“It’s John.” The old man’s voice was withered and full of sadness. He apparently recognized that his nephew wasn’t in a mood for a family reunion or special memories.
“He’s dead? What happened?” Mark asked.
His uncle coughed piteously. He struggled to sit up. Mark leaned to help him. “Yes. Apparently he collapsed at the dinner table this evening. I received word not an hour ago.”
Mark ground his teeth. “Jesus. He was young. Do they suspect a heart ailment?”
“I suppose so,” the duke replied. “What else would cut down a man in the prime of life? Dear God. I truly cannot believe this is happening.” He closed his eyes.
Mark’s profile eased a bit. “I’ll go to his house in the morning. See if I can learn any of the particulars.”
“Thank you, dear boy.” The duke opened his eyes again and lapsed into another wheezy coughing fit.
When he recovered, he reached out and patted Mark’s cheek. “It’s nice to have a spymaster in the family.” Nicole couldn’t see his face but she could imagine how difficult that small bit of tenderness was for Mark to accept.
“It is good to see you, Mark,” the duke repeated. “Even if under such awful circumstances.”
“I heard you were sick. I’ve been meaning to pay a call.” Mark’s voice was strained.
“Of course. Of course,” came his uncle’s reply.
“I had no idea John was ill too. I—” Mark stopped and clenched his jaw.
The duke shook his head. “He wasn’t. But perhaps he was keeping it from me, given my condition. He recently became betrothed, you know. To Lady Arabelle Dunwoody. Lovely girl. They’d hoped to have the wedding before I curl up my toes.”
“Don’t say that,” Mark scolded.
“More convenient, don’t you think? Needn’t wait a year for mourning and all that. I didn’t blame him. I’ve been struggling to hold on for precisely that reason.” The duke’s hand fell to the bed. “Now I have nothing to live for.”
“Please don’t say that, Your Grace.” To anyone else, Mark’s voice would have sounded normal, casual even, but Nicole heard the strain in it. Sadness and angst lingered just below the surface. This was difficult for him. He’d loved his mother, and this man was his only living connection to her. Besides Regina and his great-aunt Harriet, the duke was Mark’s only remaining family in England … save for Nicole.
The duke lapsed into another coughing fit. Once he regained his voice, he looked past Mark into the shadows where she stood. “Nicole,” he croaked. “Is that you?”
Nicole started. She’d done her best to remain silent and fade into the background. She felt like an intruder. “Yes. Yes, Your Grace. It’s me.”
He raised a withered arm and motioned for her to come forward. “Come here, dear girl. I never thought I’d see you again.”
Tears filled her eyes as she made her way to the duke’s bedside. “I didn’t know if I’d see you either.”
She bent over the bed and gave the elderly man a hug. She’d only met him a time or two, and never with Mark, but the duke had always been kind to her, and she’d heard from her mother that he’d been pleased by his nephew’s choice in a wife. He’d sent them a gorgeous silver punch bowl as a wedding present. One they’d never used, one Mark had never acknowledged because the duke was his uncle. Mark had sold all the extravagant wedding gifts they’d received and given the money to injured war veterans. He’d said the veterans needed the money more than he and Nicole needed useless costly things. She’d agreed with him and had been happy to relinquish the gifts.
“As beautiful as ever,” the duke said, smiling kindly up at Nicole. “I’m pleased to see you two made amends.” He turned his rheumy gaze to Mark. “Your mother would have loved you together.”
Mark remained silent. Nicole knew it was because he didn’t have the heart to tell the sick old man that they hadn’t made amends at all. More tears filled her eyes. Why was that thought so sad? She wouldn’t be the one to tell the duke. His son had just died for heaven’s sake. She wasn’t about to take away the one bit of happiness he seemed to be enjoying.
Mark’s mother had died before Nicole met Mark, but he kept a miniature of her on his nightstand. Her name was Mary and she had had dark hair and bright blue eyes. She’d looked a great deal like Mark’s cousin Regina.
