It Had to be the Duke - Christi Caldwell Page 0,22

tall, dark-haired figure seated at the foot of his desk.

Quietly entering, Geoffrey pushed the door closed, careful to shut it decisively enough that the click announced his presence.

The young man immediately stood and turned to face him. “Your Grace,” he said quickly.

Geoffrey searched his gaze over the young man. Somewhere in his twenties, three inches past six feet, he was of a like height, but of blond coloring and olive-hued skin. His coarse wool garments also revealed wear and dust, marking his social standing different than the privileged life Geoffrey had been born into.

Geoffrey, who’d been briefly knocked off-balance and silent, found himself. “Please,” he murmured. Coming forward, he motioned to the chair vacated by the gentleman.

The moment he sat, the young man began. “I expect you are wondering about me and my presence here.” He launched into the introduction as though he had it memorized and had practiced all the while he’d waited for Geoffrey to arrive, and Geoffrey found himself envying the other man the time he’d had to prepare something to say. “And my identity,” the younger man murmured. “I expect you are curious about that, as well. My name is Wesley Audley.” Squaring his shoulders, the other man held his gaze, his piercing blue eyes intense and also very much the eyes that stared back at him in a mirror every day.

Then what the young man had said hit him. Geoffrey stilled. It had been years since he’d heard that name. “Audley, you say?” he echoed dumbly.

“Aye.” A muscle ticked at the corner of Mr. Audley’s hard lips. “Audley.” That name was delivered with an angry trace of bitterness that Geoffrey, having also been bitter and angry, recognized all too well.

That name had meant much to Geoffrey. After his heartbreak with Lydia, there’d been a young actress. She’d been young and vibrant and free with her laughter, and they’d immediately struck up a relationship. Theirs had been a passionate affair. When the lady was around, that was. She’d been so famed that she’d toured often, and though she’d remained for stretches of time in London, where she’d pick up their affair, invariably she’d leave for whatever performance called.

Reaching inside his jacket front, Wesley fished around and withdrew a teardrop-shaped opal, enormous in size, with a rim of amethyst surrounding the stone. He handed it over to Geoffrey.

Geoffrey stared blankly down at the shimmering, iridescent bauble.

Do you know, legend has it opals bring ill fortune and bad luck, Geoffrey, but I daresay nothing bad could ever come of being with you.

Geoffrey’s fingers opened reflexively, and the familiar bauble fell to the desk with a clatter.

“You recognize that, do you?” Mr. Audley remarked.

“I do. It is familiar,” he said carefully, trying to pick through long-ago recollections and pair them with the staggering revelation shared by the man seated across from him. He drew in a deep breath. “As is your mother’s name. There was a young actress I…” He felt his face go hot, and at the knowing glint in the younger man’s eyes, Geoffrey cleared his throat. “However, she’d periodically leave for performances she was part of in different parts of Eur…” His words trailed off. She’d always returned. Until she hadn’t. “How is she?” he brought himself to ask of the young woman who’d disappeared without a trace.

“Dead,” Wesley Audley said bluntly.

Geoffrey flinched. “I am so very sorry to hear of that loss.”

“It was a long time ago. Eighteen years.”

That was why she’d ceased coming around. That absence made sense now. Geoffrey dragged a shaky hand through his hair. Of course, he’d always ultimately been self-absorbed, his heart having been lost to one woman, to Lydia, and then his marriage had been such a dismal failure that he’d vowed to never commit himself to another woman. He’d made it clear that the actress was free to break it off whenever she wished, no questions asked, and had just assumed she’d tired of their relationship. “Your mother was a good—”

“I don’t need you to tell me what my mother was or wasn’t,” Audley cut him off. “I knew her far better than you. She didn’t travel Europe.” Mr. Audley’s quiet murmuring slashed through Geoffrey’s thoughts. “She traveled to the place where she… where we lived. Cheadle.”

“Cheadle?” he echoed weakly.

Removing a pair of fraying leather gloves, Mr. Audley beat them together, dispelling a little cloud of dust. “It is a mining community in Staffordshire. We worked the mines.” He paused. “I did. My brothers still do.”

“Your brothers?” There