In any way. And so for the next twenty-two years of his life, he’d resolved to never think of himself in the way this man now referred to him.
“Another one of your sons,” Rafe said coolly.
Pain spasmed features that may as well have been a replica of his own thirty-one years into the future.
“One of my sons,” the duke said sadly. “Yes. Yes. I met . . . Wesley.”
He’d met Wesley. The resentment and bitterness at his brother having gone to this man in search of a favor and having it met soured his mouth.
“Please,” the duke said, at last removing an arm from behind his back, and motioning to the winged leather chairs at the foot of his desk.
Rafe considered them for a moment. The bitter part of him wanted to tell Bentley to hell with that offer. However, he had agreed to come here, and as such, rejecting all that outreach would be emotionally driven, and not logical. And Rafe was nothing if not logical. Wordlessly making his way over, he claimed a seat.
The duke took the other.
Rafe quickly masked his surprise. When he’d also imagined this exchange playing out, there’d been an enormous desk, not unlike the one belonging to Bentley. The duke, however, had been seated behind it, and certainly had not given up that throne of authority in favor of the chair closest to Rafe.
The stretch of silence continued marching on between them.
Rafe had never been one to fill the quiet. He’d always been a man
guarded and short with his words. And in this reunion, he found himself even more so. Nonetheless, Rafe cut to the heart of it. “I’m here for one reason and one reason only,” he said, clearing up any potential confusion or hope on the older gentleman’s part.
The duke sat up straighter.
“My sister wished to see London,” Rafe spoke in deliberately cold tones, “and as such, she is here, free to do so.”
“That is what I’d hoped,” the duke said quickly. “That she could take part in—”
“In what? Polite Society?” Rafe rested his hands on his knees and leaned closer to his father. “Let us be clear,” he said, cutting the other man off from speaking. “Whatever vision you have for her time here isn’t what she has in mind, and it isn’t what I intend to let happen. I’ll attend your balls and dine at your dinner parties. But she’ll not take part in your fancy affairs, where she’ll be mocked and jeered for the bastard she is. Is that clear?” he clipped out that question.
His Grace winced, and then gave a slow, uneven nod. “Yes . . . I . . . understand. I had hoped—”
“Don’t,” Rafe snapped. “Because this is not about you or your hopes.” Nor was it about Rafe. The sole reason he’d capitulated to the duke’s demands had been because of the chance to see Cailin happy. And he’d no intention of sharing Cailin’s wishes. They weren’t for this man to know.
“You are right,” the duke murmured. And then, Bentley just watched Rafe, the two of them engaging in a silent scrutiny of one another. After a long while, the duke sighed. “I have had so much time to prepare what to say to you. I’ve written pages with possible discussions and exact words I would speak to you. Only to find myself . . . lost as to what to say.” Again, a heavy sadness wreathed the duke’s features. “I am sorry. That seems like the most important place to begin.”
“The funny thing about apologies is that they’re really just empty words that change nothing and undo even less,” Rafe said, frostily.
The duke flinched. “You are not incorrect. Deeds are evidence where words require proving. Which is why I’ve asked you to come. Only through my actions can I begin to attempt to make amends.”
There was no making amends. There couldn’t be forgiveness. Not truly. They were both over thirty years too late at having any kind of relationship. And pitting sibling against sibling as he’d done to get Rafe here? That was hardly any way to go about fostering any kind of connection. “Asked me to come?” he spat. “As if I’d really had a choice.”
The duke had the good grace to at least blush with some modicum of shame. He coughed lightly into his fist. “It did require much effort, but you must understand, I do not want my children to struggle.”
And yet, that was precisely what Rafe and his siblings had done. “I already have. We already have,” he said quietly, matter-of-fact in that deliverance.
Bentley blanched. “Struggle anymore, then,” he whispered.
And the truth of it was? He’d not trade a single one of those years. For he’d been built into the person he was by the work he’d done. “I am a coalfield foreman.” Or he had been until the duke had manipulated his life. “And I enjoy what I do. Everything I’ve earned, I’ve earned with my hands.” He lifted the callused, coal-stained palms and fingers for his father’s view. “Nothing has been given to me just because of who my father was.”
His Grace stared intently at Rafe’s scarred hands. Aye, because what must he think, knowing these were the hands of the son he now sought to claim. Embarrassed and ashamed is what he would be.
“I am proud of you for having done what you’ve done in life,” the duke said, his voice hoarse, that pronouncement knocking Rafe briefly off-balance for the unexpectedness of it. “I would have wished that you didn’t have to know the difficulties you have. And . . . had I known about you, I promise you wouldn’t have.”
Had he . . . ? Rafe puzzled his brow; his mind registered those words, but he didn’t process them. And then . . . “Are you claiming my existence was a secret to you?”
His father nodded, lifting his palms as if in supplication. “You’ve no reason to trust me, and yet, I give my word on this. Wesley was the one who . . . informed me of his existence, and yours. He came to London.”
