If Percy hadn’t already been sitting on the ground, his legs would have given out from under him. But, really, what should he have expected? One didn’t pull the wool over the Duke’s eyes easily. “How did you know?”
“Because you’re not the young man you once were. You wouldn’t tether yourself to a woman you hardly know without thought to consequence.” The Duke tapped out a beat on his bent knee. “Can I ask you why?”
“You could, but you might not like the answer.”
The Duke nodded. “I thought as much.”
Percy swallowed back nausea. Would he never stop being a disappointment to his father?
“Do you remember when you saved the kitten from the carriage wheel?” the Duke asked.
“I might have a vague recollection of such an event.”
“Well, you couldn’t have had more than six years on you. From what I was able to gather from Frau Gerta, she was walking you and Michael to the park when you spied a kitten in the gutter and snatched it up just before it was crushed beneath a carriage wheel. What a row you caused when you brought the creature into the house. Mrs. Landry threatened to quit on the spot. Do you not remember?”
“There was an injury, correct?”
A faraway smile entered the Duke’s eyes. “The carriage clipped your shoulder and nearly dislocated it. So, there you were, one arm hanging useless from injury, the other clutching a frantic kitten, not about to let go.”
Percy, too, smiled at the memory. “I seem to remember her clawing my face to get away. She won that battle. Was she ever seen again?”
“Became the best mouser the kitchens ever saw, according to Mrs. Landry. Do you recall what Michael said?”
Percy put on his best impersonation of his brother. “What an ungrateful creature.”
“And your response?”
Percy shrugged. “Some childish piffle, to be sure.”
“You told Michael that she was a wild creature and she was just being herself and you wouldn’t have her any other way. You went on quite passionately, but I’ll never forget what you said next.Not every creature needs to be tamed.”
That sounded exactly like the sort of thing Percy had said on more than one occasion, and at ages embarrassingly older than six years. He’d been incredibly idealistic, even into manhood.
“When you were running wild all over London,” the Duke continued, “I knew exactly who you were, and the man you would grow into.”
“How disappointed you must have been when I didn’t turn out that way.”
“Percy, look at me.” With great reluctance, Percy did as his father bid. Piercing blue eyes bored into his. “You are exactly that man. You always have been.”
“Which is why you helped Olivia divorce me?” Percy found himself saying with no small amount of bitterness. In all the months since he’d returned, the subject hadn’t been broached between them. The time had arrived to have this out in the open, for Percy harbored a grievance.
“It took you by surprise, didn’t it?” the Duke asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you think I could have prevented it?”
“I know you could have.” Such was the power the Duke of Arundel wielded in Parliament.
“Did you desire to come home and resume your unhappy marriage? Continue leading a life separate from your wife’s? For that was the existence both behind and ahead of you and Olivia.”
“I never thought I’d survive to come home. Still . . .Whydid you help Olivia secure it?”
“I saw an opportunity to deal with an untenable situation.” The Duke lifted one hand. “There was Olivia, who I’d come to love as my own blood. I wanted her to have a chance at happiness.” He lifted his other hand. “And there was you, my son. I wanted to give you the chance to begin anew when you returned to England.”
“But Lucy,” Percy began. Here it was, his grievance. “She’s my bastard because the marriage was set aside. I don’t think she’ll ever forgive me.”
“You think Lucy is upset by that? Stop keeping yourself to yourself and let the chit know you. She will come around.”
