Page 39 of Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

“Indeed,” Thomas said. His voice was clipped, but that was mostly because he was angry at himself for not having brought the same thing up earlier.

The look Audley gave him was blindingly annoying. It started with a smile but quickly turned to a smirk. “Shall we be old friends, then?”

“From university?”

“Eh, no. Do you box?”

“No.”

“Fence?”

Like a master. “I’m passable,” he said with a shrug.

“Then that’s our story. We studied together. Years ago.”

Thomas kept his eyes straight ahead. Belgrave was looming ever closer. “Let me know if you wish to practice,” he said.

“You’ve equipment?”

“Everything you could possibly need.”

Audley glanced at Belgrave, which now hung over them like a stone ogre, blotting out the last dusky rays of the sun. “And everything one doesn’t need, too, I imagine.”

Thomas didn’t comment, just slid off his mount and handed the reins to a waiting footman. He strode inside, eager to put his back to the man behind him. It wasn’t that he wished to cut him, exactly. It was more that he wished to forget him.

Just think how lovely his life had been, merely twelve hours earlier.

No, make that eight. Eight, and he’d have had a bit of fun with Amelia as well.

Yes, that was the optimal cut-off point between his old life and new. Post-Amelia, pre-Audley.

Perfection.

But ducal powers, far-reaching though they were, did not extend to the turning back of time, and so, refusing to be anything but the sophisticated, utterly self-contained man he used to be, he gave the butler a quick set of orders about what to do with Mr. Audley, and then entered the drawing room, where his grandmother was waiting with Grace.

“Wyndham,” his grandmother said briskly.

He gave her a curt nod. “I had Mr. Audley’s belongings sent up to the blue silk bedroom.”

“Excellent choice,” his grandmother replied. “But I must repeat. Do not refer to him as Mr. Audley in my presence. I don’t know these Audleys, and I don’t care to know them.”

“I don’t know that they would care to know you, either.” This, from Mr. Audley, who had entered the room on swift but silent feet.

Thomas looked to his grandmother. She merely lifted a brow, as if to point out her own magnificence.

“Mary Audley is my late mother’s sister,” Audley stated. “She and her husband, William Audley, took me in at my birth. They raised me as their own and, at my request, gave me their name. I don’t care to relinquish it.”

Thomas could not help it. He was enjoying this.

Audley then turned to Grace and bowed. “You may refer to me as Mr. Audley if you wish, Miss Eversleigh.”

Grace bobbed an idiotic little curtsy then looked over at Thomas. For what? Asking permission?

“She can’t sack you for using his legal name,” Thomas said impatiently. Good God, this was getting tedious. “And if she does, I shall retire you with a lifelong bequest and have her sent off to some far-flung property.”

“It’s tempting,” Audley murmured. “How far can she be flung?”

Thomas almost smiled. As irritating as Audley was, he did have his moments. “I am considering adding to our holdings,” Thomas murmured. “The Outer Hebrides are lovely this time of year.”

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