The Undercover Duke Read online

  “No.” She didn’t look at him still. “You wouldn’t have had me find out at all. When I heard you accuse my father, that was shocking. When I heard you hand over the most painful moments of my past to someone else when they were told to you in confidence, that was chilling. But when you told Stalwood that you would lie to me, keep me in the dark so you could continue to use me…that was devastating.”

  She faced him at last and found him standing, his head bent and his shoulders slumped. “Would it make any difference if I told you I said it that way so Stalwood would not suspect my deeper feelings?” he asked. “That I was planning to keep the truth from you, for now, because I didn’t want to hurt you as you are hurt now?”

  She clenched her teeth. How she wanted to believe that. To think that his lies were told to protect her. But she didn’t. She didn’t have any faith left. It had been whittled away, sliver by sliver, by Caldwell and his empty seduction, by the loss of her child, by the death of her father and now…this.

  This final heartbreak that stole her breath and made her want to run. Made her need to run. That was the only way now.

  She moved past him, careful not to touch him, and went over to her wardrobe. She opened it and began to remove her clothing.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  She glanced at him. “Now that I know the true purpose of your investigation, I cannot take part in it anymore. My father is dead and I won’t be a part of sullying his name. As for your injuries, we both know you are more than capable of healing on your own. You probably have been for days. Staying was…a mistake. And it’s one I can no longer afford to make.”

  He opened and shut his mouth and she waited for him to argue. To demand. To refuse. But at last he simply nodded slowly. “I understand, Diana. I understand why you can no longer bear to be in the same space as me. I won’t stop you. It would be unfair to do so. But won’t you wait until tomorrow to go?”

  She stared at him. If she waited for tomorrow, she might wait another day, and another. She might let herself be swept up by this man and all the things she’d secretly come to hope for. If she’d learned anything from her father’s pragmatic view of grief and loss, it was to ride away from both as swiftly as she could.

  “No,” she said. “That would not be wise.”

  He seemed to buckle and caught the back of the closest chair to maintain his stance. Then he nodded. “Very well. I’ll have one of my footmen accompany you back to your home. He will help you light your fires and see that you are safe.”

  “You needn’t—”

  He moved forward. “Please let me have that, Diana. Please.”

  She caught her breath at the desperation in his tone. Pained and so very real. It felt so real. She wanted to trust it. She couldn’t.

  “Fine.” She turned her back to him. “Let me gather my things, will you?”

  “Yes,” he said softly. “Of course. I’ll make the other arrangements.”

  She knew he hesitated, standing at her door for too long before he left her alone. When he did, she collapsed to her knees, covered her face and cried. For what she’d believed and hoped for. For what she’d lost. And for what she’d never had at all.

  Lucas’s hands shook as he watched his servants place Diana’s very few things up into the carriage that would take her home. Far away from him. The “footman” he was sending to help her was actually one of Stalwood’s guards. He’d given the man strict instructions to stay and watch the house, watch over her.

  It was the only way he could give her what she needed. The only way to let her go because she couldn’t stand to look at him anymore. No one’s fault but his own, and yet it felt like his entire being was under attack.

  When he turned, he found her standing behind him. She had changed from her pretty gown, back into her plainer clothing, and yet she looked more beautiful to him than she ever had.

  “That’s all of it?” she said, her voice barely carrying.

  He thought she was asking him, but it was Jones who answered as he entered the foyer from behind Lucas. “Yes, Miss Oakford,” he said coolly. “That is all. May I do anything else for you?”

  “Leave us,” Lucas whispered, for he could not dare speak harshly or he would scream.

  The butler frowned and did as he was told. Slowly, Lucas shut the door and faced her. This was their last moment alone. Perhaps their last moment ever, and he could think of nothing to say. Not when she stared at him like she didn’t know him at all.

  “I never meant to hurt you,” he said, and the words felt false. Like they were an excuse, when he had none.

  She nodded slowly and let out a small sigh. “I suppose you didn’t. You are who you are, Lucas. And your duty is important to you. I know that.”

  He wanted to tell her that he loved her. He wanted to shout it from the top of his lungs until she believed him. And yet he saw how self-serving that would be. It was a way to manipulate her. To try to erase the damage he had done with his lies.

  And she deserved better.

  She moved forward, and he stiffened as she reached out to him. But she didn’t slap him, though perhaps he deserved it. She didn’t demand she be set free, back to a life that could not include him.

  She reached up and cupped his cheek. She stared into his face, and for a moment all the harm he’d done was gone. She was Diana again. His savior, his light, his life.

  “Lucas, don’t—don’t let any of this push you from your future,” she whispered.

  He wrinkled his brow. “You are determined to save me still?”

  “I suppose I’m a fool, but yes.” Her fingers traced his cheek gently. “You’ve run from your life for a long time, because of mistakes that were not your own. But you’ve been brought back here, to your friends and your home and a future that you once let be stolen. I would hope that perhaps this will keep you from running again.”

  He let out his breath. “If you would want me to try to make this life, then there is no way I couldn’t grant you that boon, Diana. I owe you that. I owe you much more.”

