Chapter 26

T he duke sat behind the immense desk in his study in his wheeled throne—judge, jury and executioner all wrapped up in one. The flames leaping on the hearth behind the desk might as well have been springing from the yawning mouth of hell itself.

Not even the constable Astrid had summoned to arrest Connor and Pamela dared to defy his authority, although judging from the disapproving set of the man's thin lips, he would have liked nothing more. He stood stiffly at attention by the door, ready to intervene at the slightest encouragement from the duke.

At the duke's command, the constable's battered and bloodied men had been banished to the corridor, where they were passing the time nursing their bruises and testing for loose teeth.

Connor had not gone down without a fight. Especially not after he had seen the men wrench Pamela's delicate wrists behind her and clap them in irons. It had taken almost a dozen men to subdue him and if one of them hadn't had the foresight to wrest away the loaded pistol he had whipped from his plaid before he could aim and fire, someone would have been carried from the ballroom feet first.

Connor and Pamela were sitting in the leather wingback chairs in front of the desk like a pair of disobedient children awaiting a scolding.

Pamela rubbed her tender wrists, thankful that at least the duke had insisted their irons be removed. Judging by the murderous glances Connor kept throwing the constable, it might not have been his wisest decision.

She was still having difficulty looking at Connor. Still couldn't quite comprehend that he wasn't her highwayman after all, but the heir to a vast empire. How such a thing could have happened was beyond her comprehension. She smoothed her rumpled skirt to give her trembling hands something to occupy them. Her pretty new gown had been torn and stained when the constable's men had dragged her out of the ballroom in front of their shocked guests.

The duke steepled his fingers beneath his bony chin and gave them both a long, hard look. "Let me make sure I have this perfectly clear. The two of you came here to Warrick Park to deliberately swindle me out of both my fortune and my title. You shamelessly used lies and trickery to gain my trust and affection and to rob my nephew of his rightful inheritance."

"That pretty much sums it up," Connor said, managing to look utterly unrepentant as he leaned back in the chair and folded his brawny arms over his chest.

The duke's shrewd gaze locked on him. "And now that you've been caught with your greedy little hands in the till, you claim to have miraculously discovered that you're exactly who you were pretending to be all along—Percy Ambrose Bartholomew Reginald Cecil Smythe, Marquess of Eddywhistle and heir to the duchy of Warrick."

Connor visibly winced. "Why in the name of God would any man in his right mind name his firstborn son Percy?"

The duke stiffened. "It was my father's name. And I'll have you know that Percy has been a proud name along the northern border of England for generations. Why, the Percys spent years routing the Scots and…" He trailed off at the look in Connor's eye.

Connor sat up straight in the chair, gripping its armrests. "I'm not any happier about this than you are." He pointed at the door. "If the woman in that portrait is my mother, then that means you're—"

The duke eyed him coolly, daring him to continue.

Connor swallowed before saying softly, "It means you're the miserable cheating bastard who broke her heart."

"I've never denied that, have I, son?"

"Don't call me that! You haven't the right!"

When the echo of Connor's shout had faded, the duke said quietly, "Well, that remains to be seen, doesn't it?" He turned to Pamela, his voice dispassionate. "I hear that once again it is you, Miss Darby, who will provide me with the proof I need to convince me not to turn the both of you over to the constable for a quick trial and an even quicker hanging."

The constable perked up at the prospect of a hanging, earning a fresh glare from Connor.

"So what's it to be this time, my dear—a letter from the king himself vouching for the lad's parentage or perhaps a wailing visit from the shade of his mother?" The duke snorted bitterly. "God knows the woman has haunted me nearly to my grave in the past twenty-nine years."

Pamela reached into the bodice of her gown. It had been no easy feat hanging on to the locket when the constable's men had seized her. But she had clenched her fist tight and held on for dear life, remembering how his mother had told Connor to guard it with his life.

She rose and moved to the desk. The duke stretched out his hand, but still she hesitated. Once she surrendered the locket into his keeping, there would be no going back. For any of them.

She slowly let the trinket slip through her fingers and into his hand. "I believe this will prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that this man is your son."

She returned to her seat, still avoiding Connor's eyes.

The duke's hands were trembling so badly it took him three tries to pry open the locket. He sat gazing down at the miniature within for several minutes, his expression unchanging.

But when he lifted his eyes to Connor's face, they were burning with an unholy fire. "Where did you get this?"

"My mother gave it to me. Right before she died. My father had it painted when a fair came through our village."

"So she didn't die on the road to the Highlands?"

Connor shook his head. "She didn't die until I was fifteen."

"How?" the duke demanded querulously. "How can any of this be possible?"

"How am I supposed to know?" Connor snapped, his own voice rising. "Perhaps my father found her when she was ill. He had a tender heart and a habit of taking in strays. Perhaps he took her and her babe in as well. All I know is that I never knew the woman in this portrait as anything but my mother and his wife."

