Page 25 of Project Duchess
“I . . . er . . . didn’t go to Eton right away. I went to live with my aunt and uncle.”
“And why is that?”
He shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him. But his hand gripping the leash said otherwise.
“So it’s to be a guessing game, is it?” she teased, remembering their first meeting.
His baleful gaze shot to her. “It’s a boring tale.”
“Why don’t you letmebe the judge of that? You did say you wanted us to get to know each other.”
Calculation flashed in his eyes. “Fine. I’ll tell you.Ifyou show me the bridge where my stepfather died.”
She ventured a soft smile. “I understand. Gravesites themselves mean nothing to me, either.Iwanted to be at the last place my father was on earth. I couldn’t, of course, since no one would tell me where the duel occurred, but I used to imagine that if I could go there, I might find his spirit lurking about, waiting to impart some last profound message.” She looked down at her hands. “It’s silly, I know.”
“Not the least silly.” He came toward her, the dogs finally having finished their business. “‘There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”
She fell into step beside him. “You’re a lover of Shakespeare?”
“More of a connoisseur. I like the major works and, within those, the best lines.” He smiled faintly at her. “Not that I had a choice. The whole playwright thing, remember? Mother does love her plays. We often acted out scenes in my youth.” His gaze turned searching. “And speaking of mothers, you never mention yours. Dare I ask why?”
“My mother died bearing me, I’m afraid.”
Pity flashed in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I never knew her, so I never realized what I was missing. And I had my grandmother to look after me until Joshua returned from the war.”
“Then you started looking afterhim.”
“Yes, I . . .” It suddenly dawned on her what Grey was doing. She stared him down. “You’re very adept, sir, at shifting the conversation away from yourself. We were supposed to be talking aboutyouand why you returned to England at ten.”
He shot her a rueful glance. “You noticed that maneuver, did you?”
“My brother used to be a master at it. Now he doesn’t even bother to use a strategy—he just grunts and growls and expects me to leave him be. You’re more polite at it while essentially doing the same thing. So let’s return to the subject of how you ended up back in England so young.”
Reining Hector in before the pointer could dart after a hare, Grey released a long breath. “My father died when I was a babe. He left behind a will that named his only brother, Eustace, as my guardian. Fortunately for me, my uncle preferred to leave me with my mother. For a while, anyway.”
“Oh? What changed all that?”
His mood darkened so dramatically that even the dogs noticed and came up to nuzzle his hand. He rubbed their heads idly to reassure them before going on.
“After my cousin Vanessa was born, my aunt was told she could have no more children. Which meant that my uncle had no heir to his estate or even to mine, if something happened to me. So he exercised his guardianship rights, went to Berlin to fetch me, and brought me back to England to be taught by him to run the dukedom.”
The hard tone of his voice whenever he mentioned his uncle told her there was more to the story. She tested out that theory. “How selfless of your uncle to take that on when he wouldn’t benefit from it.”
“Selfless,” he said in an acid tone. “Right.”
“Did you not think him selfless?”
He shot her a cold glance. “I answered your question, Beatrice. That should suffice.”
Hardly. But she let it go, and instead focused on another aspect of his tale. “Did you ever go back to Berlin to visit your family?”
“No. Either I was too young or the Revolution prevented me from traveling through France to get there or I was in school or . . . There was always some reason I couldn’t go, some reason they couldn’t come here.”
Oh, the poor boy. “So essentially you were orphaned at ten, as surely as if they’d died.”
His gaze sharpened on her. “You’re the first person to see it like that. Everyone else outside my family considers me lucky to have been allowed to return to almighty England before Napoleon came to power.”
