He ran his knuckles lightly along her cheek. “Keep talking to me. It is dangerous to fall asleep when you’ve been hit as hard over the head as you have been.”
“I cannot think of what else to say.” She had her eyes closed because it hurt too much to keep them open.
“Tell me about your childhood. Did your family always reside on Duchess Square?”
“Yes, mostly. But we often spent the yuletide with my grandfather on his estate. Occasionally, we visited my eccentric granduncle. Everyone would snap to attention and scurry to Broadingham whenever he commanded it.”
“Why?”
“Well, he was the duke. No one was going to countermand his orders.”
“You are related to a duke?”
“Yes.”
Had he just gasped?
“He’s a cantankerous old goat that neither my grandfather nor my father ever liked. Nor did they ever trust him, and never considered having him take care of me when he could not even take care of himself.”
“Dear heaven.”
She eased back a little, still secure in his embrace, and looked up at him. “I haven’t seen him since my parents died. He never sent for me, nor did he ever make the slightest effort to come down to London to see me. He was too busy getting married. He’s gone through five wives, although I think he never bothered to actually marry two of them. Why are you grumbling, Gideon? What difference does it make? He never wanted anything to do with me.”
Gideon gently set her back against the pillows and raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I never thought about your ancestry. Not that it matters, I suppose. Dukedoms are not carried down through the female line. It is only the male heirs that matter.”
“Um…well…not Broadingham. It is a ducal grant descended from Eleanor of Aquitaine’s lineage. It is quite possible that the title will fall to me. It is one of those rare grants allowing afemale blood heir to take the title of duchess in her own right. Did Lord Berwick never mention it to you?”
“No,” he said sharply.
“Well, if there are no surviving heirs in my granduncle’s line, male or female, then I would become the next duchess.”
“Blessed saints.”
“You sound angry.”
“Why should I be angry? I am not angry. Not with you,” he said, still grumbling. “Berry, you’re aduchess?”
“Not yet, and probably never.”
“But it is just as probable that you could be?”
She shivered. Why was he getting so worked up over the possibility?
When she asked him, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I was found on a cobblestone street. I have no idea who I am or where I was born. I have been in turmoil, struggling to make myself worthy forLadyBerry. And now I am learning you, the woman who has captured my heart, could be the next Duchess of Broadingham. As if that isn’t bad enough, you can trace your ancestry back to a queen of England. Aqueen, Berry.”
“It isn’t my fault.”
“No, it is completely mine for thinking it was possible to overcome our differences and make a life together.”
She burst into tears. “You said you loved me. I will not allow you to take it back.”
“Berry—”
“And what if we were to have children? Would you love them any less because they are in line to become a duke or duchess?”
“Oh, Lord. Berry, that is even worse. A jest for the ages. That my son could be a duke?”
“Or your daughter a duchess,” she reminded him. “But a child is a child and deserving of love no matter his or her lineage. Are you now putting up conditions to your love?”