"She was my wife!" the duke roared, pounding his fist on the desk. "He had no right to her!"

Connor gave him a long level look. "Apparently, neither did you."

The duke seized the iron wheels of his chair and wrenched the chair to the side, as if he could no longer bear to look upon any of them. His hair fell in a lank curtain around his face. "So you came here to swindle an old fool out of his fortune only to discover that you were exactly who you were pretending to be."

"Aye," Connor confessed. "That seems to be the way of it."

The constable stepped forward, hat in hand. "You've suffered enough of this pair's nonsense, your grace. Why don't you allow me to summon my men and have them locked up until you can determine what should be—"

The duke lifted his hand, stifling the man in mid-sentence. His shoulders began to shake. A strangled sound emerged from his throat, launching him into one of his more terrible coughing fits. Pamela inched to the edge of her chair, fearing he was going to expire right before their eyes, making Connor the duke.

But when he rolled his chair back around to face him, she realized he wasn't coughing, but laughing. Laughing without a trace of bitterness. Laughing so hard that tears were streaming down his haggard cheeks.

Struggling to catch his breath, he pointed a palsied finger at Connor. "Such ingenuity! Such gall! There's no denying that you're my son now, is there? But the joke's on you, isn't it, lad? And I'll wager you haven't even thought about the worst of it yet. If I'm your father, then that means that Astrid is your aunt and Crispin is truly your—"

"—cousin," Connor finished, dropping his head into his hands with a groan.

"Your grace," the constable snapped, striding toward the desk. "Surely you're not going to just let them get away with such a nefarious scheme!" He drew a piece of paper from his coat and shook it at the duke. "What about this broadsheet? It all but proves this man is guilty of any number of crimes against the crown."

The duke took the broadsheet from the man's hand and gave it a cursory glance. "This proves nothing. There may be a slight resemblance, but the man in this sketch is wearing a mask. He could be anyone." He wadded the broadsheet into a ball and tossed it over his shoulder into the fire.

The constable began to sputter. "Wh—Wh—What about this woman then? Surely you're going to allow me to arrest her. Why, she's nothing but a common criminal!"

Connor tensed and started to rise, but the duke waved him back down before crooking a finger at Pamela.

She reluctantly rose and moved to stand before the desk like a recalcitrant schoolgirl, her hands clasped in front of her.

"What do you have to say for yourself, girl?"

She lifted her head to look him boldly in the eye, much as she had done that first day in the solarium. "We haven't been completely truthful, your grace."

He began to chortle anew. "Now there's a shock, isn't it?"

"I didn't come here just to bilk you out of your fortune. I came here to find my mother's murderer. I have every reason to believe the fire that killed her was no accident. That someone set it in order to destroy your duchess's letter. Someone very close to you who wanted to make sure your true heir was never found."

The duke's smile faded, leaving him looking troubled—almost pensive.

"I was the one who convinced Connor"—Pamela cleared her throat with some difficulty—" his lordship to help me by appealing to his sense of chivalry."

Connor sprang to his feet. "The lass is lying! She appealed to my greed and to my lust for revenge against the English. She's the innocent one. I was only in it for the money."

The duke eyed Pamela with a shrewd eye. "Oh, I think you were in it for much more than that." He shook his head. "Clever, resourceful girl. I liked you the moment I saw you."

Shock rippled through her. "You called me a bold and reckless girl. And a cheeky chit."

"And have you done anything to disprove that estimation?"

She inclined her head. "I suppose not."

"Very well, then. You're dismissed."

The constable went red, then purple. "But your grace—"

The duke sighed. "If this man is really my son and this girl brought us together just as she promised to do, then what crime has she committed?"

The constable opened and closed his mouth several times before snapping it shut. "What about the girl's preposterous claim that someone may have murdered her mother?"

"Oh, I believe I can take care of that situation. You'll simply have to trust me." He included Connor and Pamela in his sweeping gaze before saying pointedly, "All of you."

The constable slammed on his hat, bristling with disapproval.

"I do have one task you could perform before you leave," the duke said.

The man brightened, plainly hoping there was still someone lurking about the mansion who needed to be hanged. "How can I be of service, your grace?"

The feverish glow had left the duke's eyes, leaving them as cold as the glitter of freshly cut diamonds. "On your way out, you can tell the butler to ring for my sister."

Astrid slipped into the study, struggling to look sympathetic and demure instead of wildly triumphant. Her brother sat all alone behind his desk, studying the face of what appeared to be a gold pocket watch. The flames dancing on the hearth behind him cast his face in shadow.

She dropped gracefully into one of the wingback chairs in front of the desk, already anticipating how graciously she would respond when he began to congratulate her on her cleverness. "I saw the constable and his men leaving the grounds. May I assume those dreadful miscreants are now in their custody and on the way to Newgate?"

