Page 38 of The Marriage Debt
‘Has your journey taken you long?’ She pulled herself together and concentrated on making conversation. Naturally the duke could not ask her where she had come from in front of the servants because he would be endeavouring to make this surprise arrival seem as normal as possible. She set herself to give him as much information as she could without appearing to.
‘We took several days over it, Your Grace. Theo needed to rest of course, as he has not been well.’ Katherine ignored the suppressed exclamation from her husband’s lips. ‘The weather in London was very clement when we left.’
‘And your family is well?’
‘My brother is travelling in France, Your Grace. Since my parents’ deaths he has no family other than myself and little to keep him in this county. He left shortly after the wedding.’ Doubtless the duke’s first recourse when he had returned to the library had been to thePeerageand theLanded Gentry. He would know by now that she had no relatives other than a brother and that their birth, while respectable, was as nothing compared to his.
The meal passed with a rigid formality which left Katherine dreading dinner. Conversation was measured, general, and left her quivering with tension. The weather, the news of local events, the prospect of a touring company of players at Newcastle and the latest Londonon-ditsserved to fill the time unexceptionally. Katherine decided that if it went on much longer she would scream.
Cautiously she glanced at Theo while accepting a plate of bread and butter or passing the salt. He appeared calm and relaxed but she could sense a suppressed emotion in him. Doubtless he wanted to have the interview with his father forwhich he had been bracing himself and this mannered inaction was chafing his nerves as the shackles had chafed his wrists.
Finally the duke sat back and regarded his family ranged on either side of him. ‘Theo, I would speak with you. Robert, perhaps Katherine would care to be shown around the house.’ It was an order, not a suggestion, and she smiled politely.
‘Thank you, Your Grace. That would be delightful if Lord Robert can spare the time.’
They all rose and Katherine found Theo at her elbow. He kept his face straight but the message his eyes sent her was warmly reassuring. However, all he said was, ‘Do not let Robert bore you with every picture in the Long Gallery.’ He bent and kissed her cheek fleetingly and stood aside for her to precede the men from the room.
Theo found himself watching her straight back as she walked away with his brother. Elegance, pride, dignity. He found himself smiling just to watch her.
‘A charming young lady, and one who is disguising with great courage the fact that this household is entirely beyond anything she has experienced before,’ his father remarked dryly. ‘Perhaps you can explain to me why you are so intent upon an annulment.’ He strolled towards his study without a backwards glance.
Theo unclenched his teeth, told himself firmly that this was only to be expected and followed.
‘So,’ the duke continued, ‘I deduce that you did not marry your Clarissa – or was it Annabelle? The objects of your youthful affections are somewhat blurred in my mind after all this time.’ He tugged a cuff slightly. ‘The penalty of old age, no doubt.’
‘I believe you require little reassurance on your memory, Father. You are correct, there were enough young women for you to have easily forgotten Arabella. And no, I did not marry her. Despite the aspersions you cast upon her breeding andupbringing she was shocked at my suggestion we should elope and for all I know has now married some worthy gentleman.’
‘Yet you took me at my word and left?’
‘Yes, sir. I understood it to be a command.’ He was damned if he was going to explain now how Arabella’s refusal to give up everything for him had hurt. He had been prepared to estrange himself from his family for her, now he could hardly conjure up the memory of her face. But at the time, to return home a rejected suitor was too hard for youthful pride to swallow.
‘Most dutiful.’ The sceptical expression on his father’s face showed that he had read the situation correctly at the time and his next words confirmed it. ‘I expected you to return after a week or two.’
Theo did not rise to the implied question and to his surprise the older man continued. ‘I confess to being less than pleased with the news that my son and heir was keeping himself in London as a Captain Sharp.’
‘I never fuzzed the cards,’ Theo said flatly. ‘I did not need to, you taught me too well.’
‘Gratifying that something I endeavoured to educate you in remained with you. And after two years you disappeared. Why?’
Theo shrugged. ‘I was bored. I moved around the country for eighteen months then I joined the army on a whim and found I liked it.’
‘Which regiment? Why did I not hear of this?’ The old man stared at him from under levelled brows. ‘What rank?’
‘Private,’ Theo replied, expecting an outburst.
‘A private? My God,’ the duke threw back his head and gave a bark of laughter, ‘Someone to teach you discipline at last.’
‘It certainly taught me self-control,’ Theo agreed pleasantly. The old devil, outflanking him as he so often did in the past.
‘And between that and your career as a highwayman?’
‘Nothing, sir. I was discharged after Waterloo.’ He saw theflash of some emotion in his father’s eyes and pressed on. ‘I returned to England and was on the road to London when I found myself in a country inn. I was drugged and when I woke found myself in the guise of the infamous local highwayman Black Jack Standon. I could not prove who I was, so I ended up in Newgate awaiting my execution.’
‘Why did you not send to me?’
‘I really am not sure.’ Theo thought back to those confusing first days after his capture. ‘Too proud perhaps, and uncertain whether you would acknowledge me. Soon it was too late in any case.’
‘Not acknowledge you?’ The old man was on his feet, his face thunderous. Theo sprang to his and they confronted each other for a long moment before the duke dropped heavily back into his chair. ‘Damn it, you are my son. My heir, Theo.’
