The Way to a Duke's Heart: The Truth About the Duke Read Online Free PDF

inconvenience. What was she to do now?
    She shook her head at her own dithering. “Mary, did you pack a veil?” she asked her maid, who was bustling about the room unpacking the valises.
    “Yes, ma’am.” Mary produced the veil, draping it over her bonnet, and Tessa picked up her parasol as well. She would not be held prisoner in her own room, but neither did she want to break her promise to Eugenie. Not that he was bound to recognize her, even if he did see her. Eugenie was worried over nothing. She was well beneath the notice of any earl, particularly a vain, arrogant, indolent one. On her guard this time, she let herself out of the room, and safely escaped the hotel.
    C harlie was having a hard time ridding himself of Mr. Lucas, the smooth and somewhat oily hotel proprietor. He had no objection to being personally greeted, nor to being shown to his rooms, and then to a larger, better suite when the first was unacceptable. But then he wanted the man to leave, and instead Mr. Lucas stayed, blathering on about his hotel’s service. Mostly Charlie was tired and longed to prop up his stiff leg, nearly healed by now though still ungainly, but Mr. Lucas was undeniably annoying as well.
    “Yes, that will be all,” he said at last, resorting to a lofty, bored voice. “Thank you, Mr. Lucas.” He motioned to Barnes, his valet, who obediently whisked the obsequious hotelier out the door.
    “Fetch something to eat, Barnes.”
    “Yes, Your Grace.” Without being asked, Barnes offered the cane he had just removed from the trunk. With a grimace, Charlie took it, inhaling deeply as he shifted his weight off the injured limb. He was trying to wean himself off the cane, but by evening it was still welcome, much to his disgust. What a bloody nuisance a broken leg was. He’d fallen down the stairs after too much brandy almost two months ago and broken it in two places. It no longer throbbed as though a red-hot poker had been rammed into it, but after a long day in the carriage, it was stiff and sore. He hobbled across the room and settled himself in the chair by the window overlooking George Street.
    “Shall I procure some laudanum?” Barnes murmured when he had arranged a tray with dinner and a bottle of claret at Charlie’s elbow.
    He scowled and eased his aching foot onto a stool, surreptitiously placed by Barnes. He still wore his boots, and it would hurt like the devil to take them off. Of course, he probably deserved the pain. It was a good substitute for the sorrow he ought to feel at his father’s death. “No.”
    He dismissed his valet and picked up the glass of wine. It was still incredible to him that the duke was dead. Durham had been eighty, but remained vigorous and vital in his memory; Charlie had been sure, when he got Edward’s first letter detailing their father’s failing health, that the duke would survive on force of will alone. Edward had written a dozen more letters, first hinting and then outright asking him to return home, but Charlie hadn’t gone. Partly because of his broken leg—the doctor had strictly warned him to stay in bed or be crippled for life—but partly because he just couldn’t. In the eleven years since he left home, he’d had a letter from his father every few months, letting him know how splendid things were without him at Lastings: how brilliant and capable Edward was at business, how clever and heroic Gerard was in the army. Those letters never intimated the slightest hint of reconciliation, and now it was too late.
    For a few maudlin moments he tried to remember what life had been like, years ago, when his mother still lived and made his father smile. The memories were dusty and dim, and mostly of just his mother, as if he had deliberately cut the duke out of them. He remembered the way the joy went out of his father after her death, like a candle snuffed out. But he couldn’t remember a moment since then when he and Durham had gotten along.
    And Charlie couldn’t see how