Her brother snapped the watch shut and slipped it into the pocket of his waistcoat. "You may assume whatever you like. But I'd appreciate it if you didn't call my son a miscreant."

"Your son?" Despite the cozy warmth of the room, Astrid felt a chill tickle her spine. "Surely you don't mean that imposter? He's not your son. That broadsheet I turned over to the authorities proved he's nothing but an incorrigible criminal who's escaped the hangman's noose for the last time. Please tell me you haven't deluded yourself yet again!"

The look he gave her was pitying, but without a trace of mercy. "I'm not the one who has deluded myself, Astrid. Did you really think you could make me believe that boy didn't belong to me? To her ? The first time I looked into his eyes and saw his mother looking back at me, I knew who he was. I never doubted it for a minute, not even when you were howling for his blood and the constable was clapping him in irons."

Astrid bit her bottom lip to still its sudden trembling, tasting the salty warmth of her own blood on her tongue. "I was only trying to protect you. I've always tried to look after you, you know," she told him, despising the whining note in her voice.

"Indeed you have. But I made a very curious discovery in the past week. Whenever I don't drink the tea you prepare for me, I don't cough—or sleep—nearly as much. As a matter of fact, I've felt myself growing a little stronger each day."

Astrid gasped in shock as he gripped the edge of the desk and slowly inched his way upward until he was standing on his feet like a haggard ghost of the man he had once been.

She clutched at her throat. "What are you trying to imply?"

"That I think it's time you packed your bags and left this house," he said gently. "Don't worry. I'll see to it that you lack for nothing. I've already rented a cottage and hired a private nurse. I'll provide a generous allowance for you until the day you die."

"What about my son?" she hissed. "Are you going to cast your nephew into the streets as well?"

"I believe I'll leave that decision up to my son. If Percy—if Connor wants him to stay, I'll allow it."

She straightened until her spine was as stiff as an iron poker, standing face to face with her brother for the first time in years. "How very benevolent of you," she said with a sneer. "You're no different from Father, are you? He couldn't wait to be rid of me either." As if watching someone else from a great distance, she could hear her voice rising on a shrill note. Could see the ugly beads of spittle flying from her lips. "Father never even saw me. He would look right through me as if I wasn't even there. He married me off to a drunken sot and I had to endure the lout's crude fumblings night after night until he got his whelp on me. I wrote Father dozens of letters begging him to let me come home. But he never even took the time to answer one of them. He never cared about me. All he ever cared about was you—his precious heir!"

"You should go, Astrid. Before I'm forced to call back the constable and ask him to investigate the tragic death of Marianne Darby."

Astrid felt an icy shroud of calm descending over her. "You'll be sorry, Archie. I promise you that you'll rue the day you cast me out of your life!" With those words, she turned on her heel and stalked toward the door.

It wasn't until the door had slammed behind her that her brother sank back into his chair, running a weary hand over his face. "I already do, Astrid," he whispered. "I already do."

Pamela perched on the edge of Sophie's dressing room cot, watching her sister sleep. Judging by the grimy tear tracks staining Sophie's fair cheeks and the wrinkled blue gown tossed carelessly over the back of a chair, it didn't appear that her sister's masquerade had ended any more successfully than her own.

She brushed a curl from Sophie's cheek, thinking how heartbroken the girl was going to be when she discovered she'd missed one of the scandals of the century. The gossipmongers and scandal sheets would no doubt be abuzz with the news for weeks to come. After all, it wasn't every day that a marquess and his fiancée were hauled out of a ball hosted in their honor in irons.

She gently tucked the blanket around Sophie's shoulders. She might as well let her sleep for now. She would have to wake her soon enough.

Pamela returned to her bedchamber and the task at hand, making a concerted effort not to look at the tightly latched window. But it wasn't so easy to steer clear of her bed where Connor had held her tenderly in his arms until the wee hours of the morning. Or the cheval glass she had stood in front of while he wrapped his arms around her from behind and encouraged her to watch their entwined reflections while he pleasured her. Or the settee where he had—

Pamela squeezed her eyes shut, a blade of fresh pain lancing through her heart. She could leave the lamps lit and latch the window, but there was nothing she could do to bar the doors of her heart. No way to stop the memories from stealing past her defenses and wreaking havoc on her fragile determination.

She dropped her burdens on the bed and drifted toward the window. The night beyond seemed darker than ever before, the moonlight paler and more brittle. The somber-eyed woman gazing back at her from the wavy glass bore little resemblance to anyone she knew. She rested her brow against the cool glass and closed her eyes, feeling a hot tear trickle down her cheek.

She was reaching up to dash it away before it could be joined by others when her bedchamber door flew open. Clapping a hand to her pounding heart, she whirled around to find one very large, very angry Scotsman standing in the doorway.