“You’re too bloody noble,” Jack bit off.
Thomas muttered something Jack could not quite make out and set the book down, opening it to one of the first pages.
Jack looked down. It was a blur, all swirls and dips, dancing before his eyes. He swallowed, stealing a glance at Thomas to see if he’d seen anything. But Thomas was staring down at the register, his eyes moving quickly from left to right as he flipped through the pages.
And then he slowed down.
Jack clenched his teeth, trying to make it out. Sometimes he could tell the bigger letters, and frequently the numbers. It was just that they were so often not where he thought they should be, or not what he thought they should be.
Ah, idiocy. It ought to have been familiar by now. But it never was.
“Do you know what month your parents would have married in?” Thomas asked.
“No.” But it was a small parish. How many weddings could there have been?
Jack watched Thomas’s fingers. They moved along the edge of the page, then slid around the edge.
And flipped it. And stopped.
Jack looked at Thomas. He was still.
He’d closed his eyes. And it was clear. On his face. It was clear.
“Dear God.” The words fell from Jack’s lips like tears. It wasn’t a surprise, and yet, he’d been hoping…praying…
That his parents hadn’t married. Or the proof had been lost. That someone, anyone, had been wrong because this was wrong. It could not be happening. He could not do this.
Just look at him now. He was standing there bloody well pretending to read the register. How in God’s name did anyone think he could be a duke?
Contracts?
Oh, that would be fun.
Rents?
He’d better get a trustworthy steward, since it wasn’t as if he could check to see if he was being cheated.
And then-he choked back a horrified laugh-it was a damned good thing he could sign his documents with a seal. The Lord knew how long it would take to learn to sign his new name without looking as if he had to think about it.
John Cavendish-Audley had taken months. Was it any wonder he’d been so eager to drop the Cavendish?
Jack brought his face to his hands, closing his eyes tight. This could not be happening. He’d known it would happen, and yet, here he was, convinced it was an impossibility.
He was going mad.
He felt like he couldn’t breathe.
“Who is Philip?” Thomas asked.
“What?” Jack practically snapped.
“Philip Galbraith. He was a witness.”
Jack looked up. And then down at the register. At the swirls and dips that apparently spelled out his uncle’s name. “My mother’s brother.”
“Does he still live?”
“I don’t know. He did the last I knew. It has been five years.” Jack thought furiously. Why was Thomas asking? Would it mean anything if Philip was dead? The proof was still right there in the register.
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.