  She leaned up then, her lips coming to his. Everything in him wanted to drag her close, to claim her with the kiss she granted, to force her to feel what he had stolen from her heart. But he didn’t. Somehow he just let her brush her lips to his, feather-light, like a butterfly’s wings. And then she was gone.

  “Goodbye,” she said, reaching past him for the door.

  “Goodbye,” he whispered in return, that one word like a sword being stabbed through his heart. He watched her leave his home. Watched her leave his life.

  And knew that nothing could ever be the same.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It had been two days since Diana left. Well, thirty-seven hours and twenty-three minutes. He could have probably guessed to the second, but there seemed little meaning in that exercise. She was gone and everything in his body and soul hurt.

  Now he stood in the hallway, staring at his parlor door, and he struggled to find the strength to open it. Not because of his injuries. The time with Diana had eased those so much that he could function. No, he hesitated because facing what was inside without her felt…impossible.

  Slowly, he pushed the door open and drew a breath as his mother pivoted from the portrait of his father hung above the fireplace. Her dark gaze snagged his and then darted away as her lips pursed.

  “You have summoned me,” she said, and folded her arms. “And I have come. What is it you want?”

  He flinched at her coldness but entered the room regardless. Diana had made him promise not to run from his life. To do that, he had to face the past.

  “Good afternoon, Mother,” he said. “May I get you tea?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  He sighed. “Can we not be civil?”

  Her nostrils flared and then she shrugged before she settled herself into a chair before the fire. “I suppose we could try. Though I see little benefit from the ex
ercise.”

  “There has been little in the past, hasn’t there?” He took the seat across from hers. “There is so much between us.”

  She drew back a fraction, surprise washing over her expression. “You cannot have brought me here to talk about that.”

  He leaned forward, draping his elbows over his knees. “And yet I have.”

  She recoiled, her hands gripping the arms of her chair until her knuckles became white. “I will not.”

  “I understand why,” he said slowly. “The topic is difficult for you. But you must know that it is difficult for me, as well. We have avoided it for years. Avoided each other. To the point where I did not even have you sent for when I was shot, almost killed.”

  Her lips parted. “Shot?”

  “Yes.” He drew in a breath. “In protection of my country, my king, I was shot six months ago. You did not ask me about my limp when you last saw me, but that is how I got it. I nearly died and I did not call for you. Would you have wanted me to?”

  She was silent a long time, but her expression had become less confrontational, less cold. “I-I don’t know,” she admitted. “As you say, our relationship has never been a happy one. Perhaps it would have been hypocritical to come only because you were…did you really almost die?”

  He nodded slowly. “I did. And someone who helped me recover pointed out that I’d been running from my life. We both know why. Perhaps it’s time I stop.”

  She stiffened. When Willowby had died, she had wanted Lucas to take his place, to accept the role he hadn’t earned. They’d had a terrible row about his decision to abandon that post. Even now he could see she was still interested in him doing his duty. To save face, perhaps. To make up for something. Whatever the reason, it made her lean forward in interest.

  “You wish to take your father’s place?” she asked.

  He flinched. “Willowby’s place, yes. But if I want to stop running, I need your help.”

  She swallowed hard. “How?”

  “Was it an affair?” he asked.

  She turned her face, her cheeks growing pink. “You cannot ask me such impertinent things.”

  Her harsh tone was back and he recoiled from it. It reminded him of too many times he’d heard it. Too many times he’d felt it cut him like a knife. Even now, it still stung.

  “You act as though I had some part in your decisions,” he said. “I only suffered from them. Are you really so cold as to say that I don’t deserve to understand why you did what you did when it changed everything about my life?”

  She glared at him and folded her arms. He drew in a long breath. Part of him wanted to keep pushing, but that was the emotional part. Perhaps it was time to treat this like an interrogation with a reluctant suspect. And the best way to do that was often to do…nothing.

  He settled back in his chair, holding her stare evenly and said nothing. Time ticked by between them and he saw her grow uncomfortable. Saw her shift. Saw her blush.

  Finally, she let out her breath in a huff. “It was an act of war!”

  “That was why you chose my father’s servant,” he said.

  Her shoulders sagged and he could see he had her surrender now. “He never wanted me. Your father, he made that clear. He wanted my father’s money, he wanted…propriety in public. But me? He could barely look at me. I grew to hate him for it. Like a poison that crept into every corner of our life together.”

  Lucas stared at her. All these years, how he had resented her for what she’d done. For the parentage she had stolen from him, for the way she’d pushed him away. And yet now he saw her pain. She hid it well. Perhaps he’d inherited his own ability to do the same from her. But beneath that cold mask she wore, that lady-of-the-manor chilliness that kept a wall between her and everyone else, there was the pain. The regret. The loss.

  “I made a mistake. Once.” She shook her head. “And then there was you and there was no denying it. Especially when that cad of a valet decided to blackmail me for it.”

  Lucas lurched. “He did?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was thick with disgust. “He threatened to bring my world down around me.”

  “You must have been terrified.”

