How to Fool a Duke (The Husband Dilemma #1) - Lancaster, Mary Page 0,43

into his bones, along with the beginnings of peace. He had never seen Sarah as peaceful before. Desirable, fascinating, enchanting, but definitely chaotic. There was more to her. There was more to everyone than the world ever saw.

He rose, and set his cup on the table, then returned to take his still damp coat from the hook, and struggle into it.

She had risen with him and now stood watching him.

He took both her hands. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Everything.” He raised her hands to his lips, and kissed them both. “Goodbye.”

***

Sarah watched him go with something like wonder. It seemed he could always surprise her. From the confident, seductive man she had last encountered, oozing masculine charm and persuasion, to this lost, vulnerable boy who had just left her.

A smile playing on her lips, she pressed her hands to her cheeks, as though she could feel more closely the places he had kissed.

“Oh, I do love you,” she whispered wistfully.

And he had come to her in his moment of agony. She didn’t know whether it meant neither of them could win their foolish game. Or if both had already won.

Chapter Thirteen

It was almost teatime when Leonard finally entered the castle library. Part of him had hoped his mother would summon him, take the lead in this inevitable encounter. But Leonard, fifth Duke of Vexen, had never shirked a challenge. And although his heart beat like a schoolboy’s before his headmaster, he sought her out because he suspected she would never presume. Would she have just carried on treating him like an honored guest? Pretending neither of them knew the truth of their relationship?

As he walked into the library, Miss Frobe all but scuttled out, like a ghost, apart from the quick, nervous smile she cast him. Leonard remembered to bow.

Lady Whitmore, his mother, was alone at her usual desk. She rose as he approached, but said nothing. Her expression gave little away, and she stood straight and proud as ever. And yet something in her stillness spoke of tension. Perhaps, she, too, was held together by a thread. Perhaps she was afraid.

With the thought, he bit back the accusation on the tip of his tongue and instead blurted, “Why? Make me understand.”

“Oh, Leonard,” she sighed. “What can I say that you will believe? That I was young and foolish and should never have allowed myself to be married to your father? That I cannot regret it because our union gave birth to you? That when he found out I had seen Ferdinand again, he kept you from me? That it broke my heart to leave you, but I did it anyway? That I came home to England because of you? It is all true, and yet none of it is relevant now.”

He stared. “Not relevant?”

“No, for it is past and cannot be undone. Regrets, recriminations, defense—they mean nothing against the fact that you and I are here under the same roof, that we have begun to know each other a little at last.”

He tugged at his cravat, fighting the bitterness. “You have been here some fifteen years. Don’t pretend you came home for my sake.”

“But I did. I would not ruin your life with my continued existence. I knew everyone believed I was dead. But here, I could more easily get news of you. And when I spoke to Sarah… I could not resist inviting you here to see the man you had become.”

He spun away from her. “You would have me believe my father was so cruel, so deceitful.”

“No,” she said wearily. “Your father was a good man. I hurt him. He hurt me. And then, I suppose, he was protecting you from scandal. I have discovered there is no point in regretting mistakes, only learning from experience.”

He swung back to face her, frowning. Natural courtesy reasserted itself as he realized she still stood. He took her hand—it felt frail in his fingers and trembled—and conducted her to the sofa. He sat beside her, half-turned toward her.

“What is Sarah’s part in this?” he demanded.

“None. I sensed great feeling in her. For you. I set out to discover if she was worthy of you, and then I brought you here to see what would happen.” Her gaze fell to the fingers clasped in her lap. “And to see you.”

He drew in his breath. “This is madness. At the age of eight-and-twenty, I suddenly have a mother. What do I call you? Mama? Your Grace?”

“I thought we had already decided on Julia, in