Bloody hell, he’d made a deathbed promise of his own and he intended to keep it. Mark had promised hisfather he’d never rely on his mother’s side of the family to get ahead in life, and a blasted duchy was a leg up in life if ever there was one.
Mark swiveled on his heel to face the older man. “I can’t. I absolutely cannot.”
His uncle’s watery eyes searched his face. “Why not? Even now, you’re unofficially the Marquess of Coleford.”
His cousin John’s title. “No. That’s not true.” No. No. No. This wasn’t happening. He was used to controlling things and he would control this too, by God. He had to.
His uncle cleared his throat and his frail body shook as he struggled to sit up higher. “You can deny it all you like, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Why are you so hell-bent on refuting it?”
“There are a score of reasons,” Mark said bitterly, shaking his head. “I doubt you’d understand any of them.”
“I understand, Mark. I truly do, but you must promise me for your mother’s sake that you’ll at least consider it. I have a letter from her. It’s—”
“No more, please.” This was excruciating. He’d rather be back in France being tortured. At least physical pain was the kind you could absorb. When it was over, it was over. This was the type that gnawed at you endlessly, never relenting.
“He’ll consider it,” Nicole said firmly, crossing to Mark’s side and laying a hand on his coat sleeve.
The room closing in on him, Mark whirled around, turning his attention back to his uncle. “Uncle, you know as well as I do that Grandfather wouldn’t have wanted this.”
“Why do you say that?” His uncle’s brow furrowed.
“A half-Italian Duke of Colchester? Grandfather would roll over in his grave.”
“No, dear boy. Father had high ideals about our way of life but he loved you, Mark.”
Mark knew that wasn’t true. “No, he loved my mother. He tolerated my existence because of her.”
“He knew about the codicil. He knew this was a possibility.”
“A possibility, perhaps, but a highly unlikely one,” Mark shot back.
The old man paused as if considering his reply. He looked at Mark with tears shining in his eyes. “I never had a second son. Nor any daughters. It was always a possibility that John would die as a child. He’s gone now, Mark. I’m asking you to do your duty.”
Duty.Mark clenched his useless fist against his side. The one word he could never resist.
***
The ride back home began in silence, Mark splayed across the seat opposite Nicole in obvious exhaustion. Nicole ran the conversation with the duke over and over in her mind. She could guess that Mark was doing the same.
“Your mother never told you about the codicil?” Nicole finally ventured.
Mark rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Never,” he ground out, narrowing his eyes on her.
The coach came to a stop in front of Mark’s house and they alighted in turn as they had so many times already this evening. They slowly made their way up the front steps and into the foyer. They walked up the marble stairs together just as slowly.
They reached the top of the stairs and made their way down the corridor toward the bedchambers. Nicole stopped outside the door to his room. Given the events of the evening, it obviously wasn’t the right time to begin their other “condition,” but she felt closer to him tonight. Closer than she had since she first saw him in France. He’d allowed himself to seem vulnerable in his uncle’s bedchamber and in the coach when he’d looked so tired. He wasn’t entirely made of stone.
“Are you going to take the duchy?” she half whispered.
“Aiming to be a duchess, are you?” His voice was tight, cruel.
Ouch.She snapped her head to the side as if she’d been slapped. He was hurting and lashing out, but there was no blasted way she’d let him get away with it. “I don’t give a toss about being a duchess, you dolt,” she snapped. “This is about your duty to your family.”
The pain that swept across his stonelike features was unmistakable.
“And there is more to consider than just us.” Her voice wavered. “Our son… would be the next in line to a dukedom.”
Surprise flared briefly in Mark’s eyes. “Ah, have you decided it’s time to demand your one condition, then?”
