Page 32 of Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

And furthermore, who the hell was to say that Audley actually was his cousin? Thomas’s fingers clawed then straightened as he attempted to calm himself down. “Would someone,” he said, his voice clipped and furious, “do me the service of explaining just how this man has come to be in my drawing room?”

The first reaction was silence, as everyone waited for someone else to jump into the breach. Then Audley shrugged, motioned with his head toward the dowager, and said, “She kidnapped me.”

Thomas turned slowly to his grandmother. “You kidnapped him,” he echoed, not because it was hard to believe but rather because it wasn’t.

“Indeed,” she said sharply. “And I would do it again.”

Thomas looked to Grace. “It’s true,” she said. And then—bloody hell—she turned to Audley and said, “I’m sorry.”

“Accepted, of course,” he said, with enough charm and grace to pass muster in the most discerning of ballrooms.

Thomas’s disgust must have shown on his face, because when Grace looked at him, she added, “She kidnapped him!”

Thomas just rolled his eyes. He did not care to discuss it.

“And forced me to take part,” Grace muttered.

“I recognized him last night,” the dowager announced.

“In the dark?” Thomas asked dubiously.

“Under his mask,” she answered with pride. “He is the very image of his father. His voice, his laugh, every bit of it.”

Everything made sense now, of course. The portrait, her distraction the night before. Thomas let out a breath and closed his eyes, somehow summoning the energy to treat her with gentle compassion. “Grandmother,” he said, which ought to have been recognized as the olive branch it was, given that he usually called her you, “I understand that you still mourn your son—”

“Your uncle,” she cut in.

“My uncle,” he corrected, although it was difficult to think of him as such, given that they had never met. “But it has been thirty years since his death.”

“Twenty-nine,” she corrected sharply.

Thomas looked to Grace for he wasn’t sure what. Support? Sympathy? Her lips stretched into an apologetic line, but she remained silent.

He turned back to his grandmother. “It has been a long time,” he said. “Memories fade.”

“Not mine,” she said haughtily, “and certainly not the ones I have of John. Your father I have been more than pleased to forget entirely—”

“In that we are agreed,” Thomas interrupted tightly, because the only thing more farcical than the present situation was imagining his father witnessing it.

“Cecil!” he bellowed again, flexing his fingers lest he give in to the urge to strangle someone. Where the hell was the bloody painting? He’d sent the footman up ages ago. It should have been a simple endeavor. Surely his grandmother had not had time to affix the damned thing to her bedchamber wall yet.

“Your grace!” he heard from the hall, and sure enough there was the painting for the second time that afternoon, bobbing along as two footmen attempted to keep it balanced as they rounded the corner.

“Set it down anywhere,” Thomas instructed.

The footmen found a clear spot and set the painting down on the floor, leaning it gently against the wall. And for the second time that day Thomas found himself staring into the long-dead face of his uncle John.

Except this time was completely different. How many times had he walked by the portrait, never once bothering to look closely? And why should he? He’d never known the man, never had cause to see anything familiar in his expression.

But now…

Grace was the first to find words to express it. “Oh my God.”

Thomas stared in shock at Mr. Audley. It was as if he were one with the painting.

“I see no one is disagreeing with me now,” his grandmother announced smugly.

“Who are you?” Thomas whispered, staring at the man who could only be his first cousin.

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