“I love you too, Rachel.”
She stilled, barely breathing, lids unblinking over eyes that no doubt revealed her total disbelief in such a statement.
Gray stepped closer until he stood only inches in front of her. “It is selfish of me to tell you, but I wished for you to know how I feel.”
“Selfish?” she echoed sharply.
He nodded. “Because it changes nothing,” he told her flatly. “I still intend to leave here when Lord Stone returns from his honeymoon tomorrow. After which, I doubt the two of us will ever see each other again.”
Rachel was still caught on Gray having stated he loved her.
It was wondrous, everything she had ever wanted.
But what did her feelings matter, or Gray’s, when he had immediately followed the declaration by telling her he intended leaving here tomorrow and never seeing her again.
Was Rachel really going to allow that to happen?
Gray held up a hand as Rachel would have stepped closer still. “I said it changes nothing—”
“It changes everything.”
His jaw tightened. “No. I am still illegitimate. Nor do I have any money to maintain or sustain a relationship, let alone a marriage.”
“Who said anything about marriage?”
His expression became bitter. “Of course. You will obviously wish to marry a titled gentleman.”
Rachel frowned. “I do believe there is an insult toward me in that statement, but as you are currently…overemotional, I shall forgive you for it.” She gave him a stern stare. “But I have no intention of ever marrying a titled gentleman. How could I, when I am in love with you?”
Gray winced. “Love alone cannot sustain a relationship.”
“Of course it can.”
“You would be living far beneath your station in life if you chose to love me.”
“One cannot choose to love. One either does or does not. And I do not care for what my station in life might become if I can be with you,” she dismissed.
He gave a hard laugh. “You do not care now. But how would you feel in a few months’ or years’ time when you realized you are the impoverished wife of the man employed as estate manager by the husband of your cousin, who is also your closest friend? Or that you are far lower socially than the Countess of Harrogate, your other close friend. You would always be subordinate to them. No longer part of their social circle because of who and what your husband is.”
“Neither Clara nor Stone would ever treat me or you so disparagingly,” she defended. “Nor would my parents or aunt and uncle. Nor Rissa and Harrogate. Or the Duke and Duchess of Weston.”
“Even if that is true, the rest of society would not hesitate to do so,” he grated. “I have seen firsthand how the aristocracy would shun you if you connected yourself to me.”
“The Duke of Hawkwood recognized you, and he did not shun you.” Her lids narrowed as she studied him for several seconds. “He more than recognized you. He knew you in that other life, did he not?”
“Yes,” Gray confirmed grimly.
“Who were you?”
“I was—am, nobody.”
“Gray, you will answer me and tell me exactly who you were seventeen years ago.”
He drew in a deep and steadying breath. “Until my father’s legal wife arrived from Italy with her son, the heir, I was Lord Ian Oliver Grayson Longborne, the Marquis of Grayson, and for the short period of a month after my father’s death, I became the Duke of Ashborne.”
Chapter Eleven
Rachel was stunned. Gray, her Gray, whether he accepted it or not, had once been a marquis and then a duke?
“And you are saying you were not made aware of your father’s previous marriage and son until after he died and you were already the Duke of Ashborne?”
“Yes.”
“Did your mother know of this other family?”
“God, no.”
“Your father never told her that he was married when he met her?”
“No.”
“Was your father an honorable man?”
Gray bristled. “Very much so.”
“Then if your father was an honorable man and was not there to affirm or deny this claim of a previous marriage, how could you be sure this other woman was telling the truth?”
“My lawyers checked into and accepted that her certification of marriage, and her son’s legitimate birth into that marriage, were genuine.”
“Considering all you had to lose, did you not confirm those claims by having the situation investigated yourself?”
Gray glared his displeasure. Rachel was the second person to ask him that in a matter of weeks. “I was eighteen years old and laid low with dealing with my mother’s grief as well as my own after the death of my father,” his snapped, knowing that his anger was all the deeper because Hawkwood had also questioned his acceptance and was now making enquiries on Gray’s behalf. “We were also made homeless and I was disinherited of the Ashborne money, and so had no funds with which to carry out these private investigations you say I should have made.”
Rachel chewed on her bottom lip for several seconds. “Why did that woman visit you today?”
“To warn me off.”
Her brows rose. “About what?”
Gray grimaced. “Hawkwood not only recognized me when he was here, but it seems since he left here last week, he has been making enquiries regarding the dowager duchess and her son’s life before she came to England seventeen years ago. She has taken exception to that fact and felt the need to seek me out to tell me so.”
“She deliberately sought you out?”
“Yes.”
“Why would she need to bother doing that, even with the Duke of Hawkwood renewing enquiries into her past, if she has nothing to hide?”
“Rachel—”
“Gray, this is too important for you to silence me with your disapproval and frowns. Besides which, it will not work,” she added with a mischievous smile as she smoothed that frown from his brow. “You should know by now how stubborn I am.”