Rafe’s mind raced with the words the duke now spoke, and the last exchange he’d had with Wesley. Before his brother had left to battle Boney, before he had gone, he’d insisted Rafe listen to him about the duke. Rafe had been filled with too much rage and resentment that his brother had not only extended an olive branch to their sire, but that he’d accepted a commission Rafe wouldn’t have ever been able to give him.
The duke rested a hand on Rafe’s shoulder, jarring him back to the present. “I would have never willingly abandoned you or any of my children.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said automatically, and yet that statement didn’t ring with the same confidence he’d carried his whole life. For, how many times had his mother herself stated how important it was for her to keep her children a secret from the duke? Rafe had always assumed the duke had been a cold, ruthless nobleman and that had been the reason behind his mother’s adamancy. Coming to know him, however, challenged everything Rafe knew. Or everything he thought he did. His temples suddenly throbbed, and he rubbed them. “But neither did you take care to ensure you didn’t leave a litter of bastards upon my mother,” he pointed out.
The duke winced. “That is . . . a very fair charge. In my indiscretion, I was careless.”
Funny—were it not for that carelessness, Rafe and his siblings wouldn’t be here now. It was . . . something hard to reconcile in his mind with the resentment he felt for the duke.
“I understand that you do not wish to be here, but it is also my hope that you will come to find that not only do you not mind this life so very much, but that you also see the good you are capable of doing with the wealth I will afford you—if you let me?”
That was what he wanted, then . . . what he thought to do? Pay Rafe and his siblings off. Just as he’d done with Wesley. And it brought stirring back to life resentment at the man who’d manipulated him. Rafe came to his feet. “I am here, but do not think for one moment that I intend to stay.” He scraped a gaze over the gentleman as he hurriedly stood. “And do not ever dare pit me against my siblings, again, as you did with Wesley and Hunter, or I will destroy you.” They were bold words directed at a man a step below a prince, and yet, where his siblings and their relationship were concerned, by God, he’d end up on the gallows and in hell to defend them.
Color flooded the duke’s cheeks. “Wesley came to me, and I only sought to provide him with what he wished for.”
A commission so he could go get his fool head killed? “That wasn’t your place.” And yet, Wesley had decided it was. “And then you had the bloody gall to interfere with Hunter, too?” Soon, it would be Cailin.
Confusion sparked to life in the duke’s eyes. “Hunter? What . . . I don’t . . . ?”
He scoffed. “Come, do not pretend anything different. You went to my employer and had him sack me and my assignment go to Hunter instead so you might get me here.”
The duke sputtered, “I did not. Yes, I will admit to having coordinated Wesley’s commission, but I have never . . .” And then understanding brought the duke’s brows up. “You’re referring to Sparrow and the payment for your absence.”
“My temporary absence,” he bit out.
The duke shook his head. “That is . . . was not my doing or thinking. Though I stand in full support if it was needed to bring you here.”
What . . . ? If not Bentley—
He stilled.
No. She wouldn’t have. She—
. . . there is something else you should know about me . . . I’m a determined woman and I’ll neither fail, nor take “no” for an answer where you are concerned . . .
Bloody hell.
He cursed as he recalled some of the first words she’d uttered to him.
“That idea was all Miss Dalrymple’s,” the duke said, confirming that ugly suspicion. “She wrote to me and explained her intentions. I merely offered all my funds at her disposal, which she employed to coordinate a brief leave that your brother could fill. Why, she even had the idea to promote Hunter. Clever lady.”
My God, the man was dicked in his nob. He actually thought Rafe would be . . . impressed by any of that?
Betrayal and hurt and fury all competed for supremacy within Rafe, the latter emotion, that safer one, proving triumphant. Not at his father. He would have expected as much from him. But Edwina? “Clever lady, indeed,” he said between tight teeth.
“I have already met with Miss Dalrymple, and have allowed her the day to rest before you and she resume your lessons. I would encourage you to enjoy some rest as well, Rafe.”
Enjoy his rest, indeed.
The duke appeared to wish to say more, but neither wanting nor needing a single word more from this man, in this moment, Rafe turned on his heel . . . and left.
And here he’d been all maudlin at the prospect of her resuming her role of emissary to the duke and he her charge.
Fury continued to wind a course through his veins, heating him up with a healthy and targeted anger.
And with his meeting concluded, Rafe set out . . . in search of that clever lady.
Chapter 18
Edwina had thought herself completely done with any aspect of the country life, only to have found upon her return to London . . . that she rather missed the crisp blue of the sky, and the lush blanket of grass covering the hillsides, or the random rivers or waters to be found in the most unexpected of places: a bend in the road. Under a small bridge.
It had been a revelation from her time in Staffordshire with Rafe . . . the discovery that she hadn’t necessarily hated the country as much as she’d believed. That the resolve to leave and never return had less to do with all village people and village life, and more to do with the specific ones whom she’d had the unfortunate experience of knowing. The life she and her mother had lived in Leeds had soured her, and Edwina had come to associate that life outside London with misery and meanness.
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