Page 122 of The Lost Duke of Wyndham

“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.

---