“And what would that be?” she asked warily.
“Play along.”
She pressed her lips together. Then, after a brief pause, she said, “Why should I do that? What would I gain?”
“You might gain more than you think. A rich husbandfor one, a noble one with a title.” He laughed darkly. “You won’t ever have to lift a finger to work again. You can drape yourself with diamonds, bathe in milk and honey, and eat caviar all day.”
“I don’t care for that,” Lena replied stiffly. “That kind of life would be a lie if I don’t remember him as my husband.”
“A lie for Kaiser and fatherland. As his wife, you’d have direct access to a most influential Congress member at all hours of the day.” He paused to reflect. “And at night, too, of course. It would be handsomely rewarded.”
“It is unethical.”
“Yes.” He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “But you’d do it for the children. Have you forgotten the poorhouse?”
Lena sat perfectly still.
“And lastly. There is something you have not considered. Wives are replaceable. They are easily set aside, particularly by men in that class. Why, then, should it matter whether you really are truly the Duchess? This isn’t about you at all.”
A heavy weariness seeped into her bones. “Then pray tell me who it is about if not me.”
“You can protest all you want that you are not his wife, but if the Duke acknowledges Hector as his son, he’ll whisk him away to England—with or without you. As his heir, Hector will be more valuable to him than all the diamonds in the world, and the law will be on the Duke’s side. He won’t need you at all, especially if you prove to be troublesome. Wives are—as we have already established—replaceable.”
An icy dart of terror pierced Lena.
“But never fear,” August continued with a cold smile. “We’ll protect you no matter what happens, whether you truly remember him or not, whether you are the Duchess or not. It is very much in your interest to play along and be the Duke’s good little wife, if only to be able to stay with your son.”
He leaned forwards, his words heavy with warning.
All the blood had drained from her face, for he had just expressed her deepest fear.
ChapterTen
Julius dropped into his armchair,feeling as if a regiment of Napoleon’s army had blasted an entire battery of howitzers into him. The air was knocked out of him, his ears were ringing, and his head was light. For the first time, he understood how ladies felt just before they swooned. At that moment, there was nothing in the entire world he wanted more than to fall on the floor in a dead faint. It would certainly alarm his butler and the maid if they found him in that state. He was the Duke of Aldingbourne, after all. Cold and arrogant and unfeeling. Nothing and no one could disturb his composure. Dukes did not faint. What would the world come to if they did?
He poured himself a glass of brandy with a trembling hand, spilled half of it on the fine walnut table, downed it in one gulp, and poured himself another. The heat of the liquor burned through his veins, but it did not calm him in the least. It only dulled his senses and in the morning he would have a headache to boot. Cursing, he lifted the glass to smash it into the fireplace, hoping for somerelief, but that would only wake his valet. He carefully placed it back on the table and rested his head in his hands.
She hadn’t recognised him.
She hadn’t recognised him.
She hadn’t recognised him.
The thought bothered and nagged at him like rats gnawing at the wooden beams of a house, relentless and pervasive. Why did the thought that she didn’t remember him shock him more than the discovery that his dead wife was alive?
There hadn’t been a trace of recognition in her eyes. Neither now, nor at Metternich’s soiree when he first saw her. He was a complete stranger to her. It was as if their three years of marriage had never happened. His identity as her husband was erased forever.
After the initial shock, he’d grappled with the acute sense of disbelief at what his eyes were seeing. Confusion and doubt had followed.
Now anger blazed through him, at her, at him, at God and the entire universe, and he feared he’d punch a hole in the satin-covered walls if he didn’t find some sort of outlet. How could she have forgotten him so completely?
What the deuce was wrong with him?
By all the saints, it was a miracle! He should rejoice, for when had it ever happened outside of the realm of religion that the dead were resurrected?
He’d at first feared she was an impostor. Still, the woman had appeared sincere.
She had not sought him out to claim she was his lost wife. He had soughtherout. She’d appeared shocked and, towards the end, terrified. Thenshe’d decided to throw him out of her house as if he were not a Duke, but a dirty peddler trying to foist faulty goods on a hapless housekeeper.
