Julia Quinn - The Lost Duke of Wyndham

And then she’d seen him .

The highwayman. Whose name wasn’t Cavendish.

But once was.

He had left before the dowager emerged from the castle, turning his mount in a display of horsemanship so expert that even she, who was no equestrienne, recognized his skill.

But he had seen her. And he had recognized her. She was certain of it.

She’d felt it.

Grace tapped her fingers impatiently against the side of her thigh. She thought of Thomas, and of the enormous portrait that had passed by the doorway of the sitting room. She thought of Amelia, who had been raised since birth to be the bride of a duke. And she thought of herself. Her world might not be quite what she wanted, but it was hers, and it was safe.

One man had the power to send it all crashing down.

Which was why, even though she would have traded a corner of her soul for just one more kiss from a man whose name she did not know, when Elizabeth remarked that it looked as if she knew him, she said, sharply, “I do not.”

The dowager looked up, her face pinched with irritation. “What are you talking about?”

“There was a man at the end of the drive,” Elizabeth said, before Grace could deny anything.

The dowager’s head snapped back in Grace’s direction. “Who was it?” she demanded.

“I don’t know. I could not see his face.” Which wasn’t a lie. Not the second part, at least.

“Who was it?” the dowager thundered, her voice rising over the sound of the wheels beginning their rumble down the drive.

“I don’t know,” Grace repeated, but even she could hear the cracks in her voice.

“Did you see him?” the dowager asked Amelia.

Grace’s eyes caught Amelia’s. Something passed between them.

“I saw no one, ma’am,” said Amelia.

The dowager dismissed her with a snort, turning the full weight of her fury on Grace. “Was it he?”

Grace shook her head. “I don’t know,” she stammered. “I couldn’t say.”

“Stop the carriage,” the dowager yelled, lurching forward and shoving Grace aside so she could bang on the wall separating the cabin and the driver. “Stop, I tell you!”

The carriage came to a sudden stop, and Amelia, who had been sitting face front beside the dowager, tumbled forward, landing at Grace’s feet. She tried to get up but was blocked by the dowager, who had reached across the carriage to grab Grace’s chin, her long, ancient fingers digging cruelly into her skin.

“I will give you one more chance, Miss Eversleigh,” she hissed. “Was it he?”

Forgive me , Grace thought.

She nodded.

Ten minutes later Grace was in the Wyndham carriage, alone with the dowager, trying to remember just why she’d told Thomas he shouldn’t commit his grandmother to an asylum. In the last five minutes the dowager had:

Turned the carriage around.

Shoved Grace out and to the ground, where she’d landed awkwardly on her right ankle.

Sent the Willoughby sisters on their way without the slightest explanation.

Had the Wyndham carriage brought around.

Outfitted aforementioned carriage with six large footmen.

Had Grace tossed inside. (The footman doing the tossing had apologized as he’d done so, but still.)

“Ma’am?” Grace asked hesitantly. They were speeding along at a rate that could not be considered safe, but the dowager kept banging her walking stick against the wall, bellowing at the driver to move faster. “Ma’am? Where are we going?”

“You know very well.”

Grace waited one careful moment, then said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t.”

The dowager speared her with an angry stare.

“We don’t know where he is,” Grace pointed out.

“We will find him.”

“But, ma’am-”

“Enough!” the dowager ground out. Her voice was not loud, but it contained sufficient passion to silence Grace immediately. After a moment passed, she stole a glance at the older woman. She was sitting ramrod straight-too straight, really, for a ride in the carriage, and her right hand was bent and angled like a claw, pulling back the curtain so she might see outside.

Trees.

That’s all there was to see. Grace couldn’t imagine why the dowager was staring out so intently.

“If you saw him,” the dowager said, her low voice cutting into Grace’s thoughts, “then he is still in the district.”

Grace said nothing. The dowager wasn’t looking at her, in any case.

“Which means,” the icy voice continued, “that there are only a very few places he might be. Three posting inns in the vicinity. That is all.”

Grace rested her forehead in her hand. It was a sign of weakness, something she usually tried not to display in front of the dowager, but there was no maintaining a stiff facade now. They were going to kidnap him. She, Grace Catriona Eversleigh, who had never so much as nicked a ha’penny ribbon from a fair, was going to be party to what had to be a high crime. “Dear Lord,” she whispered.

“Shut up,” the dowager snapped, “and make yourself useful.”

Grace grit her teeth. How the devil did the dowager think she could be useful? Surely any manhandling that needed doing would be performed by the footmen, each of whom stood, as per Belgrave regulations, five feet eleven inches tall. And no, she did not mistake their purpose on the journey. When she had looked askance at the dowager, the reply had been a terse, “My grandson might need convincing.”

Now, the dowager growled, “Look out the window,” speaking to her as if she’d turned idiot overnight. “You got the best look at him.”

Dear God, she would gratefully forfeit five years off her life just to be anywhere but inside this carriage. “Ma’am, I said-he was at the end of the drive. I didn’t really see him.”

“You did last night.”

Grace had been trying not to look at her, but at that, she could not help but stare.

“I saw you kissing him,” the dowager hissed. “And I will warn you now. Don’t try to rise above your station.”

“Ma’am, he kissed me .”

“He is my grandson,” the dowager spat, “and he may very well be the true Duke of Wyndham, so do not be getting any ideas. You are valued as my companion, but that is all .”

Grace could not find the outrage to react to the insult. Instead, she could only stare at the dowager in horror, unable to believe that she had actually spoken the words.

The true Duke of Wyndham.

Even the very suggestion of it was scandalous. Would she throw over Thomas so easily, strip him of his birthright, of his very name? Wyndham was not just a title Thomas held, it was who he was.

But if the dowager publicly championed the highwayman as the true heir…dear God, Grace could not even imagine the depth of the scandal it would create. The impostor would be proven illegitimate, of course-there could be no other outcome, surely-but the damage would be done. There would always be those who whispered that maybe Thomas wasn’t really the duke, that maybe he ought not be so secure in his conceits, because he wasn’t truly entitled to them, was he?

Grace could not imagine what this would do to him. To all of them.

“Ma’am,” she said, her voice quavering slightly. “You cannot think that this man could be legitimate.”

“Of course I can,” the dowager snapped. “His manners were impeccable-”

“He was a highwayman!”

“One with a fine bearing and perfectly correct accent,” the dowager retorted. “Whatever his current station, he was brought up properly and given a gentleman’s education.”

“But that does not mean-”

“My son died on a boat,” the dowager interrupted, her voice hard, “after he’d spent eight months in Ireland. Eight bloody months that were supposed to be four weeks. He went to attend a wedding. A wedding.” Her body seemed to harden as she paused, her teeth grinding together at the memory. “And not even of anyone worth mentioning. Just some school friend whose parents bought themselves a title and bludgeoned their way into Eton, as if that could make them better than they were.”