The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides #1)(46)

Yes, Robert had quite carefully avoided his father following his charged statements about Robert’s worth a month prior.

“You are well?” the duke gently prodded. He searched his stare over his son’s face. Did he think to find the answers to the questions of what brought Robert here?

“I am,” he said tersely. “And you are also well?”

Something flashed in his father’s eye. There one instant, and gone the next, so Robert thought it was merely a trick of the light.

“Aren’t I always,” his father said in amused tones. White lines of strain formed at the corners of his mouth.

Perhaps there was guilt there after all for the older man’s attempt to manipulate Robert into marriage. There was no solace in that. All his life, he’d been at the clever machinations of others: Lucy, his grandfather, his father. It made a man wary.

“What brings you round?” his father asked, setting aside his pen and sitting back in his chair.

Robert claimed a spot at the foot of the broad mahogany surface. His gaze snagged on that piece of furniture that had carved an indelible imprint in every aspect of Robert’s life. Involuntarily, he curled his hands over the arms of his chair.

His father followed his stare, and a wistful look stole over his sharp features. “I should have seen to the commission of another desk,” he said quietly.

Robert tensed his mouth. The day he was in possession of that desk, he’d have it carved up and burned as firewood. Even from the grave, the late duke still retained a hold on this household, and his son. How peculiar. The ton saw in the current Duke of Somerset a powerful, indomitable nobleman who proudly carried on the legacy of his esteemed sire. They did not see the unshakeable grip that bastard had exerted—a man who’d cut out his own daughter. “What do you know of Wilkinson’s daughter?” he said, shifting the discussion away from talks of the dead duke.

“Lady Diana?” His father steepled his hands before him. “She is seventeen, nearly eighteen. Wilkinson said she is quite a skilled artist.”

. . . Just because I do not paint or know how to ride doesn’t mean I would not enjoy a trip to a museum or a stroll in Hyde Park . . .

“His illegitimate daughter,” he said impatiently cutting across a cataloging of the young woman his father had been neatly trying to steer him toward since the summer.

“Ah.” The duke tapped his fingertips together. “After the girl and her mother went missing, Wilkinson believed both had perished.” He turned his palms up. “At his last visit, he was quite . . . effusive in his happiness at Helena’s reemergence.”

Yes, animated, garrulous, and quite surprisingly free in sharing his emotions, the Duke of Wilkinson would never fit with anyone’s expectations of a staid, proper duke. “Is it possible she is an impostor?” he asked with a blunt jadedness that came from life. Given her presence at the Hell and Sin Club, there was reason to be wary.

Only the woman who’d ordered him about, and spoken of hating polite Society, was clearly one who wanted no part of the ton.

“An impostor?” his father repeated back with surprise. He scratched his head. “I expect not,” he said with far too much trust. “Wilkinson knew Helen when—”

“Helena,” he amended.

“Yes, yes. Helena . . . Her mother was his mistress and he knew the girl for . . . Oh,” he waved his hand. “Five or six years, I believe. He kept them in a townhouse.” His expression darkened. “Then she disappeared, and Wilkinson was deeply . . . affected,” he settled for. “He loved her,” he said simply.

Having loved his late wife, and then supported his sister after she’d been exiled for her disadvantageous match, the current Duke of Somerset had proven himself romantic in ways that men of his stature generally were not. That generosity of spirit and sentiment had then extended to his niece, whom he’d taken in to his home when she’d fled scandal years back. Still for that defining part of the duke’s character, he spoke of the sentiment as though it were the single-most defining marker.

Had the lady by chance found another protector who’d promised her more, but had left her with an uncertain future, and little security for her daughter? “He loved her so much and yet she simply . . . vanished?” Robert couldn’t keep the cynicism from creeping into his tone. Women had proven themselves remarkably inconstant with their affections, driven by a hungering for wealth.

His father gave him a sad look. “It is not my place to cast questions or suspicions on Wilkinson or Miss Banbury’s mother.” He leaned forward, holding his son’s gaze. “I expect the young lady has the answers you seek.”

Helena’s visage flickered in his mind: her scarred cheek, her hands. All marks that spoke of a hellish existence.

With a grimace, his father shifted.

Robert frowned. “Father?”

“I am fine,” the duke said gruffly. “We are not discussing me.” He leaned his weight back in his chair and it groaned in protest. “Why the questions about Miss Banbury?” Curiosity glinted in the older man’s eyes.

The question gave him pause and in a bid for nonchalance, Robert lifted his shoulders in a faint shrug, carefully weighing his words. “I met the young woman at the Earl of Sinclair’s ball.” He settled for the vaguest, truest admission. After all, he could not readily come and ask questions, and not expect the same in return. Yet, with his delving, Robert had expanded beyond a faint curiosity over the woman whom he’d, in a moment of madness, agreed to assist.