“Your uncle,” she cut in.
“My uncle,” he corrected, although it was difficult to think of him as such, given that they had never met.
“But it has been thirty years since his death.”
“Twenty-nine,” she corrected sharply.
Thomas looked to Grace for he wasn’t sure what.
Support? Sympathy? Her lips stretched into an apolo-getic line, but she remained silent.
He turned back to his grandmother. “It has been a long time,” he said. “Memories fade.”
“Not mine,” she said haughtily, “and certainly not the ones I have of John. Your father I have been more than pleased to forget entirely—”
“In that we are agreed,” Thomas interrupted tightly, because the only thing more farcical than the present situation was imagining his father witnessing it.
“Cecil!” he bellowed again, flexing his fingers lest he give in to the urge to strangle someone. Where the hell was the bloody painting? He’d sent the footman up ages ago. It should have been a simple endeavor. Surely his grandmother had not had time to affix the damned thing to her bedchamber wall yet.
“Your grace!” he heard from the hall, and sure enough there was the painting for the second time that afternoon, bobbing along as two footmen attempted to keep it balanced as they rounded the corner.
“Set it down anywhere,” Thomas instructed.
The footmen found a clear spot and set the painting down on the floor, leaning it gently against the wall.
And for the second time that day Thomas found himself staring into the long-dead face of his uncle John.
Except this time was completely different. How many times had he walked by the portrait, never once bothering to look closely? And why should he? He’d never known the man, never had cause to see anything familiar in his expression.
But now . . .
Grace was the first to find words to express it. “Oh my God.”
Thomas stared in shock at Mr. Audley. It was as if he were one with the painting.
“I see no one is disagreeing with me now,” his grandmother announced smugly.
“Who are you?” Thomas whispered, staring at the man who could only be his first cousin.
“My name,” he stammered, unable to tear his eyes off the portrait. “My given name . . . My full name is John Augustus Cavendish-Audley.”
“Who were your parents?” Thomas whispered. But he didn’t reply, and Thomas heard his own voice grow shrill as he demanded, “Who was your father?”
Audley’s head snapped around. “Who the bloody hell do you think he was?”
Thomas felt the world dropping away. Every last moment, every memory, every breath of air that made him think he actually knew who he was—they all slid away, leaving him alone, stark, and completely without bearings.
“Your parents,” he said, and his voice shook like the wind. “Were they married?”
“What is your implication?” Audley snarled.
“Please,” Grace pleaded, jumping between them yet again. “He doesn’t know.” She looked at Thomas, and he knew what she was trying to tell him. Audley didn’t know. He had no idea what it meant if his birth was indeed legitimate.
Grace looked at him with apology. Because she was also saying that they had to tell him. They could not keep it a secret, no matter what the consequences. She said, “Someone needs to explain to Mr. Audley—”
“Cavendish,” the dowager snapped.
“Mr. Cavendish-Audley,” Grace amended, ever the dip-lomat. “Someone needs to tell him that . . . that . . . ”
She looked frantically from person to person, and then her gaze finally settled upon Audley’s stunned face.
“Your father—the man in the painting, that is—assuming he is your father—he was his grace’s father’s . . . elder brother.”
No one said anything.
Grace cleared her throat. “So, if . . . if your parents were indeed lawfully married—”
“They were,” Audley bit off.
“Yes, of course. I mean, not of course, but—”
“What she means,” Thomas cut in sharply, because by God, he could not stand another moment of this, “is that if you are indeed the legitimate offspring of John Cavendish, then you are the Duke of Wyndham.”
And then he waited. For what, he wasn’t sure, but he was through with this. He’d said his part. Someone else could chime in and offer their bloody opinion.
“No,” Audley finally said, sitting down in the closest chair. “No.”
“You will remain here,” the dowager announced,
“until this matter can be settled to my satisfaction.”
“No,” Audley repeated, with considerably more con-viction. “I will not.”
“Oh, yes, you will,” she responded. “If you do not, I will turn you in to the authorities as the thief you are.”
“You wouldn’t do that,” Grace blurted out. She turned to the man in question. “She would never do that. Not if she believes that you are her grandson.”
“Shut up!” the dowager growled. “I don’t know what you think you are doing, Miss Eversleigh, but you are not family, and you have no place in this room.”
Thomas stepped forward to intercede, but before he could utter a word, Audley stood, his back ramrod straight, his eyes hard.
And for the first time, Thomas no longer believed he’d been lying about his military service. For Audley was every inch an officer as he ordered, “Do not speak to her in that manner ever again.”