The Duke of Lies (The Untouchables Book 9) Page 4

  In truth, Kit had killed many men. His livelihood—which had led him into war—had demanded it. But he wouldn’t say so. He couldn’t disagree that Beau shouldn’t hear of such horrors.

  Kit angled himself toward the boy and looked him in the eye. “When you are old enough, I will tell you about my journeys, all right? But for now, I would like to concentrate on being home with you. And your mother.”

  He darted a look toward her again and caught the bewildered expression in her eyes just before she masked it. Yes, the duke had been a deplorable prick, and he wanted to know in what way and why. For some unknown reason, he felt a fierce urge to protect the child beside him and the woman hovering nearby.

  And he protected nothing but himself and his ship. The last at which he’d failed. Disgust rose in his throat, but he swallowed it back. He’d soon have a new ship. A better ship. In the meantime, he would play duke. And father. And husband. His gaze slid toward her again and saw her thinly veiled contempt. Not husband, then.

  Which was fine. He hadn’t come here to woo a wife or coddle a son. He’d do what he needed to regain what he’d lost, and he’d do it with what he deserved. What he’d been promised.

  Beau slipped his arms around Kit’s waist and squeezed. “I’m so glad you’re home. I knew this day would happen, even if Mama didn’t.”

  Kit’s gut clenched, and he fought to banish the guilt wrought by the boy’s adoration. He looked over at the duchess once more. Her lips were pursed, her brows angled. She really didn’t care for this entire situation.

  Extricating himself from the hug with a pat to the boy’s back, Kit gave the lad a half smile. “What should you be doing now? Surely I’ve created havoc on your routine.”

  “He finished lessons early,” the duchess said. “But he should go and ready himself for dinner.”

  Kit blinked at her. “Does he dine with you?” That wasn’t typical in houses like this, at least from what little he knew.

  “Yes. It’s just the two of us, after all. Or was, anyway.” The edge of bitterness in her tone was unmistakable. She positively detested this situation. Kit’s guilt doubled.

  “Must I go, Mama?” Beau asked pleadingly. “Can’t I stay with Papa?”

  Kit ruffled the boy’s hair. “Your mother and I have things to discuss. Things that will surely bore you. Remember how I said you should always listen to your mother?” Along with that Thomas person, whoever he was.

  “Yes, Papa.” Beau slid from the settee. “After dinner, I will show you all my soldiers.”

  “I would like that,” Kit said. He’d never had toy soldiers. What he’d had was a mountain of books. And absent much else, he’d utterly devoured them. Over and over and over again.

  Beau threw his arms around Kit’s neck and hugged him one more time. Kit held him close as the scent of grass and boy washed over him. When Beau stood back, he put his hands on Kit’s face. “You look like me.”

  Kit made himself laugh. “Who else should I look like?”

  Beau grinned. “No one, just me. Because you’re my papa.” He turned and skipped from the room, turning at the doorway and looking at his mother in alarm. “Where is Papa sleeping?”

  The duchess gestured toward the wall that separated the drawing room from Kit’s chamber. “In the Blue Room.”

  “Can’t he move next to me? I should like it if he slept close by.” He looked to Kit. “You could even sleep in my room, if you want.”

  Kit suppressed a smile and waited for the duchess to handle this.

  “The Blue Room is much larger and more comfortable,” she said.

  “Is that where you slept before, Papa?”

  “Ah…” He looked at the duchess in question.

  She turned a smile on her son. “Let me talk to your father about where he wants to sleep.”

  Kit didn’t care so long as there was a bed and not a swinging hammock belowdeck.

  “Yes, Mama. But make sure it’s next to me.” He grinned at both of them before turning and disappearing down the corridor.

  The duchess faced him and let out a breath, as if she’d just completed a difficult task. He supposed she had.

  “I don’t really care where I sleep,” he said.