Mark cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Your Grace. I truly am. It goes without saying that I’ll help you with anything you need. The funeral arrangements or anything else. I’m happy to notify the next in line to the dukedom as well. I assume you’ll want my help with that.”
Typical of Mark, he’d already begun trying to fix everything. His power lay in his ability to get things done and exert control. In a situation like this, he was doing the only thing he could, taking charge of the mundane details, the things he could control. Nicole doubted the duke was in a mood to discuss funeral arrangements, or the next heir for heaven’s sake. But that was what Mark could offer.
The next heir was some distant cousin on Mark’s grandfather’s side. Nicole didn’t know the man’s name.
“No, no, my dear boy.” The duke coughed again. “That’s why I’ve called you.”
Mark’s brow furrowed. “Yes, I understand. I can help. Just tell me who—”
His uncle’s coughing fit worsened. He was obviously agitated. They waited in silence for it to subside.
“Don’t upset yourself, Your Grace. We’re here to help.” Nicole stroked the man’s sweaty hair away from his forehead and searched his haggard face.
“Mark doesn’t understand.” The old man addressed his words to Nicole. He clutched at her wrist. “He is the next in line.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Mark went hot and then cold all over. A chill ran down his spine. He tugged at his cravat. It felt like a garrote, tightening, tightening, choking him to death. The room spun and the smell of turpentine made him ill.
No. What his uncle said was not true. Titles like that of duke didn’t run to the female side of the family. The old man was mistaken. He was sick and old and mistaken. Nicole would tell him. She would know. She knew the rules of the aristocracy.
“No, it’s someone on Grandfather’s side, of course,” Mark said, to convince himself as much as his uncle. He gave Nicole a desperate look, begging her with his eyes to explain to his uncle the error in his thinking.
“Yes,” Nicole said, still stroking the old man’s forehead. “Isn’t the heir a man distantly related to your father? Some second cousin or some such?”
Mark expelled his breath. There. Nicole knew. Nicole was right. Dukedoms didn’t pass down to the sons of duke’s daughters. It wasn’t possible that he was the heir.
“Listen to me,” his uncle said, clutching Mark’s hand with his cold, bony one. “The Duchy of Colchester is a title unlike any other. It was bestowed upon my great-great-great-grandfather by the King. The King and my grandfather were quite close. They went to war together against the Scots. My grandfather saved the King’s life. The King only had a daughter at the time. He was especially worried about his own heirs, his legacy. As a result, when the contracts were signed granting my grandfather a duchy and the land and entailment that went with it, the King ensured there was a codicil that allowed for the duchy to be passed down via a female heir if and only if a male heir existed on that side. You’re the male heir. Now that John is gone, you’re the next in line to the duchy.”
Sweat broke out on Mark’s brow. “No.” He shook his head emphatically. “There must be some mistake.” He stood and backed away from the bed, numbness spreading through his limbs.
Nicole rested her hand reassuringly on Mark’s shoulder. “Hear him out,” she whispered.
Mark swallowed hard. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t real. Inheriting a title wasn’t something he’d ever considered. His uncle had been the duke since his grandfather had died, and his uncle had a strong healthy son. Even if they both died, the normal line of succession didn�
�t pass down through a daughter. The possibility of becoming the duke had never been a threat.
Mark may not have grown up knowing the details of the aristocracy the way his uncle, cousin, and mother had, the way Nicole had, but he knew enough to know that. There was no chance he would be the duke one day.
His uncle glanced at the paperwork strewn across the bed. “My solicitor brought this to me the minute I asked for it. The minute I heard John was dead. There is no mistake. See for yourself.” He clutched the stack of papers and held them out to Mark with trembling hands.
Breathing heavily, Mark hesitated before taking a step forward and reluctantly accepting the papers. He let his hand fall to his side, the papers still clutched in his fist. He didn’t want to look at them. “It cannot be.”
