The Duke Goes Down (The Duke Hunt #1) - Sophie Jordan Page 0,11

they were there to proclaim was his own.

He’d sat stunned, hands limp at his sides, speechless as a slab of marble as they’d imparted the news of his illegitimacy. It was all a blur. He vaguely recalled the pop and crackle of the fire in the great hearth. The scent of leather from the armchair he sat ensconced within filling his nose.

As dark and somber as crows, the gentlemen had circled him within the shrinking space of his drawing room, citing their proof. They presented him with several signed documents and witness statements.

Perry remembered looking at those papers, trying to process the words, the parchment brittle in his shaking hands. He’d felt like a lad in school again, attempting to decipher a particularly difficult Latin text. Latin had not been his best subject.

In the rubble of his shock, he recalled feeling a sense of gnawing guilt. Perhaps that was because of the grim lines of the faces watching him, the tight set of their mouths. Judgment was writ all over their expressions. Condemnation. As though he were somehow culpable. As though he had set out to defraud the true Penning duke of his rightful life.

It had not been his doing. None of it. He had led a life of blissful ignorance, unaware of the truth waiting to materialize.

Truth always had a way of doing that, of revealing itself and illuminating the darkest, hidden corners. It could not stay buried forever.

The wrongdoing had belonged to his parents alone, but his father was dead now and unable to answer for his deception. That left only his mother.

When all had come to light, she had behaved as though she were the victim of a hoax. A cruel hoax perpetrated against her.

“It was your father’s idea,” she had wept when Perry demanded an explanation from her.

Fortunately she’d been in Town for the season and Perry had not needed to travel far to arrive at her house in Mayfair to confront her. She was just rousing herself at noon and taking her breakfast in her private rooms, comfortably attired in her dressing robe with her hair hidden inside a turban—as she had done ever since he could remember. As children, he and his sister knew not to bother his mother until late in the afternoon.

“He said the title belonged to his son, no matter if you were born before we were wed. He was off on the Continent when I learned I was increasing.” She sniffed and dabbed at her nose with a lacy handkerchief. “He wanted a grand tour before he settled down.”

“What for?” Perry had snorted, pacing a hard line in her chamber. “It seems he was having quite a bit of fun sowing his oats right here in England. Why did he need to go abroad for his diversions?”

“Peregrine.” His mother lifted her tear-stained face from her handkerchief to glare at him reproachfully. “Don’t you dare cast judgment on me. It’s not as though you have led a saintly existence. Have you?”

His mother was the daughter of a marquis. She came from an old and venerable family. She had always known she would marry the Duke of Penning and one day become the Duchess of Penning. That had been taught to her alongside her letters and embroidery. He supposed this certainty might have accounted for her willingness to prematurely consummate her union. She must have felt her future was assured.

Perry did not know what his mother or father could have been thinking. Clearly they weren’t using good judgment. He could only guess that they had been afflicted with youthful short-sightedness and functioning from the waist down . . . but he would rather not contemplate his mother and late father together in so intimate a fashion. It was all too much. He was already battling nausea over finding himself in this grim situation.

“I never lied to the world,” he had told his mother in the face of her censure and accusation. “I never stole a life that wasn’t mine.”

I just lived that stolen life.

The color had burned hot in her cheeks. “Once I sent word to your father, he returned as soon as he could . . . as soon as he was located.” A grimace crossed her face. “It just took some time for word to reach him.” She paused and tilted her head. “I believe he was found in the Netherlands.” She shrugged as though that were of no account now. “Alas he did not get here in time. You