The Lost Duke of Wyndham (Two Dukes of Wyndham, #1)(22)

Oh, right. The duke was just brimming with joy. "Would someone," Wyndham bit off, "do me the service of explaining just how this man has come to be in my drawing room?"

Jack waited for someone to offer an explanation, and then, when none was forthcoming, offered his own version. "She kidnapped me," he said with shrug, motioning toward the dowager.

Wyndham turned slowly to his grandmother. "You kidnapped him," he said, his voice flat and strangely devoid of disbelief.

"Indeed," she replied, her chin butting up in the air. "And I would do it again."

"It's true," Miss Eversleigh said. And then she delighted him by turning in his direction and saying, "I'm sorry."

"Accepted, of course," Jack said graciously.

The duke, however, was not amused. To the extent that poor Miss Eversleigh felt the need to defend her actions with, "She kidnapped him!"

Wyndham ignored her. Jack was really starting to dislike him.

"And forced me to take part," Miss Eversleigh muttered. She, on the other hand, was quickly becoming one of his favorite people.

"I recognized him last night," the dowager announced.

Wyndham looked at her disbelievingly. "In the dark?"

"Under his mask," she answered with pride. "He is the very image of his father. His voice, his laugh, every bit of it."

Jack hadn't thought this a particularly convincing argument himself, so he was curious to see how the duke responded.

"Grandmother," he said, with what Jack had to allow was remarkable patience, "I understand that you still mourn your son - "

"Your uncle," she cut in.

"My uncle." 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?