Page 59 of The Duke of Lies
“Truthfully, I don’t know either. I can only guess he was curious about me and hungered desperately for a son. What I do know is that as soon as he had his son the following year, the support to my father stopped. When he wrote to Augustus to ask why and to ensure he still meant to pay for my education, he was ignored. When I turned fifteen, and I went to Liverpool where I boarded a ship and didn’t look back. Not for fifteen years.”
“Why did you come back now?”
“I needed a ship.”
“Were you a captain?”
“I was. Until my ship burned. It’s strange to think your ship can catch fire and burn in the water, but that’s what happened. Now it’s sitting on the bottom of the Caribbean Sea.”
“The other night when you spoke of fire and water... Now I understand.” She flinched, her eyes turning sad. “You miss that life. You didn’t come here to stay.”
Agony tore through him at the disappointment in her gaze, but he owed her the truth. “No, I did not. I came here to obtain something of value so that I could purchase a new ship. It was the least Augustus could do for me. But I found that he had died, as had my father.” He took a deep breath and plunged onward. “When I learned Augustus had died and the new duke was missing, I decided to come here and take something.”
The disappointment in her gaze turned to incredulity. “You were going to steal from the estate. Like Cuddy.”
He kept his voice steady even as emotion rioted through him. “Yes. But when I arrived in Blackburn, someone mistook me for Rufus, and I couldn’t ignore the opportunity.”
“So you pretended to be him.” Her scorn burned him. “That’s rather arrogant of you to think you could pull it off.”
Yes, it was. “I knew enough about Beaumont Tower, and thought I could bluff the rest.”
Having sat unmoving for so long, she unclasped her hands and flattened her palms against her knees. “You thought it would be easy to pretend to be my husband?”
He deserved every bit of her anger. “I didn’t plan to be here very long, and I thought I could do what I needed to in order to find something of value and take it—something you wouldn’t miss. I was actually trying to be a conscientious thief.” He tried to inflect a bit of humor to lighten the atmosphere. But he shouldn’t have. Her eyes darkened and her brow furrowed.
“You committed fraud.” Her eyes were fire and her tone ice. “You pretended to be someone you aren’t for personal gain. And you didn’t just ensnare me and the staff and the tenants in your lies, you deceived a boy. Explain that to me—if you can.”
Chapter 13
Verity’s heartthundered in her chest. What had she expected? That he’d masqueraded as Rufus because he’d wanted to help her and the estate? No, that hadn’t been his motive, by his own admission, but that was precisely what he’d done. He’d also involved an innocent child.
“I didn’t know about Beau,” he said softly, his voice laden with regret. “I have no excuse but I will say it gave me pause. I’d intended to be here less than a week at best. However, Beau captured my heart immediately.” Warmth heated his gaze, and he leaned forward slightly. “I’m afraid my plans to stay a short time and take what I needed to fund my ship faded into the background as I immersed myself…here. In the estate,” he added.
“And in our family.” She was torn between anger at his audacity and his self-serving motivation and the joy and contentment he’d brought to Beaumont Tower. “You’ve put me in a terrible situation. I should despise you.” Her voice was low with anger and hurt.
“You should, and I’m sorry for what I’ve done—to you and to Beau. I never meant to cause you or him to suffer and to think that you might…” He stood and paced across the room. He turned, and his eyes were never a more vivid green, nor his demeanor more open and earnest. “I’m not proud of my motives, but I don’t regret a single thing. I can’t. Not when it brought me to you and to Beau. I fell in love with both of you, and that it just happens I am in possession of a title that should never be mine but which I desperately wanted is a happy coincidence. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep it all.” He strode toward her, his face intensely determined. “The dukedom, Beau,you. I won’t let any of it go.”
She refused to be swept up with his words of love, no matter how glorious they sounded. “Even kill a man who knew your secret?”
He swallowed, his throat working as he kept steady and intense eye contact with her. “That’s not why I killed Cuddy. It was either him or me, and I have an aversion to dying.”
She recalled their conversation last night about his wounds. “It seems as though you’ve had to defend against that many times. How many men have you killed?” She didn’t for a moment think Cuddy had been the only one. Kit had captained a privateering vessel during wartime.
“Too many to count. Nor do I want to. I have generally tried to put them from my mind. But know that each one affected me. It is not something I’ve done lightly or without remorse.” Yet he spoke of it easily, as if it were just a part of who he was. Which she supposed it was.
She was glad to hear his regret, but the matter was far from over. “The constable will likely investigate Cuddy’s death. What are we to do about that?”
He paused, his gaze fixed on hers. “You said we.”
She had. While she was angry, she wasn’t going to cast him out. He said he was in love with her and with Beau. She knew Beau returned that emotion. Did she? She wasn’t ready to address that emotion, not when there were so many other things clogging her mind.
“I did. You are a part of this family now. But I don’t know that I trust you, and I need to be able to—for Beau.”
“Then I shall be as honest as I can. I knew I had to tell you the truth. I just didn’t know how. When you said you knew I wasn’t Rufus… It was a gift, and I don’t refuse gifts.”
Because she suspected he’d been given very few of them. Well, neither had she—until Beau.
And until him.