  “Then perhaps you should take the room next to Beau. If that’s all right?” She looked at him in wary expectation despite the fact that he’d just said he didn’t care. He had to get to the bottom of what was wrong with her. Or him. Or both of them.

  He gestured to a chair opposite the settee. “Sit. Please.”

  She dropped onto the seat with alacrity, then blinked as her mouth pulled into a frown. He thought she might say something, but she only clasped her hands in her lap. Her tension was palpable.

  He searched for the right words to say. “I sense your discomfort, and I’d like to allay your…” He’d been about to say fears, but decided that was too harsh, “concerns. Please, I ask that you be completely honest.”

  Her brows shot up, and he could almost see her mind churning as her hands squeezed together and she sucked in her cheeks. It took her another moment to gather her thoughts—or so it seemed. “Truly? You want my honesty.”

  He offered a placid smile. “Without reservation.”

  “I don’t recognize you at all.”

  It was a hard punch to the gut, but not unexpected. While he knew he looked similar to the duke, their likenesses were not identical. “I’ve been gone a long time,” he said carefully.

  “Yes.” She flattened her hands against her skirts and flexed her fingers. “It’s not that you look different—though you do. A bit anyway.” She blinked at him. “Are your eyes green?”

  “Yes. Like Beau’s.” He’d no idea what color eyes the duke possessed.

  “I recall them being hazel.”

  “Sometimes, depending on the light, there’s a bit of brown in them.” It was another outright lie, but he’d have to become accustomed to telling those.

  She tipped her head to the side and narrowed her eyes slightly. Straightening, she continued, “As I was saying, it’s not just that you look a bit different. Your behavior is… Well, it’s completely foreign. Quite simply, you aren’t the Rufus I married.”

  Here was his chance. If not to peel back the layers of her apprehension about him, then to perhaps assuage her concerns. “Is that a bad thing?”

  She froze for the briefest moment. “No,” she said quietly. “And therein lies the problem. It’s quite a good thing, actually. But is it…real?” The words fell from her mouth like petals floating to the earth—soft and halting before settling around him with finality.

  “I’m real.” That was all he could say. All he wanted to say just then.

  “You asked me to be honest. I need to know that I can trust you to be this different person.”

  How he wanted to ask what kind of person he’d been before! It wasn’t good, that much was clear. How much of a prick was his bloody relative? Kit would find out. Someone would tell him.

  “I’ve endured a harrowing experience,” he said. “And I’ve been gone a long time—long enough to have changed significantly.” That much was true. He’d left England a fifteen-year-old lad and returned a lifetime later.

  “I can trust you to be…kind?”

  He inwardly groaned and pledged to smack the duke if they ever crossed paths. Which seemed highly unlikely. “On my honor.” He realized his honor was an unknown commodity to her. “How about this: You shall have the power to say and do whatever you feel necessary. I will sleep where you tell me, interact with Beau however you direct, and communicate with you however you prefer. The only thing I require is autonomy to deal with the estate as is my duty.”

  His duty.

  His mind went back to that summer seventeen years ago, when his father—his real father—had brought him here and showed him the life that should have been his. If he’d been legitimate. He’d loved every moment, had hungered for the impossible that would allow him to inherit the dukedom some day. B
ut it had been, or so he’d thought, unattainable.

  Until now.

  He needed money—which his father had promised him—to purchase a new ship. But he wanted this position and this place, at least for a little while.

  “That’s rather generous of you, thank you.” She still looked as if she didn’t believe him.

  He leaned forward and winced as she shrank back against the chair. God, he wasn’t a monster, but he wanted to throttle the man who’d done this to her. “You don’t need to trust me yet. You’ll see that things will be…better than they were before.” He hated what she must think of him, but it wasn’t as if he could tell her the truth. Hell, he could take any number of things from the house and be on his way tomorrow. Maybe that was what he should do…

  “As it happens, you could help me with something.”

  He snapped his gaze to hers. “You have only to name it.”

