It Had to be the Duke - Christi Caldwell Page 0,21

That candor of hers had always fascinated him. Where lords and ladies alike tended to be reticent, guarded in all they shared, Lydia had lived her truths and spoken them without fear of judgment.

It had been just one of the many things he’d loved about her.

It was one of the things he still loved about her…

His gaze locked on the crystal windowpane that reflected his solemn features and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and the tops of his cheeks. Time had aged him. It had divided them. But it had never erased the love he had for her. She’d been the one who’d got away, the woman he’d love until he drew his last breath. And hungered for. Desire stirred as he recalled her as she’d been this night, astride his lap, moving passionately against his hand, pleading with her words and the thrusts of her hips for more.

He grinned.

Yes, time might have passed, but there was so much that had not changed, too.

The carriage rolled to a slow halt.

Whistling a jaunty little tune, Geoffrey leaped down from his carriage before it had so much as come to a complete stop.

“Your Grace!”

“Worry not, Saunders,” he said cheerfully to his driver as he did a merry jig the length of the pavement. Taking the steps quickly, he found the door drawn open in dutiful anticipation. “You should not have waited, Moore,” he said to the waiting butler. Shrugging out of his domino, he tossed it to the servant, near in age to his own years. With a like agility, the loyal fellow caught it. “I told you to retire early.”

“Yes, yes. That is true, Your Grace.”

Resuming his happy whistling, Geoffrey headed for the stairway leading to his chambers when Moore adjusted his steps, quickening his stride. “However, there is a matter of business that requires your immediate—”

“Ah, business, business. Business can wait until respectable hours, my good fellow,” Geoffrey said without glancing back. He took the stairs quickly. “Tonight was a night for—”

“Your son is here,” his butler called up after him.

Geoffrey continued walking and reached the top of the first landing before Moore’s words penetrated the glorious haze that had come with seeing Lydia again. He turned slowly back and looked down at the other man.

Moore stared back expectantly.

It was late. Or early.

And there’d been several glasses of champagne, hardly the amount of spirits to so muddle the thoughts of one with his stern constitution when it came to drink.

But mayhap those glasses, coupled with the euphoria at seeing Lydia and with the late hours he’d kept this night, accounted for his inability to process what the other man had said. Geoffrey gave his head a clearing shake, because it had sounded like the other man had said something about… his son. “I beg your pardon?”

Moore hurried up after him, and when he reached Geoffrey’s side, he spoke in hushed tones. “A gentleman arrived earlier this morning. Two hours ago. He insisted that he’d wait until you returned home. He claims that he is your”—the butler lowered his voice several decibels—“son.”

There it was… again.

He opened his mouth to point out the fact that he decidedly did not have any children, before remembering Moore knew that detail. The whole world did. There had been a wife and an unhappy marriage, but there’d certainly not been any children born of that union. There had, however, been a mistress. He froze. Many of them.

He’d always taken care, using French letters, but of course he wasn’t so naïve as to believe the methods afforded him, ones that he’d used, had necessarily been completely effective.

His heart hammered a slow, dull thunk in his chest.

“Where is he?” he asked quietly as his feet came crashing back down to earth from the night’s levity and joy.

“I took the liberty of showing him to your office. Is there anything you require, Your Grace?”

“No. Not at this time.” Geoffrey started for his office. What were the chances that all these years later, a grown gentleman would arrive at his household and claim to be his son? Where had he been all these years? And more, where had the young man’s mother been? Nay, given his status as a duke, and a powerful and wealthy one at that, what woman would not reach out immediately and claim a better life and future for herself and her child? It didn’t make sense. None of this did.

Geoffrey reached his office.

The door sat open, and his gaze immediately found the