Kit knew him very well. They’d met when they both worked at the Golden Lily and had become close friends. Like Kit, Jean-Jacques had had a careful eye to the future. He’d carefully saved generous parting gifts from several wealthy protectors to build up the funds he needed to marry his sweetheart, Evie, and set up his business. Now his life was good, his small family happy. Kit could not think what might have happened to make him look so worried.
“What’s wrong?” Kit said, frowning. “Is it Evie? Or one of the girls?”
Jean-Jacques shook his head. “No, no, nothing like that. All is well with us, mon amie. It is just”—he broke off and took a deep breath—“someone came to Mercier’s yesterday. A man I have not seen for many years. I think he was quite shocked to see me, but then… he asked after you, Kit, and wanted your address.”
Kit’s first thought was, please not Lionel Skelton, and his stomach began to roil with anxiety. He had only seen Skelton twice since that long-ago night when the man had beaten him senseless. But on each of those occasions, Skelton had looked at him with such hatred Kit had been worried for days afterwards.
“Who was it?” Kit managed, through stiff lips.
Jean-Jacques was silent for a moment, then he said gravely, “It was your duke.”
“My duke?” Kit repeated, his tone disbelieving. “My—wait, you can’t mean Henry? He would never—” Kit’s head began to swim and his heart to thud in slow, slugging beats. He took a long, shuddering breath and let it out in a whoosh.
“Kit,” Jean-Jacques said gently, worriedly. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Kit said faintly. Then he added, “He’s not my duke.” It seemed vital to clarify that, for some reason. Perhaps to remind himself.
Henry Asquith had never been Kit’s.
Jean-Jacques didn’t answer, but his gaze was pitying.
The silence stretched, and still Kit’s heart hammered. At last he said, his voice hoarse, “You say he was shocked. Didn’t he know you owned Mercier’s before he arrived?”
“No, I am quite certain of that. There was a woman with him. She was with child. I think he almost fell off the chair when he saw me.”
Kit’s mouth twisted. “He must have been horrified. I’m surprised he didn’t run away with his tail between his legs.” He tried to imagine the scene, Henry sitting in Mercier’s with a pregnant lady, only for Jean-Jacques to hove into view. He wondered if Henry had flushed—he used to flush very easily, when he was embarrassed or felt uncomfortable.
Another thought occurred to him then—Kit had learned a few years ago that Caroline, the wife Henry had practically worshipped, had passed away. Henry must have married again. But that was to be expected, he supposed.
“I was surprised when he asked to speak to me,” Jean-Jacques said. “At first, he pretended not to recognise me, and left with the lady—I thought that would be the end of it. But then he came back and asked for a word in private.”
“What did he want?” Kit hated that he cared what the answer to that question was.
“News of you. I said I found it strange that he was asking. And he said—” Jean-Jacques broke off. He pressed his lips together and shook his head.
“What? What did he say?”
Jean-Jacques met his gaze. “That he behaved shabbily towards you by not saying goodbye in person—but he thought you would understand.”
Kit hated how much that hurt. Enough time had passed, and enough had happened that such careless words shouldn’t affect him in the least. But they did. Because Henry hadn’t just “behaved shabbily”—he had broken their agreement entirely. Had effectively swindled Kit.
“Understand?” Kit said incredulously. “Understand what? Being cheated?”
Jean-Jacques gave a little shrug that was part mystified, part I-told-you-so.
“I was such an idiot,” Kit groaned.
“I think I said so at the time,” Jean-Jacques agreed.
Kit sighed. “Yes, I know. And so did Mabel and everyone else with half a brain, but I was stupid and stubborn and—”
“—in love,” Jean-Jacques completed for him.
“Infatuated,” Kit amended.
Jean-Jacques’s gaze was sympathetic. “You thought he would come back, didn’t you?”
Kit let his head fall back and stared at the ceiling. “I suppose I did,” he admitted. “I hoped he’d wake up one day and realise he missed me.” He scoffed at himself quietly. “I was a very foolish boy.”
After a moment, he raised his head and met Jean-Jacques’s steady gaze. “So how did you respond to him?”
Jean-Jacques shook his head unhappily. “I wanted to give him a