  “You promise I can trust you? That you won’t get angry?” The trepidation in her eyes made his chest burn.

  “I promise both of those things. Please tell me how I can help.”

  “After you disappeared, my father came here to help me.” The way she said help suggested it was the opposite. “He worked closely with Cuddy, which I thought made sense since he’d encouraged you to hire him. Their relationship seems to have remained close. Despite my being the duchess, I believe Cuddy still answers to him.” The bridge of her nose wrinkled as she spoke of them in obvious distaste. Hell, were there any men in her life worth a damn save Beau? “Today I’d decided to dismiss him. I want to replace him with Whist’s grandson.”

  Kit remembered Whist, the former steward, from that brief time he’d stayed here. He’d been relieved to learn Whist was no longer serving in that capacity in case he recalled the bastard who’d spent a summer on the estate. But that was so long ago, and Kit looked, of course, much different now. He also looked rather like his cousin, which was why this charade was even marginally successful. So far.

  “Is there anything wrong with this Cuddy fellow? Or is it just that he answers to your father instead of you?” That ought to be enough to discredit Cuddy, and to Kit, it was.

  Her shoulder lifted as she looked away from him. “Yes, that’s it. He doesn’t welcome my participation in the management of the estate. In your absence, I thought it was important for me to take more of a role, especially as Beau grows older.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. “Well, he’ll do whatever I tell him to now. I’m sorry he’s been difficult.”

  Her gaze shifted back to his, and the dark irises of her eyes bored into him with their intensity. “You’re going to keep him on, then?”

  “Doubtful. I don’t like people who don’t give respect where it’s due, and the duchess of the estate deserves that and more. Where does this fellow reside?”

  Her disbelief had once again been replaced with bewilderment, but this time, it was no longer fleeting. Perhaps he was finally making progress. “In the southeast tower,” she said. “His office is on the ground level, and his living quarters above it.”

  “Excellent. I’ll meet with him on the morrow. Would you care to join me?”

  Her eyes widened. “I, ah, yes. If you don’t mind.”

  “I wouldn’t have invited you if I minded. When I said I wanted autonomy, I didn’t mean to suggest that you would be excluded. I shall involve you in whatever you desire.” That word evoked something within him. Not just the word, but speaking the word in her presence. She was, much to his misfortune, a stunningly beautiful woman.

  Misfortune?

  Yes, because while she was his “wife,” he wouldn’t presume to approach her in any sort of intimate fashion. Their marriage, short as it must be, would be entirely platonic.

  She stood, and he sensed that she needed a reprieve from his presence. “Thank you. I keep saying that, but I am incredibly grateful for this change in your demeanor. I hope it lasts.”

  He nearly laughed at his thoughts of a moment ago. Intimacy with the duchess wasn’t something he would need to worry about. He doubted she’d ever touch her husband again, at least not willingly. And that was just as well. It was also just as well that he didn’t know her name. Still, he’d like to.

  He rose. “I am at your service. Should I join you and Beau for dinner, then?”

  “I think you must. He’s over the moon that you’ve returned. I beg of you, whatever you do, please don’t disappoint him.”

  Kit’s resolve wavered. When he’d seized this opportunity, he hadn’t known about the boy. And he knew from experience what it was like to be young and suffer loss and disappointment.

  Fuck.

  A voice in his head yelled at him to knock it off. Beau had never known a father, and from what Kit could tell, that man had been a right son of a bitch. Kit would show Beau what a good father could be, and if he only had one for a short time, well, that was better than to have never had one at all, wasn’t it?

  “I’ll take the room next to his,” Kit said. “I’ll speak to Kirwin.”

  “Thank you. Again.” She didn’t smile, and he didn’t expect her to. That didn’t mean he didn’t want to see it. He imagined her face lighting up with joy and decided that would be worth working for.