“I do.” He reached up and gently smoothed back a wisp of hair from her cheek. “You are an amazing woman.”
“Not too young for you?”
“How old you are in years does not seem to have any bearing on how mature and wise you are inside.” It was impossible for Gray not to see the love shining in her eyes as she gazed up at him. “I love you, Rachel. Every beautiful and determined inch of you. But—” He broke off as her gloved fingers were placed against his lips.
“No buts, Gray,” she insisted softly. “I love you, every stubborn and handsome inch of you,” she teased. “We will sort this situation out, one way or another. I shall ask my father to also make enquiries about the dowager duchess and her son before they arrived in England from Italy. But whatever the outcome,” she added firmly as Gray would have interrupted, “whether you remain Mr. Long or once again become the Duke of Ashborne, I will still love you, and I shall expect you to ask my father for my hand in marriage.”
His brows rose. “You will?”
She eyed him challengingly. “Yes, I will.”
“And what do you expect his answer will be?”
“I know it will be yes,” she answered without hesitation.
Gray gave a sad shake of his head. “No titled parent would be happy to hand his daughter over in marriage to a man who can rise no higher than being an estate manager for his neighbor.”
Rachel chuckled. “My titled parents, both of them, have told me time and time again that they wish only for my happiness. You are my happiness, Gray,” she assured him huskily as she raised herself on tiptoe, her hands linking at his nape as she once again pressed her lips against his. “I love you, and if you truly love me, then we shall marry and have lots of children together.” She wrinkled her nose. “I have never liked being an only child, and so I suggest we have half a dozen ourselves to make up for it.”
Gray felt as if he was being swept off his feet
by a fierce storm, lifting him higher and then higher still, until all that mattered was Rachel’s lips pressing against his and the love they had confessed to feeling for each other.
“How touching,” drawled a voice Gray had become only too familiar with not half an hour ago. “It is almost a pity to interrupt such a beautiful scene. Almost,” that voice added harshly.
Gray lifted his head quickly to turn and look at the Dowager Duchess of Ashborne standing in the doorway of the sitting room. His eyes widened when he saw the pistol in her hand, pointed at him and Rachel. “What the hell…” He instinctively pushed Rachel behind him and shielded her with his body. “What are you doing, madam?” he demanded coldly, frowning but not at all surprised when Rachel stepped from behind him to stand beside him. So brave, always.
The dowager duchess appeared unperturbed by his anger. “The coach had only driven a little way down the track when I decided it would be better if instead of talking, I were to put an end to this situation once and for all,” she announced dismissively. “That being the case, I advised my coachman to stop and wait for me while I walked back through the trees and let myself in by the back door.”
“This situation?” Gray echoed slowly.
“Mm.” The woman nodded. “Eduardo has been something of a disappointment as the Duke of Ashborne, but I would still rather he retained the title and kept what money there is left than we have to give any of it back to you.”
Gray swallowed. “The title is legally mine, then?”
“I do not suppose it matters now if you know the truth.” She shrugged. “Yes, you are the rightful Duke of Ashborne. I was already pregnant with Eduardo when I met your father. We were not even lovers,” she scoffed. “But he was in Italy at that time, and we did meet, and when I saw the announcement of his death in the newspapers twenty years later, I knew it was too good an opportunity to miss. It cost a fortune to have those forged papers drawn up, but once I had done so, I set off for England clutching the evidence of the duke’s previous marriage rather than the one recognized between him and your mother.” She smiled triumphantly.
Gray’s unease deepened the more this woman confided how she had instigated and then carried out the deception. There could only be one reason she was revealing all these things to him and Rachel—she did not intend for one or both of them to live beyond this conversation.
“This is all very interesting, madam.” Rachel was the one to answer the other woman coolly. “But it cannot have escaped your notice that my own coachman and maid are waiting for me in the carriage outside and can easily be brought in to bear witness to your deception.”
Dark eyes glittered with contempt. “I am neither blind nor stupid,” the older woman snapped. “Indeed, once I realized their presence, I decided it is useful to my plan rather than detrimental.”
Rachel frowned warily. “In what way useful?”
The dowager countess gave a smile Rachel was sure was not quite sane. A worrying development as her hand was also trembling badly from the weight of the gun she held. “As they did not see me enter the cottage, nor will they see me depart, then the only thing they can bear witness to is the fact that only you were present in the cottage with Grayson when they heard the shot fired that killed him. You will deny being responsible, of course, but as there was no one else present in the cottage, there is no one else to blame.” Her smile was wickedly triumphant.
Insane or not, Rachel realized this woman’s plan to kill Gray and then frame her for his murder would appear exactly as the dowager duchess said it would. It also gave the older woman the satisfaction of taunting Gray with the knowledge Rachel, unable to prove her innocence, would in all likelihood hang for his murder.
