It Had to be the Duke - Christi Caldwell Page 0,24

you said, it stands to hurry along the process and minimizes the time I’m here.” With Geoffrey.

The young man stood, and Geoffrey flew to his feet. Reaching behind him, he tugged the bell.

Almost immediately, the door opened, and Moore appeared. Moore, who, loyal as all anything, had no doubt set himself up outside. “Moore, if you might see my son Mr. Audley shown to his rooms.”

Wesley started.

Had he expected Geoffrey to deny that connection? To keep it secret? Or be ashamed by it? Nay, the only thing he was ashamed of and by was his failure to know of his and his other children’s existence and about the fate met by Pamela.

“Of course, Your Grace,” Moore said. “If you would be so good as to follow me, Mr. Audley?”

The young man hesitated a moment more, appearing as though he wished to say something else, but then wordlessly, he followed after Moore and was gone.

Geoffrey remained rooted to the floor, staring at the closed door long after the pair had left.

He had a son.

Nay, he had three sons and a daughter. None of whom wanted anything to do with him. And with good reason.

He couldn’t undo the past or his mistakes. He couldn’t erase the hard work they’d been forced to take on or the struggle they’d known, but he could open up a new world for them. One that was safe and comfortable and free of strife.

If they’d allow him.

Geoffrey brought shaking hands up and covered his face.

For that was precisely the problem. He didn’t know how to allow them to help either. He didn’t know how to ask them to be part of his life and get them to accept everything he could offer them. He didn’t…

He froze.

His arms fell slowly to his sides.

Nay, on matters such as this, he was useless.

There was someone who had a way with all people.

Filled with hope, Geoffrey flew abovestairs and, summoning his valet, prepared to bathe, change, and petition the only person who could assist him.

Chapter 6

Lydia shouldn’t have told them.

It had been a mistake to do so.

And yet, that was what came with a lifetime of friendship. The absolute absence of secrets.

“You… made love with him?”

At Althea’s horrified exclamation, Lydia surged to her feet, and flying across the room, she pushed the door shut. “Will you hush?” she urged on a whisper. Goodness, by the horror and shock her announcement had been met with, she might as well have been talking to their younger selves of thirty years earlier. “And we didn’t make love,” she clarified as she rejoined the pair of friends dubiously eyeing her. “We… merely kissed.” And he’d touched her, stirring her body to passion she’d thought to not again known.

“Merely kissed,” Dorothy muttered. “It was never just ‘mere kissing’ where you two were concerned.”

No, her friend was correct on that score. Everything between Lydia and Geoffrey had always been more powerful. More passionate. More… everything.

Althea wrung her hands together. “I knew we shouldn’t have gone.”

Lydia resisted the urge to rub at her temples. “Really? You were the one who coordinated the whole affair,” she pointed out, earning a quick glower from Althea.

“Do not put this on me.” Thump. Thump. “Bentley,” Althea muttered Geoffrey’s name like the expletive she surely intended.

Dorothy seethed. “We should have expected he’d go to an affair like that,” she spat.

“I think it bears mentioning that we collectively”—Lydia gestured between the three of them—“were at an affair like that.”

“That was different. We were looking for a distraction.”

Which was a good deal more outrageous than Geoffrey, who’d been there at the behest of a friend, a concerned father, worrying after his son.

Something kept her from sharing Geoffrey’s motives for being there last evening. Their discourse had been private. To reveal any part of her exchange with the duke would feel somehow wrong.

“Well, then you should be content in knowing your goals were achieved. I was distracted.” Her gaze drifted to the floor-to-ceiling widows. In fact, she’d been distracted in the most wonderful of ways. Not just the sexual aspect of her encounter with Geoffrey—though that had certainly been magical, too—but rather, all of it. Being with him and speaking freely and sharing without fear of recrimination.

“He was never good for you,” Dorothy said.

Ironically, that same recrimination she found in her friends even now. Her patience snapped. “You’re both being ridiculous. Everything that occurred last night was perfectly innocuous.” At the looks they slanted her way, she frowned. “If it hadn’t been, do you truly think