The alertness of his gaze made her instinctively brace. “What is it?”
“Perhaps you ought to sit for this.” He gestured to the chair behind her.
Warily, she complied.
He cleared his throat. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. I had my reasons for not divulging it straight away, and I must once again ask for your discretion.”
“All right.” She knotted her cold fingers in her lap. “What is it?”
He crossed to her side, leaning against the front of the desk. “I haven’t been entirely honest about my identity.”
Icicles prickled her nape. “What do you mean? You…you’re not Rhys Jones?”
“I am. That is, it is one of my names,” he hedged.
One of his names? He hadaliases? She could think of only one reason a man would need alternate identities: he was in trouble with the authorities. Blooming hell, her brothers went by different names up and down the Dorset coast to avoid detection by the magistrates.
The chill in her spread. What kind of trouble was Rhys in?
“There are reasons, good reasons, for why I haven’t told you who I am,” he went on.
“What crime did you commit?” The words rushed from her.
He blinked. “Beg pardon?”
“That’s why you’re in hiding, isn’t it? To evade the authorities…” She trailed off at his baffled expression.
“Devil take it, I’m no criminal,” he said, clearly offended.
“Oh.” She released a breath that she hadn’t known she was holding. “That’s a relief.”
“What I am is a duke.”
It was her turn to blink. “You’re a…what?”
“Edward Rhys Hugo Jones Cavendish, the Fifth Duke of Ranelagh and Somerville, Earl of Somerville, Viscount Lorne, etcetera, at your service.”
He made a leg. An elegant leg. Aducalleg.
Waves of numbness rocked her. She stumbled to her feet, but he caught her by the waist.
“Let me go,” she said in a trembling voice.
“Not until you tell me why you’re leaving. My title changes nothing.”
“How can you say that?” Anger pierced her shock. “Youliedto me.”
Did he think to amuse himself by dallying with a woman of her class? The humiliation of finding that fifty-pound note years ago roared back. A part of her had always known that he was out of her reach. Now she was discovering just how far above her he was.
Her temples throbbed.A duke…he’s a blooming duke.
“It was more a sin of omission—but, I agree, let’s not split hairs,” he said hastily when she glared at him. “Sweeting, I had reason to keep my identity a secret. You know about my debts, but what you don’t know is that I owe the money to cutthroats. Two of London’s most notorious, to be precise. To the tune of fifty thousand pounds apiece.”
This second revelation was no less stunning. Merciful heavens,he oweda hundred thousand poundsto cutthroats? Jeremy had once taken a small loan from a shady moneylender. She still recalled his battered face after he’d failed to make the first payment. She’d never seen her feckless brother pay off a debt so quickly.
“Now they’re out for my blood.” Rhys released her, raking a hand through his dark hair. “That is why I left London, why I sought anonymity here as Rhys Jones.”
“But you’re aduke. Can’t you sell off your properties, jewels, horses…?”
