It Had to Be the Duke by Christi Caldwell

Chapter 5

In the early morn hours, Geoffrey found his way home from Mowbray’s son’s scandalous affair.

Seated on the bench of his carriage, he stared out at the passing London landscape as the sun crept up over the horizon and cast an orange glow upon cobblestones slicked with dew from the warm spring air.

A smile pulled at his lips.

Mardel’s affair had initially been one Geoffrey had had zero interest in attending, but now he was so very grateful and glad for attending. Not because he’d remembered any lost appreciation for those events. Hardly that, at all. Those balls remained tiresome and ridiculous.

Nay, rather, it was because Lydia had been there.

How many years had it been since they’d spoken to each other and teased and laughed together? When she’d first married, he’d mourned those missed moments with her. He’d drowned himself and the sorrow of losing her in the bottom of too many bottles and in the arms of too many women.

With time, the pain of losing her hadn’t left him, but with a maturity granted by life’s passage and the passing of time and years, he’d come to appreciate just how special what they’d shared had in fact been. And he’d looked back on all the exchanges they’d shared with great fondness and warmth…and love.

But tonight? Alone in the library with her, sitting with Lydia and speaking to her in the flesh and picking right up where they’d left off, they hadn’t just been memories… it had been real. She’d always shared so freely with him her hopes and fears and dreams. And tonight, she’d shared with that same openness. That candor of hers had always fascinated him. Where lords and ladies alike tended to be reticent, guarded in all they shared, Lydia had lived her truths and spoken them without fear of judgment.

It had been just one of the many things he’d loved about her.

It was one of the things he still loved about her…

His gaze locked on the crystal windowpane that reflected his solemn features and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and the tops of his cheeks. Time had aged him. It had divided them. But it had never erased the love he had for her. She’d been the one who’d got away, the woman he’d love until he drew his last breath. And hungered for. Desire stirred as he recalled her as she’d been this night, astride his lap, moving passionately against his hand, pleading with her words and the thrusts of her hips for more.

He grinned.

Yes, time might have passed, but there was so much that had not changed, too.

The carriage rolled to a slow halt.

Whistling a jaunty little tune, Geoffrey leaped down from his carriage before it had so much as come to a complete stop.

“Your Grace!”

“Worry not, Saunders,” he said cheerfully to his driver as he did a merry jig the length of the pavement. Taking the steps quickly, he found the door drawn open in dutiful anticipation. “You should not have waited, Moore,” he said to the waiting butler. Shrugging out of his domino, he tossed it to the servant, near in age to his own years. With a like agility, the loyal fellow caught it. “I told you to retire early.”

“Yes, yes. That is true, Your Grace.”

Resuming his happy whistling, Geoffrey headed for the stairway leading to his chambers when Moore adjusted his steps, quickening his stride. “However, there is a matter of business that requires your immediate—”

“Ah, business, business. Business can wait until respectable hours, my good fellow,” Geoffrey said without glancing back. He took the stairs quickly. “Tonight was a night for—”

“Your son is here,” his butler called up after him.

Geoffrey continued walking and reached the top of the first landing before Moore’s words penetrated the glorious haze that had come with seeing Lydia again. He turned slowly back and looked down at the other man.

Moore stared back expectantly.

It was late. Or early.

And there’d been several glasses of champagne, hardly the amount of spirits to so muddle the thoughts of one with his stern constitution when it came to drink.

But mayhap those glasses, coupled with the euphoria at seeing Lydia and with the late hours he’d kept this night, accounted for his inability to process what the other man had said. Geoffrey gave his head a clearing shake, because it had sounded like the other man had said something about… his son. “I beg your pardon?”

Moore hurried up after him, and when he reached Geoffrey’s side, he spoke in hushed tones. “A gentleman arrived earlier this morning. Two hours ago. He insisted that he’d wait until you returned home. He claims that he is your”—the butler lowered his voice several decibels—“son.”

There it was… again.

He opened his mouth to point out the fact that he decidedly did not have any children, before remembering Moore knew that detail. The whole world did. There had been a wife and an unhappy marriage, but there’d certainly not been any children born of that union. There had, however, been a mistress. He froze. Many of them.

He’d always taken care, using French letters, but of course he wasn’t so naïve as to believe the methods afforded him, ones that he’d used, had necessarily been completely effective.

His heart hammered a slow, dull thunk in his chest.

“Where is he?” he asked quietly as his feet came crashing back down to earth from the night’s levity and joy.

“I took the liberty of showing him to your office. Is there anything you require, Your Grace?”

“No. Not at this time.” Geoffrey started for his office. What were the chances that all these years later, a grown gentleman would arrive at his household and claim to be his son? Where had he been all these years? And more, where had the young man’s mother been? Nay, given his status as a duke, and a powerful and wealthy one at that, what woman would not reach out immediately and claim a better life and future for herself and her child? It didn’t make sense. None of this did.

