Just think how lovely his life had been, merely twelve hours earlier.
No, make that eight. Eight, and he’d have had a bit of fun with Amelia as well.
Yes, that was the optimal cut-off point between his old life and new. Post-Amelia, pre-Audley.
Perfection.
But ducal powers, far-reaching though they were, did not extend to the turning back of time, and so, refusing to be anything but the sophisticated, utterly self-contained man he used to be, he gave the butler a quick set of orders about what to do with Mr. Audley, and then entered the drawing room, where his grandmother was waiting with Grace.
“Wyndham,” his grandmother said briskly.
He gave her a curt nod. “I had Mr. Audley’s belongings sent up to the blue silk bedroom.”
“Excellent choice,” his grandmother replied. “But I must repeat. Do not refer to him as Mr. Audley in my presence. I don’t know these Audleys, and I don’t care to know them.”
“I don’t know that they would care to know you, either.” This, from Mr. Audley, who had entered the room on swift but silent feet.
Thomas looked to his grandmother. She merely lifted a brow, as if to point out her own magnificence.
“Mary Audley is my late mother’s sister,” Audley stated. “She and her husband, William Audley, took me in at my birth. They raised me as their own and, at my request, gave me their name. I don’t care to relinquish it.”
Thomas could not help it. He was enjoying this.
Audley then turned to Grace and bowed. “You may refer to me as Mr. Audley if you wish, Miss Eversleigh.”
Grace bobbed an idiotic little curtsy then looked over at Thomas. For what? Asking permission?
“She can’t sack you for using his legal name,”
Thomas said impatiently. Good God, this was getting tedious. “And if she does, I shall retire you with a life-long bequest and have her sent off to some far-flung property.”
“It’s tempting,” Audley murmured. “How far can she be flung?”
Thomas almost smiled. As irritating as Audley was, he did have his moments. “I am considering adding to our holdings,” Thomas murmured. “The Outer Hebrides are lovely this time of year.”
“You’re despicable,” his grandmother hissed.
“Why do I keep her on?” Thomas wondered aloud.
And then, because it had been a bloody long day, and he’d lost whatever comfort he’d gleaned from his ale, he walked over to a cabinet and poured himself a drink.
And then Grace spoke up, as she frequently did when she thought she was required to defend the dowager.
“She is your grandmother.”
“Ah yes, blood.” Thomas sighed. He was beginning to feel punchy. And he wasn’t even the least bit soused.
“I’m told it’s thicker than water. Pity.” He looked over at Audley. “You’ll soon learn.”
Audley just shrugged. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe Thomas just imagined it. He needed to get out of here, away from these three people, away from anything that screamed Wyndham or Cavendish or Belgrave or any one of the other fifteen honorifics attached to his name.
He turned, looking squarely at his grandmother.
“And now my work here is done. I have returned the prodigal son to your loving bosom, and all is right with the world. Not my world,” he could not resist adding,
“but someone’s world, I’m sure.”
“Not mine,” Audley said with a slow, careless smile.
“In case you were interested.”
Thomas just looked at him. “I wasn’t.”
Audley smiled blandly, and Grace, God bless her, looked ready to jump between them again, should they attack each other anew.
He dipped his head toward her, in an expression of wry salute, then tossed back his liquor in one shock-ingly large swallow. “I am going out.”
“Where?” demanded the dowager.
Thomas paused in the doorway. “I have not yet decided.”
Truly, it didn’t matter. Anything was fine. Just not here.
Chapter 8
Isn’t that Wyndham over there?”
Amelia blinked, shading her eyes with her hand (a fat lot of good her bonnet seemed to be doing her this morning) as she peered across the street. “It does look like him, doesn’t it?”
Her younger sister Milly, who had accompanied her on the outing to Stamford, leaned into her for a better view. “I think it is Wyndham. Won’t Mother be pleased.”
Amelia glanced nervously over her shoulder. Her mother, who was inside a nearby shop, had resembled nothing so much as a woodpecker all morning. Peck peck peck, do this, Amelia, peck peck peck, don’t do that. Wear your bonnet, you’re getting freckles, don’t sit so inelegantly, the duke will never get around to marrying you.
Peck peck peck peck peck peck peck.
Amelia had never been able to make the connection between her posture whilst in the privacy of her own breakfast room and her fiancé’s inability to choose a date for the wedding, but then again, she’d never been able to understand how her mother could know exactly which of her five daughters had nicked a bit of her marzipan, or accidentally let the dogs in, or (Amelia winced; this one had been her fault) knocked over the chamber pot.
Onto her mother’s favorite dressing gown.
Blinking her eyes into focus, Amelia looked back across the street at the man Milly had pointed out.
It couldn’t be Wyndham. It was true, the man in question did look remarkably like her fiancé, but he was clearly . . . how did one say it . . . ?
Disheveled.