Page 97 of Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

“Does Vicar Beveridge still preside?” Jack asked, clearly trying to cut the dowager off.

“Yes,” his aunt replied, “but he will surely be abed. It’s half nine, I should think, and he is an early riser. Perhaps in the morning. I—”

“This is a matter of dynastic importance,” the dowager interrupted. “I don’t care if it’s after midnight. We—”

“I care,” Jack cut in. “You are not going to pull the vicar out of bed. You have waited this long. You can bloody well wait until morning.”

Thomas wanted to applaud.

“Jack!” Mrs. Audley gasped. She turned to the dowager. “I did not raise him to speak this way.”

“No, you didn’t,” Jack said, but he glared at the dowager.

“You were his mother’s sister, weren’t you?” the dowager said to Mrs. Audley.

Who looked rather startled by the sudden change of topic. “I am.”

“Were you present at her wedding?”

“I was not.”

Jack turned to her in surprise. “You weren’t?”

“No. I could not attend. I was in confinement. I never told you. It was a stillbirth.” Her face softened. “Just one of the reasons I was so happy to have you.”

“We shall make for the church in the morning,” the dowager declared. “First thing. We shall find the papers and be done with it.”

“The papers?” Mrs. Audley echoed.

“Proof of the marriage,” the dowager practically snarled. “Are you daft?”

That was too much. Thomas reached out and pulled her back, which was probably in her best interest, as Jack looked as if he might go for her throat.

“Louise was not married in the Butlersbridge church,” Mrs. Audley said. “She was married at Maguiresbridge. In County Fermanagh, where we grew up.”

“How far is that?” the dowager demanded, tugging at her arm.

Thomas held firm.

“Twenty miles, your grace,” Mrs. Audley replied before turning back to her nephew. “Jack? What is this all about? Why do you need proof of your mother’s marriage?”

Jack hesitated for a moment, then cleared his throat and said, “My father was her son,” with a nod toward the dowager.

“Your father,” Mrs. Audley gasped. “John Cavendish, you mean…”

Thomas stepped forward, feeling strangely prepared to take charge of the rapidly deteriorating situation. “May I intercede?”

Jack nodded in his direction. “Please do.”

“Mrs. Audley,” Thomas said, “if there is proof of your sister’s marriage, then your nephew is the true Duke of Wyndham.”

“The true Duke of—” Mrs. Audley covered her mouth in shock. “No. It’s not possible. I remember him. Mr. Cavendish. He was—” She waved her arms in the air, as if trying to describe him with gestures. Finally, after several attempts at a more verbal explanation, she said, “He would not have kept such a thing from us.”

“He was not the heir at the time,” Thomas told her.

“Oh, my heavens. But if Jack is the duke, then you—”

“Are not,” he finished wryly. He glanced over at Amelia and Grace, who were watching the entire exchange from just inside the front door. “I am sure you can imagine our eagerness to have this settled.”

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