Julia Quinn: The Lost Duke of Wyndham

The register.

Jack stared at it, his lips parted and slack. It was the enemy. That one little book.

Grace had said she could not marry him if he was the Duke of Wyndham.

Thomas had made no secret of the mountains of paperwork that lay ahead.

If he was the Duke of Wyndham.

But there was only that book. There was only that page.

Just one page, and he could remain Jack Audley. All his problems would be solved.

“Tear it out,” Jack whispered.

“What did you say?”

“Tear it out.”

“Are you mad?”

Jack shook his head. “You are the duke.”

Thomas looked down at the register. “No,” he said softly, “I’m not.”

“No.” Jack’s voice grew urgent, and he grabbed Thomas by the shoulders. “You are what Wyndham needs. What everyone needs.”

“Stop, you-”

“Listen to me,” Jack implored. “You are born and bred to the job. I will ruin everything. Do you understand? I cannot do it. I cannot do it.”

But Thomas just shook his head. “I may be bred to it, but you were born to it. And I cannot take what is yours.”

“I don’t want it!” Jack burst out.

“It is not yours to accept or deny,” Thomas said, his voice numbingly calm. “Don’t you understand? It is not a possession. It is who you are.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Jack swore. He raked his hands through his hair. He grabbed at it, pulled entire fistfuls until his scalp felt as if it were stretching off the bone. “I am giving it to you. On a bloody silver platter. You stay the duke, and I shall leave you alone. I’ll be your scout in the Outer Hebrides. Anything. Just tear the page out.”

“If you didn’t want the title, why didn’t you just say that your parents hadn’t been married at the outset?” Thomas shot back. “I asked you if your parents were married. You could have said no.”

“I didn’t know that I was in line to inherit when you questioned my legitimacy.” Jack gulped. His throat tasted acrid and afraid. He stared at Thomas, trying to gauge his thoughts.

How could he be so bloody upright and noble? Anyone else would have ripped that page to shreds. But no, not Thomas Cavendish. He would do what was right. Not what was best, but what was right.

Bloody fool.

Thomas was just standing there, staring at the register. And he-he was ready to climb the walls. His entire body was shaking, his heart pounding, and he-

What was that noise?

“Do you hear that?” Jack whispered urgently.

Horses.

“They’re here,” Thomas said.

Jack stopped breathing. Through the window he could see a carriage approaching.

He was out of time.

He looked at Thomas.

Thomas was staring down at the register. “I can’t do it,” he whispered.

Jack didn’t think. He just moved. He leapt past Thomas to the church register and tore.

Thomas tackled him, trying to grab the paper away, but Jack slid out from his grasp, launching himself toward the fire.

“Jack, no!” Thomas yelled, but Jack was too quick, and even as Thomas caught hold of his arm, Jack managed to hurl the paper into the fire.

The fight drained from both of them in an instant, and they both stood transfixed, watching the paper curl and blacken.

“God in heaven,” Thomas whispered. “What have you done?”

Jack could not take his eyes off the fire. “I have saved us all.”

Grace had not expected to be included in the journey to the Maguiresbridge church. No matter how closely involved she had become in the matter of the Wyndham inheritance, she was not a member of the family. She wasn’t even a member of the household any longer.

But when the dowager discovered that Jack and Thomas went to the church without her, she had-and Grace did not believe this an exaggeration-gone mad. It required but a minute for her to recover, but for those first sixty seconds it was a terrifying sight. Even Grace had never witnessed the like.

And so when it was time to depart, Amelia had refused to leave without her. “Do not leave me alone with that woman,” she hissed in Grace’s ear.

“You won’t be alone,” Grace tried to explain. Her father would be going, of course, and Jack’s aunt had claimed a spot in the carriage as well.

“Please, Grace,” Amelia begged. She did not know Jack’s aunt, and she could not bear to sit next to her father. Not this morning.

The dowager had pitched a fit, which was not unexpected, but her tantrum only made Amelia more firm. She grabbed hold of Grace’s hand and nearly crushed her fingers.

“Oh, do what you wish,” the dowager had snapped. “But if you are not in the carriage in three minutes, I shall leave without you.”

Which was how it came to pass that Amelia, Grace, and Mary Audley were squeezed together on one side of the carriage, with the dowager and Lord Crowland on the other.

The ride to Maguiresbridge had seemed interminably long. Amelia looked out her window, the dowager out hers, and Lord Crowland and Mary Audley did the same. Grace, squeezed in the middle facing backwards, could do nothing but stare at the spot midway between the dowager’s and Lord Crowland’s heads.

Every ten minutes or so the dowager would turn to Mary and demand to know how much longer it would be until they reached their destination. Mary answered each query with admirable deference and patience, and then finally, to everyone’s relief, she said, “We are here.”

The dowager hopped down first, but Lord Crowland was close on her heels, practically dragging Amelia behind him. Mary Audley hurried out next, leaving Grace alone at the rear. She sighed. It seemed somehow fitting.

By the time Grace reached the front of the rectory, the rest of them were already inside, pushing through the door to another room, where, she presumed, Jack and Thomas were, along with the all-important church register.

An open-mouthed woman stood in the center of the front room, a cup of tea balanced precariously in her fingers.

“Good day,” Grace said with a rushed smile, wondering if the others had even bothered to knock.

“Where is it?” she heard the dowager demand, followed by the crash of a door slamming against a wall. “How dare you leave without me! Where is it? I demand to see the register!”

Grace made it to the doorway, but it was still blocked by the others. She couldn’t see in. And then she did the last thing she’d ever have expected of herself.

She shoved. Hard.

She loved him. She loved Jack. And whatever the day brought, she would be there. He would not be alone. She would not allow it.

She stumbled inside just as the dowager was screaming, “What did you find?”

Grace steadied herself and looked up. There he was. Jack. He looked awful.

Haunted.

Her lips formed his name, but she made no sound. She couldn’t have. It was as if her voice had been yanked right out of her. She had never seen him thus. His color was wrong-too pale, or maybe too flushed-she couldn’t quite tell. And his fingers were trembling. Couldn’t anyone else see that?

Grace turned to Thomas, because surely he would do something. Say something.

But he was staring at Jack. Just like everyone else. No one was speaking. Why wasn’t anyone speaking?

“He is Wyndham,” Jack finally said. “As he should be.”

Grace should have jumped for joy, but all she could think was- I don’t believe him .

He didn’t look right. He didn’t sound right.

The dowager turned on Thomas. “Is this true?”

Thomas did not speak.

The dowager growled with frustration and grabbed his arm. “Is…it…true?” she demanded.

Still, Thomas did not speak.

“There is no record of a marriage,” Jack insisted.