  “Indeed. I even tried to…” She blushed deeper. “Well, I tried to soften your father to me. To make it not so obvious that you weren’t his. It did not work.”

  Lucas shut his eyes, pained by the idea of his mother, so alone as she tried to seduce a man who didn’t want her to cover up being seduced by one who had used her. That rejection from the duke had sealed her fate, sealed his own.

  “When you came, it ended it all,” she said, lifting her chin. “And yes, I grew to resent you for it. Despise you for it. For your chin, which was like that other man’s. For your laugh that was like his.”

  “So did Willowby. Even before I was told the truth, I knew the emotion,” Lucas said softly. “It was no life for a child, to feel that hatred and not understand it.”

  She nodded slowly. “I know that. I knew it then, but I was incapable of anything else. In a way, it was a relief when you knew. When you left. When he died.”

  “I imagine so. He no longer controlled your purse. He no longer withheld your future. And I no longer reminded you of what you had longed for and lost.” Lucas met her gaze. “And now, looking at me, with the years that have separated us, do you still despise me?”

  She examined his face carefully. “When you said you almost died, I admit there was something in my stomach that…lurched. A great desire not to lose what I never wanted or cherished.”

  Her words were frank and they still hurt. But he’d asked her for her honesty and there it was. He found, in this moment of calm that had been made possible by Diana’s pushing, that he could understand her. And see the hope that those words created for them.

  “I was not his son,” Lucas said. “But I am yours.”

  “So you want…what? Some kind of close bond?” She said the words like they were foreign. With a faint lilt of disgust.

  “No, I don’t think that’s possible. We’re not built for it, are we, after so much between us?” He sighed. “But that doesn’t mean we must be completely estranged. There is something in the middle, isn’t there?”

  He shifted as he said those words. As he felt them in his heart. No matter what else had happened, there was a place for his mother in his life. Small, perhaps. Distant. But not broken. Not entirely.

  Diana had given him the strength to see that. To be able to take the leap to say it to his mother. It was Diana’s gift to him. Her last gift, perhaps, and that turned his stomach far more than the wait for his mother’s response.

  “I don’t want to be estranged.” Her words came deliberately. “But how do we move forward?”

  “Carefully,” he suggested. “Slowly and with a bit of understanding for each other. Something I don’t think either of us has ever given to the other.”

  She nodded. “Very well. I think I can do that.”

  He reached out and took her hand. She let him, and he realized it was the first time he had touched her in years—decades, perhaps. After a few seconds, she released him and got to her feet. He followed. The discomfort still hung between them now, but it felt less awful. Less permanent.

  It was a start.

  There was a knock at the parlor door, and they both turned as Jones entered the room.

  “You have an urgent message, Your Grace,” he said as he handed over a folded sheet of paper. “I would not have normally intruded, but the man said it was most important and could not wait.”

  The duchess smiled. “It is likely for the best. I’ll leave you to your urgent business. Perhaps you’ll come and call on me for tea in a few weeks. We’ll start with that.”

  Lucas nodded and watched as she left the room, Jones on her heels. He turned the note over and blanched. It was Stalwood’s seal that closed the page. The man had a different one for different kinds of messages. This one
indicated that the spy should come right away for a meeting. When Lucas opened the page, he was not surprised to find it blank. The seal was the message, nothing more.

  He strode from the parlor and into the foyer, just in time to see Jones shutting the door and his mother’s carriage pulling away. The butler seemed surprised to see him so soon and said, “Is there something you need?”

  “My horse,” Lucas said cautiously, for he had not ridden since the attack. “And quickly.”

  Jones stepped out to call on the footmen with the message, and Lucas shook his head to clear it. This meeting with Stalwood had to be about Oakford and Caldwell. And he could only hope it would help him clear his mind to work on that case.

  Because right now he needed the distraction.

  Diana stood at her kitchen table, chopping dried herbs before she slid them into marked vials for future medicines and tinctures. Normally the work was pleasant, for it helped her clear her mind.

  Today…well, today was different. In truth, she feared every day would be different for the rest of her life, because of Lucas. It had been nearly two days since she slipped from his home, away from his life and returned to her own. Only the London cottage was now haunted by thoughts and memories of the man. Here he had touched her, here they had kissed, here he had held her, comforted her.

  She shivered and some of the dried herbs scattered across the table. She swore and swept them off the edge and into her palm to try to fill the vial again.

  She had every intention of going back to the countryside, but hadn’t made the arrangements yet. “Not that it will be any better, I fear,” she said, jolting at the sound of her own voice. Her house felt so quiet now without Lucas in it.

  “Still talk to yourself, do you?”

  She pivoted at the voice in her door. It was one she recognized, as was the gentleman who owned it. The one standing there, staring at her.

  Boyd Caldwell.

  Out of instinct, she scurried away from him a few steps until she flattened herself against the opposite wall. She had not seen this man for almost two years. Not since he seduced and then left her. He looked the same. Tall, broad-shouldered, with dark hair and green eyes. He was older than Lucas. Older and far less alluring.