“Give them to me.” Nicole slid the papers from Mark’s numb fingers.
She went to stand near a brace of candles on a nearby table and scanned the pages, settling on the page that held the relevant information. She read for several seconds, mouthing the words on the page. “It’s true,” she finally said, looking up at Mark, her eyes wide. “It says here the next in line is the next male regardless of his connection to the duke being from a male or female descendant.”
“Fine.” Mark, paced away from the bed and ran a hand through his hair. “I will renounce it. That’s been done before. If and when the day comes—” He glanced hesitantly at his obviously gravely ill uncle. “I will simply declare myself no longer the duke and give the title to whoever would be next after that, given that I have no heirs.” He glanced at Nicole. They would have to talk about it, obviously, but she could hardly object to their child not inheriting the duchy. She hadn’t known when she’d married him that this was a possibility. He hadn’t even known. Or had she?
“You cannot,” his uncle whispered through dry, cracked lips.
Mark continued pacing. “Of course I can. Even a king can abdicate a throne if he so chooses.”
“Mark, we tried to contact you all those years.” The old man’s voice was even weaker. “Your aunt and I, your cousins. Your mother refused us. She was a proud woman. But we never stopped loving her … or you.”
Mark turned away from his uncle and closed his eyes. His pulse pounded. Nausea roiled in his middle. He didn’t want to hear this. “I don’t see what that has to do with—”
“Listen to me, Mark. Mary and I made amends. When she was dying, you were in Spain, fighting. You couldn’t come home.”
“I know that,” Mark ground out. He didn’t need to be reminded of any of these awful things.
“What you don’t know is that I promised your mother on her deathbed, if this moment ever came to pass, I would convince you to take up your birthright. For her sake. That’s what she wanted, Mark. That’s what she asked for.”
Several moments ticked by in silence. He clenched his fists so tightly they ached. His jaw did too. He wanted to smash something. What the hell was happening? How had his life been turned upside down in less than one hour? Damn his uncle and his deuced deathbed promises.
Bloody hell, he’d made a deathbed promise of his own and he intended to keep it. Mark had promised his father he’d never rely on his mother’s side of the family to get ahead in life, and a blasted duchy was a leg up in life if ever there was one.
Mark swiveled on his heel to face the older man. “I can’t. I absolutely cannot.”
His uncle’s watery eyes searched his face. “Why not? Even now, you’re unofficially the Marquess of Coleford.”
His cousin John’s title. “No. That’s not true.” No. No. No. This wasn’t happening. He was used to controlling things and he would control this too, by God. He had to.
His uncle cleared his throat and his frail body shook as he struggled to sit up higher. “You can deny it all you like, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Why are you so hell-bent on refuting it?”
“There are a score of reasons,” Mark said bitterly, shaking his head. “I doubt you’d understand any of them.”
“I understand, Mark. I truly do, but you must promise me for your mother’s sake that you’ll at least consider it. I have a letter from her. It’s—”
“No more, please.” This was excruciating. He’d rather be back in France being tortured. At least physical pain was the kind you could absorb. When it was over, it was over. This was the type that gnawed at you endlessly, never relenting.
“He’ll consider it,” Nicole said firmly, crossing to Mark’s side and laying a hand on his coat sleeve.
The room closing in on him, Mark whirled around, turning his attention back to his uncle. “Uncle, you know as well as I do that Grandfather wouldn’t have wanted this.”
“Why do you say that?” His uncle’s brow furrowed.
“A half-Italian Duke of Colchester? Grandfather would roll over in his grave.”
“No, dear boy. Father had high ideals about our way of life but he loved you, Mark.”
Mark knew that wasn’t true. “No, he loved my mother. He tolerated my existence because of her.”
“He knew about the codicil. He knew this was a possibility.”
“A possibility, perhaps, but a highly unlikely one,” Mark shot back.