Geoffrey reached his office.

The door sat open, and his gaze immediately found the tall, dark-haired figure seated at the foot of his desk.

Quietly entering, Geoffrey pushed the door closed, careful to shut it decisively enough that the click announced his presence.

The young man immediately stood and turned to face him. “Your Grace,” he said quickly.

Geoffrey searched his gaze over the young man. Somewhere in his twenties, three inches past six feet, he was of a like height, but of blond coloring and olive-hued skin. His coarse wool garments also revealed wear and dust, marking his social standing different than the privileged life Geoffrey had been born into.

Geoffrey, who’d been briefly knocked off-balance and silent, found himself. “Please,” he murmured. Coming forward, he motioned to the chair vacated by the gentleman.

The moment he sat, the young man began. “I expect you are wondering about me and my presence here.” He launched into the introduction as though he had it memorized and had practiced all the while he’d waited for Geoffrey to arrive, and Geoffrey found himself envying the other man the time he’d had to prepare something to say. “And my identity,” the younger man murmured. “I expect you are curious about that, as well. My name is Wesley Audley.” Squaring his shoulders, the other man held his gaze, his piercing blue eyes intense and also very much the eyes that stared back at him in a mirror every day.

Then what the young man had said hit him. Geoffrey stilled. It had been years since he’d heard that name. “Audley, you say?” he echoed dumbly.

“Aye.” A muscle ticked at the corner of Mr. Audley’s hard lips. “Audley.” That name was delivered with an angry trace of bitterness that Geoffrey, having also been bitter and angry, recognized all too well.

That name had meant much to Geoffrey. After his heartbreak with Lydia, there’d been a young actress. She’d been young and vibrant and free with her laughter, and they’d immediately struck up a relationship. Theirs had been a passionate affair. When the lady was around, that was. She’d been so famed that she’d toured often, and though she’d remained for stretches of time in London, where she’d pick up their affair, invariably she’d leave for whatever performance called.

Reaching inside his jacket front, Wesley fished around and withdrew a teardrop-shaped opal, enormous in size, with a rim of amethyst surrounding the stone. He handed it over to Geoffrey.

Geoffrey stared blankly down at the shimmering, iridescent bauble.

Do you know, legend has it opals bring ill fortune and bad luck, Geoffrey, but I daresay nothing bad could ever come of being with you.

Geoffrey’s fingers opened reflexively, and the familiar bauble fell to the desk with a clatter.

“You recognize that, do you?” Mr. Audley remarked.

“I do. It is familiar,” he said carefully, trying to pick through long-ago recollections and pair them with the staggering revelation shared by the man seated across from him. He drew in a deep breath. “As is your mother’s name. There was a young actress I…” He felt his face go hot, and at the knowing glint in the younger man’s eyes, Geoffrey cleared his throat. “However, she’d periodically leave for performances she was part of in different parts of Eur…” His words trailed off. She’d always returned. Until she hadn’t. “How is she?” he brought himself to ask of the young woman who’d disappeared without a trace.

“Dead,” Wesley Audley said bluntly.

Geoffrey flinched. “I am so very sorry to hear of that loss.”

“It was a long time ago. Eighteen years.”

That was why she’d ceased coming around. That absence made sense now. Geoffrey dragged a shaky hand through his hair. Of course, he’d always ultimately been self-absorbed, his heart having been lost to one woman, to Lydia, and then his marriage had been such a dismal failure that he’d vowed to never commit himself to another woman. He’d made it clear that the actress was free to break it off whenever she wished, no questions asked, and had just assumed she’d tired of their relationship. “Your mother was a good—”

“I don’t need you to tell me what my mother was or wasn’t,” Audley cut him off. “I knew her far better than you. She didn’t travel Europe.” Mr. Audley’s quiet murmuring slashed through Geoffrey’s thoughts. “She traveled to the place where she… where we lived. Cheadle.”

“Cheadle?” he echoed weakly.

Removing a pair of fraying leather gloves, Mr. Audley beat them together, dispelling a little cloud of dust. “It is a mining community in Staffordshire. We worked the mines.” He paused. “I did. My brothers still do.”

“Your brothers?” There were more children? Were they also…?

Wesley Audley nodded. “They’re all yours. Rafe and Hunter. Our sister, however, oversees the care of the cottage while we work.”

Rafe. Hunter. “Your sister?” He knew he sounded like a fool parroting back the other man’s words.

There came another brusque nod from the fellow seated across from Geoffrey. “Cailin.”

He had a daughter. And sons.

Geoffrey collapsed back in his seat. A dull humming clouded his thoroughly befuddled mind. In the span of a few moments, he’d gone from a duke without any children to a man with four.

“Rafe… he is the eldest.”