She raised her chin. “I do not possess a gun.”
The woman shrugged. “They will assume it is Grayson’s gun and that you stole it from him.”
Did this woman have an answer for everything? “My close friends are well aware of the fact that I am in love with Gray and would never wish to harm him.”
“From the manner in which Grayson dragged you in here, and the little I overheard of your conversation, there has been some recent…doubt that he returned your feelings,” the older woman returned the challenge. “I am sure that a crime of passion will not be wholly unexpected, no matter how much you attempt to deny it.”
There was absolutely no way on this earth that Rachel was going to stand by and allow this madwoman to kill Gray.
“Do you seriously think I will allow any of that to happen?” Gray echoed her thoughts.
“Gray, no!” Rachel cried out in alarm as a shot sounded the moment he stepped forward. “Gray!” Rachel screamed in anguish as his body jerked and then he straightened again before taking two more steps forward to reach out, grasp the pistol, and wrench it from the surprised dowager duchess’s hand.
Rachel didn’t hesitate to step around Gray before swinging her arm up and striking the older woman angrily on the chin with her clenched fist. The other woman’s eyes widened in surprise at the unexpected attack before they rolled back in her head and she crumpled to the floor, unconscious.
Rachel immediately turned her attention to Gray. “Where have you been shot?” She frantically inspected his torso for a bullet wound, finally finding a tear on the sleeve of his jacket, revealing a rip in the shirt underneath onto which some blood was seeping. “I believe it to only be a superficial wound. One you would not have at all if you had not once again decided to play the hero,” she admonished. “You really cannot keep putting yourself in danger in this way—Gray?” She frowned when he first began to chuckle and then to laugh outright.
“Do you not see?” He grasped the top of her arms and spun her around several times, stopping before she became too dizzy. “It is over, Rachel. We both know the truth now, and with the help of Hawkwood’s investigations, I am sure we shall be able to find the evidence to disprove the bogus claim made seventeen years ago upon my title and fortune.” He sobered a little at mention of the latter. “I am afraid there is very little money left, Rachel, but if you do not object to marrying an impoverished duke, I would deem it a great honor if you would consent to become my wife and duchess.”
Now it was Rachel’s turn to laugh, a giddy, happy sound. “I accept your marriage proposal, Your Grace.” She gave him a curtsey. “With all my heart, I accept!” she added earnestly as she threw herself into his arms and kissed him as if she never wished to stop.
The two of them were married a month later, in the church where they had first made love together. Amongst the guests were Rachel’s family and friends, along with Gray’s friend the Duke of Hawkwood and his duchess, and another friend, the duke’s younger brother, Lord Alexander Stirling, and his wife.
The very much in love Duke and Duchess of Ashborne were safely delivered of six sons in the ten years that followed, and then five years after that, the duchess gave birth to their only daughter, Lady Annabeth Clara Clarissa Longborne. Who did, of course, attend the Duchess of Weston’s School for Young Ladies, as had her mother before her.
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About the Author
Carole Mortimer is a USA Today Bestselling Author and recipient of the RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award 2015, RT Career Achievement Award 2017, RT Pioneer for Romance Award 2014. She was also recognized by Queen Elizabeth II in 2012 for her ‘outstanding service to literature’. Ca
role has written 250 contemporary, Regency and paranormal romance novels.
She is happily married to Peter. They have 6 sons, and live on the beautiful Isle of Man. She also loves to hear from Readers!
Other books by Carole Mortimer
Regency Club Venus:
Bastian’s Surrender
Gabriel’s Torment
More books to come in this series
Regency Lovers Series:
INDECENT (Regency Lovers 1)
OBSESSION (Regency Lovers 2)
CRAVING (Regency Lovers 3)
FORBIDDEN (Regency Lovers 4)
SURRENDER (Regency Lovers 5)
SCANDAL (Regency Lovers 6)
Series complete
Steele Protectors Series:
LOGAN (Steele Protectors 1)
ATTICUS (Steele Protectors 2)
BRYCE (Steele Protectors 3)
ROURKE (Steele Protectors 4)
HAYDN (Steele Protectors 5) Author’s 250th book
More books to come in this series
Regency Sinners Series:
Wicked Torment (Regency Sinners 1)
Wicked Surrender (Regency Sinners 2)
Wicked Scandal (Regency Sinners 3)
Wicked Deception (Regency Sinners 4)
Wicked Captive (Regency Sinners 5)
Wicked Temptation (Regency Sinners 6)
Wicked Sinner (Regency Sinners 7)
Wicked Christmas (Regency Sinners 8)
Series Complete
Dragon Hearts – Contemporary paranormal
Nathaniel (Dragon Hearts 1)
Deryk (Dragon Hearts 2)
Bryn (Dragon Hearts 3)
Scandal: Regency Lovers 6 Page 9