The old man paused as if considering his reply. He looked at Mark with tears shining in his eyes. “I never had a second son. Nor any daughters. It was always a possibility that John would die as a child. He’s gone now, Mark. I’m asking you to do your duty.”
Duty. Mark clenched his useless fist against his side. The one word he could never resist.
* * *
The ride back home began in silence, Mark splayed across the seat opposite Nicole in obvious exhaustion. Nicole ran the conversation with the duke over and over in her mind. She could guess that Mark was doing the same.
“Your mother never told you about the codicil?” Nicole finally ventured.
Mark rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Never,” he ground out, narrowing his eyes on her.
The coach came to a stop in front of Mark’s house and they alighted in turn as they had so many times already this evening. They slowly made their way up the front steps and into the foyer. They walked up the marble stairs together just as slowly.
They reached the top of the stairs and made their way down the corridor toward the bedchambers. Nicole stopped outside the door to his room. Given the events of the evening, it obviously wasn’t the right time to begin their other “condition,” but she felt closer to him tonight. Closer than she had since she first saw him in France. He’d allowed himself to seem vulnerable in his uncle’s bedchamber and in the coach when he’d looked so tired. He wasn’t entirely made of stone.
“Are you going to take the duchy?” she half whispered.
“Aiming to be a duchess, are you?” His voice was tight, cruel.
Ouch. She snapped her head to the side as if she’d been slapped. He was hurting and lashing out, but there was no blasted way she’d let him get away with it. “I don’t give a toss about being a duchess, you dolt,” she snapped. “This is about your duty to your family.”
The pain that swept across his stonelike features was unmistakable.
“And there is more to consider than just us.” Her voice wavered. “Our son … would be the next in line to a dukedom.”
Surprise flared briefly in Mark’s eyes. “Ah, have you decided it’s time to demand your one condition, then?”
She straightened her shoulders, drew herself up, and met his eyes. “If you … like.”
He reached out and slowly traced her cheekbone with a finger. She shivered. “Did you know about this? Is that why you want a child?”
She sharply drew away from him. “What? You’re not serious.”
“You’ve always cared too much about titles and social standing.”
She lifted her chin. “That’s not fair. No, I haven’t. Besides, have you ever considered that perhaps your problem is that you’ve always cared too little about them?”
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He drew his hand away and stared her in the eye. “Fine. You may not have known about the codicil, but are you still going to pretend you married me for love and not because you knew the entire time that my grandfather was a duke?”
She glanced away. Yes, she’d known. For some reason she still didn’t understand, he hadn’t wanted to tell her who his family was. If it were up to him, he’d have pretended he was the son of a shoemaker, with no ties to the aristocracy, for their entire marriage. He’d deliberately withheld information from her.
It had been a fateful day indeed when, three months into their marriage, he’d confronted her with the fact that she knew who his family was and had kept it from him. He obviously still distrusted her.
“You know I knew,” she replied simply, turning her head to the side, not looking at him.
“Yet you pretended to marry me for love.” His voice was tight with anger.
“I never pretended,” she whispered through clenched teeth.
He opened the door to his bedchamber, stepped inside, and turned to face her. “Our bargain will have to wait longer, I’m afraid. I don’t have it in me to bed you tonight.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The next morning, Mark sat in his study attempting to get some paperwork done, but all he could think about were two things: the fact that his cousin was dead and the fact that he’d stubbornly refused Nicole’s bed last night. Both seemed incomprehensible.
John was dead. Why did the notion arouse Mark’s guilt? Because he’d never publicly acknowledged they were cousins? They ran in completely different social sets. John was a darling of the ton, running about town to dinner parties and balls, attending the theater and frequenting his club. Meanwhile, Mark had been working. He’d spent his years ensuring the country wasn’t overrun by the French, been on the frontlines of the wars, nearly died a handful of times, and when he was in London, spent his time with members of the Home Office and the people he worked for and who worked for him. He’d never given a toss about balls and dinner parties, unless they might be politically advantageous. Even then, they were just more work.
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