There was a tentative quality to Wesley’s words. “He was of the opinion that I’d be wasting my time coming to you. That you are no father to us and that you never had a wish to be. He insisted I ask nothing from you.” Wesley’s lips curved in a sneer. “When she was living, our mother also insisted that we not burden you.”

Not burden him?

Geoffrey’s eyes slid closed. I’m going to be sick. What deficit of character did he possess that Pamela Audley had kept such information from him? What had he said or done to make her believe he’d not properly care for her and the children who’d come from their relationship?

“You believe me?”

It would be nigh impossible for Geoffrey to look at the young man across from him and not see himself in him. Everything from the cleft in his chin to the blue of his eyes.

“I do,” he said hoarsely. He stretched a hand out. “I had no idea—”

“I’m not here to either ease your guilt or seek to know what you knew or did not know…” Wesley—his son—squared broad shoulders, bringing them back. “I’m here to put a request to you.”

“Anything,” he said automatically.

“My siblings? They want nothing from you. I, on the other hand, am not too proud to ask something of the man who sired me and failed to know of my existence…” He held Geoffrey’s eyes. “I’d like a commission.”

A commission?

“That is what you’d ask me for?” Geoffrey asked quietly. “I can give you a fortune.”

“I don’t want a fortune.”

“I could set you up with a comfortable life and see you cared for. An unentailed property.”

“I don’t want handouts. I want a better life that I make for myself.” That same muscle ticked in the young man’s jaw. “Of course, I cannot make that life for myself without some assistance from you.” He spoke those words between clenched teeth as though it were a physical chore to admit them.

Geoffrey wiped a hand down the side of his face. His son would be willing—nay, wanted—to fight Boney’s forces, risking life and limb and forsaking the luxuriant lifestyle he should have been afforded. “I will gladly then purchase your commission. The post of lieutenant colonel or—”

“I’m not looking to have you purchase my way into the highest ranks,” his son interrupted. “I want nothing more than a post of lieutenant, and if I prove myself worthy, then I shall rise in rank.”

“But—”

“I’m telling you what I’ll accept from you.” He’d accept the bare minimum.

Geoffrey deserved that. What reason should the young man have to trust him or accept his offer of assistance? No, he’d not known about his or his siblings’ existence, and yes, Pamela had kept that information from him, but that did not absolve him.

Geoffrey nodded. “Very well. I will coordinate those details. Until I do, where are you staying?”

There was a pregnant pause that confirmed the truth. The young man hadn’t sorted out where he’d go once he arrived in London. By the state of his garments and everything he’d shared about his past and present, neither were there funds to see him comfortably set up while he was in London awaiting his move to the military.

“I’d ask you to please remain here.”

“No.”

“It will be the easiest way with which to work through the details, and also we can expedite the process if we aren’t passing information back and forth.”

It was a lie. Given his power and his rank, Geoffrey had a houseful of servants who would fly if he asked it, to get word to Wesley Audley or anyone else, for that matter.

Geoffrey saw the war silently waged by the young man seated across from him.

But he’d enough sins to his name that he was willing to add this one to preserve the boy’s pride and keep him close… and comfortable… and safe.

At last, Wesley nodded. “Very well,” he said stiffly. “But only because, as you said, it stands to hurry along the process and minimizes the time I’m here.” With Geoffrey.

The young man stood, and Geoffrey flew to his feet. Reaching behind him, he tugged the bell.

Almost immediately, the door opened, and Moore appeared. Moore, who, loyal as all anything, had no doubt set himself up outside. “Moore, if you might see my son Mr. Audley shown to his rooms.”

Wesley started.

Had he expected Geoffrey to deny that connection? To keep it secret? Or be ashamed by it? Nay, the only thing he was ashamed of and by was his failure to know of his and his other children’s existence and about the fate met by Pamela.

“Of course, Your Grace,” Moore said. “If you would be so good as to follow me, Mr. Audley?”

The young man hesitated a moment more, appearing as though he wished to say something else, but then wordlessly, he followed after Moore and was gone.

Geoffrey remained rooted to the floor, staring at the closed door long after the pair had left.

He had a son.

Nay, he had three sons and a daughter. None of whom wanted anything to do with him. And with good reason.

He couldn’t undo the past or his mistakes. He couldn’t erase the hard work they’d been forced to take on or the struggle they’d known, but he could open up a new world for them. One that was safe and comfortable and free of strife.

If they’d allow him.

Geoffrey brought shaking hands up and covered his face.

For that was precisely the problem. He didn’t know how to allow them to help either. He didn’t know how to ask them to be part of his life and get them to accept everything he could offer them. He didn’t…

He froze.

His arms fell slowly to his sides.

Nay, on matters such as this, he was useless.

There was someone who had a way with all people.

Filled with hope, Geoffrey flew abovestairs and, summoning his valet, prepared to bathe, change, and petition the only person who could assist him.