The Lost Duke of Wyndham Page 0,26

He cleared his throat. "But it has been thirty years since his death."

"Twenty-nine," she corrected sharply.

"It has been a long time," Wyndham said. "Memories fade."

"Not mine," she replied haughtily, "and certainly not the ones I have of John. Your father I have been more than pleased to forget entirely - "

"In that we are agreed," Wyndham interrupted, leaving Jack to wonder at that story. And then, looking as if he very much still wished to strangle someone (Jack would have put his money on the dowager, since he'd already had the pleasure), Wyndham turned and bellowed, "Cecil!"

"Your grace!" came a voice from the hall. Jack watched as two footmen struggled to bring a massive painting around the corner and into the room.

"Set it down anywhere," the duke ordered.

With a bit of grunting and one precarious moment during which it seemed the painting would topple what was, to Jack's eye, an extremely expensive Chinese vase, the footmen managed to find a clear spot and set the painting down on the floor, leaning it gently against the wall.

Jack stepped forward. They all stepped forward. And Miss Eversleigh was the first to say it.

"Oh my God."

It was him. Of course it wasn't him, because it was John Cavendish, who had perished nearly three decades earlier, but by God, it looked exactly like the man standing next to her.

Grace's eyes grew so wide they hurt, and she looked back and forth and back and forth and -

"I see no one is disagreeing with me now," the dowager said smugly.

Thomas turned to Mr. Audley as if he'd seen a ghost. "Who are you?" he whispered.

But even Mr. Audley was without words. He was just staring at the portrait, staring and staring and staring, his face white, his lips parted, his entire body slack.

Grace held her breath. Eventually he'd find his voice, and when he did, surely he'd tell them all what he'd told her the night before.

My name isn't Cavendish.

But it once was.

"My name," Mr. Audley stammered, "my given name..." He paused, swallowed convulsively, and his voice shook as he said, "My full name is John Rollo Cavendish-Audley."

"Who were your parents?" Thomas whispered.

Mr. Audley - Mr. Cavendish-Audley - didn't answer.

"Who was your father?" Thomas's voice was louder this time, more insistent.

"Who the bloody hell do you think he was?" Mr. Audley snapped.

Grace's heart pounded. She looked at Thomas. He was pale and his hands were shaking, and she felt like such a traitor. She could have told him. She could have warned him.

She had been a coward.

"Your parents," Thomas said, his voice low. "Were they married?"

"What is your implication?" Mr. Audley demanded, and for a moment Grace feared that they would come to blows again. Mr. Audley brought to mind a caged beast, poked and prodded until he could stand it no more.

"Please," she pleaded, jumping between them yet again. "He doesn't know," she said. Mr. Audley couldn't know what it meant if he was indeed legitimate. But Thomas did, and he'd gone so still that Grace thought he might shatter. She looked at him, and at his grandmother. "Someone needs to explain to Mr. Audley - "

"Cavendish," the dowager snapped.

"Mr. Cavendish-Audley," Grace said quickly, because she did not know how to style him without offending someone in the room. "Someone needs to tell him that...that..."

She looked to the others for help, for guidance, for something, because surely this was not her duty. She was the only one of them there not of Cavendish blood. Why did she have to make all of the explanations?

She looked at Mr. Audley, trying not to see the portrait in his face, and said, "Your father - the man in the painting, that is - assuming he is your father - he was his grace's father's... elder brother."

No one said anything.

Grace cleared her throat. "So, if...if your parents were indeed lawfully married - "

"They were," Mr. Audley all but snapped.

"Yes, of course. I mean, not of course, but - "

"What she means," Thomas cut in sharply, "is that if you are indeed the legitimate offspring of John Cavendish, then you are the Duke of Wyndham."

And there it was. The truth. Or if not the truth, then the possibility of the truth, and no one, not even the dowager, knew what to say. The two men - the two dukes, Grace thought with a hysterical bubble of laughter - simply stared at each other, taking each other's measure, and then finally Mr. Audley's hand seemed to reach out. It