  Chapter 4

  When Verity woke the next morning, she wondered if Rufus’s return had been a dream. But then the rapturous face of her son crowded her mind, and she knew it hadn’t. Beau was simply enthralled with his father, and so far, Verity couldn’t blame him. Rufus was charming, attentive, and exactly the kind of father she would want for Beau.

  Which made absolutely no sense.

  She longed to ask him why he’d changed. Had he simply suffered enough over the past six and a half years that he’d transformed from the monster he’d been? She supposed that was possible, but it also gave her pause. If he could change so much once, surely he could change back. It would be quite some time until she could relax with him, if she truly ever could.

  She and Beau had taken breakfast at the table in her study that morning, as they usually did. Beau had asked why his father wasn’t there, and Verity had simply said they would need time to learn a new routine. In truth, she hadn’t invited him. It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought of it, rather that she hadn’t wanted to.

  And that made her feel terrible.

  She thought of Beau, off to the Guinea Room with his nurse already, and her heart squeezed. While she was glad to see him so happy to have his father, a part of her didn’t want to share him. Particularly with Rufus.

  Oh, she was being awful. Rufus was back, for better or for worse, and those were, in fact, part of the terms of their marriage. She should support him—or at least tolerate him—for Beau’s sake.

  Last night, he had been rather wonderful, playing soldiers with Beau after dinner and promising to get him a toy ship. He’d said a boy needed a ship. He’d been so passionate about it, in fact, that Verity wondered if he’d come to like sailing while he was gone. Would it be difficult for him to be back here on land? He’d changed so much in other ways that she wouldn’t be surprised to find he didn’t like it here. Or perhaps that was merely what she was hoping for.

  Self-disgust flashed through her again, and she stalked down the stairs to the hallway next to the kitchen before going out into the upper courtyard. Rufus stood near the upper gate, where they’d arranged to meet before going to see Cuddy.

  He turned, perhaps hearing her close the door before she descended the steps to the courtyard. As she approached, he looked up at the clock mounted high on the brick. “How long has that been broken?” he asked.

  She joined him and squinted at the unmoving hands. “About two years, I think. Cuddy keeps meaning to have it repaired.”

  “And why hasn’t he?”

  “When I ask, he says he hasn’t found someone to fix it.”

  “I can probably repair it,” Rufus said, surprising her.

  She’d never known him to be mechanically inclined. He wa
s good at riding, hunting, and drinking and little else. She supposed he was also good at being horrid. Or had been good at that, anyway.

  She looked over at him, her gaze lingering on his profile before taking in his costume. He wore the same clothing he had yesterday, and she wondered if that was all he had. His garments were stored around here somewhere—she’d ask Kirwin to bring them out.

  “Shall we go see the steward?” Rufus asked.

  “Yes.” Her pulse quickened. Was it because she worried Rufus would offer his arm? Or was she simply nervous to meet with Cuddy?

  Thankfully, Rufus didn’t offer. He only gestured for her to join him as they walked through the upper gate.

  “The gardens are beautiful. Are there more roses?” he asked. “Or is my memory faulty?”

  His attempts at idle conversation still perplexed Verity, but she preferred them to who he’d been before. “No, your memory is fine. I’ve added more roses over the years. I’ve taken a special interest in the gardens.”

  “I look forward to investigating the others.”

  She almost believed him. She had yet to determine if he was being nice for a purpose or if this was simply the new and improved Rufus. Either alternative made her head spin.

  They took the path through the garden that led down to the lower courtyard where she’d met him yesterday upon his miraculous return. Yes, that was an accurate description. To have him home after so much time had passed—never mind how vastly improved he was—was nothing short of a miracle. And one she hadn’t prayed for.

  They cut across the courtyard at an angle to reach Cuddy’s office. After dinner last night, he’d said that he’d sent a note to Cuddy to set the interview. Verity wondered what the steward thought. He’d successfully kept her at bay, which now grated horribly, but he wouldn’t be able to do the same to Rufus.