He shouldn’t have brought Clara with him, Quincy thought some time later as he stared up at the grand façade of his family’s Berkeley Square townhouse. He’d had the thought several times during the quick drive here. The carriage interior had been too dark, too close, the tension between them a palpable thing despite the laughter that had started them off on this adventure. Yet how could he leave her behind when she had turned those beautiful eyes on him and smiled?
Even now the remembrance of her lips lifted in that sly smile as she turned his decision on its head took his breath away. It will be easier to capitulate, he’d thought as they’d hurried to the mews, her fingers wrapped tight around his, no doubt to keep him from making a run for it. As if he would have been able to.
He knew deep down this was not easier, not one bit. Had he been alone he could have walked with greater speed than it had taken to secure a carriage, have the horses harnessed, and be driven through the congested streets around Dane House. No, the truth of the matter was, now that he’d held her in his arms, he was loath to let her out of his sight.
It was a mad notion. This was a fake engagement, not the beginning of a new life together. They would be parting soon enough.
Yet the thought of walking away from her had every inch of his body rebelling.
“Are you all right?”
Her soft voice echoed in the close confines of the carriage, bringing him back to the problem at hand. He would focus on this most pressing issue now and revisit his concerns over his feelings for his faux-fiancée later. When he was not in danger of dragging her back in his arms and finishing what he’d accidentally begun in the gardens.
“Never better,” he declared with much more confidence than he felt. “Let’s go.”
He threw open the carriage door, vaulting to the pavement before turning to hand Clara down. Soon they were before the grand doors.
Byerly answered their knock. His eyes widened as he bowed deeply. “Your Grace, we did not expect you.”
“Is my mother at home?” he asked as he strode into the front hall, fighting for a tone of confidence when in reality he wanted to vomit.
“No, Your Grace. She is out for the evening.”
The surge of relief he felt at that bit of news infuriated him. He should not still be so affected by her. But he would count his blessings where he could. Goodness knew there were too few of them.
“I would appreciate it if Lady Clara and myself could have access to the study,” he said.
The butler’s eyes widened. “But of course, Your Grace. It is your house, after all.”
His breath left him in a rush. Yes, it was. As he’d known from poring over the papers relating to every bit of property the Dukes of Reigate had bought and sold over the past several generations.
Yet it had not sunk in until now, standing in the front hall of this house he had grown up in. He had always seen the house as his father’s, but through a horrible quirk of fate it now belonged to him.
Clara touched him lightly on the arm. “Quincy?”
He blinked, looking down at her. Her face was drawn into tense lines, her gloved hand in a tight fist where it held the rough shawl she had borrowed from a groom close about her shoulders. “Sorry,” he muttered. With a curt nod for Byerly, he strode off in the direction of the study.
Their footsteps echoed back to them as they hurried through the house. It was only then he saw what he hadn’t during his last visit here: the house was too empty. It wasn’t the lack of people he found disconcerting, it was the lack of things. As if each room they passed contained great gaping voids. In one room, the thick wool rug that had graced the floor was conspicuously absent. In another, most of the heavily carved Tudor-era furniture that had held a place of pride was missing. There were pale spots on walls where landscapes had hung, empty stands where vases had been displayed.
Fury rose up, nearly choking him. Damn his brothers. Nothing had been sacred to them, it seemed. No doubt they would have sold the house from under their mother had it not been entailed.
A sudden realization hit him, making his steps falter on the bare wood floor: if all of this was gone, wasn’t it possible that his father’s heavy wooden desk, beautifully carved, a work of art, was gone, too?
He broke off at a run, his steps echoing through the hall, his pumps skidding on the floor as he reached the study door.
It was cold here, only pale moonlight reaching into the musty, unused space. Yet the great hulking desk was there, just as it had always been.
The relief in Quincy was so great he collapsed back against the wall. “Thank God,” he whispered.
Clara came hurrying up. “Quincy?” she asked breathlessly. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” he croaked. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “Yes, I’m well. Sorry about that.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” she said, her voice soft. “This cannot be easy.”
“No,” he agreed, looking down into her concerned eyes. Gratitude surged in him. “I’m glad you’re here.” It surprised him just how much he meant it.
A small smile lit her shadowed face. “As am I.”
Just as in the gardens when he’d made the colossal mistake of embracing her in order to protect her identity, he longed desperately to kiss her. Damnation, but she had felt like heaven. He wanted nothing more than to claim her lips again, to feel once more her surprisingly passionate response.
But now was not the time or place. Not that there would ever be a time or place for such a thing. Squaring his shoulders, he walked with purpose to the desk. Memories assailed him the closer he got, and he saw in a brilliant flash his father’s smiling face as he beckoned Quincy forward. Then he blinked and it was gone, replaced with the sad reality of this cold room devoid of all heart.
Tears burned the backs of his eyes. Rounding the desk, he quickly lit the lamp on the desk’s cluttered surface. The warm light illuminated what had only been hinted at in the shadows.
A thick coat of dust covered the once gleaming surface of the grand desk, all manner of papers strewn across its top. One glared up at him from the pile, the date scrawled across the foolscap proving it had been several years since this desk had been made use of. The globe that used to sit in the corner that Quincy and his father had pored over during many happy afternoons was gone, as were the majority of the books that had graced the shelves, ones that he and his father had made use of so frequently, they had kept them in the study for easy reach.
Bile rose up in him at this further proof of his brothers’ perfidy. But he would not mourn those losses; what was the point? They were just things, and their absence could not take away the memories.
The map book, on the other hand…
Grabbing the lamp, suddenly desperate to get his hands on the thing, he pushed the chair back and dropped to his knees. He paused only a moment, his hand on the handle of the deep bottom drawer, before yanking it open. A clutter of papers filled it to the brim. He dug them out and tossed them aside. Finally his fingers reached the bottom, found the small latch that released the hidden door.
It popped up with a faint creak. Holding his breath, Quincy lifted the lamp and peered inside.
The years fell away in an instant. Just as it had been that day fourteen years before, the small calf-bound map book was lying within, undisturbed in its nest of papers.
With shaking fingers he took it up. The surface was smooth and worn, the pages dog-eared, stained, and torn in places.
It was beautiful.
“Is that it?”
Clara had dropped down to the floor across from him, the delicate silk folds of her ball gown billowing about her like a cloud, the dark wool cloak a stark contrast where it lay against the finer fabric. But it was her face he could not tear his gaze from. Her eyes glowed in the candlelight and were glued to the book, as if there were something sacred about it.
His heart warmed that she could so fully understand the importance of such a simple, worn thing to him.
“Yes.”
“I’m glad.” She smiled, her relief for him palpable. It shone brighter than the candle’s flame, that smile, until he found an answering one spreading across his own face. It was something he never thought to do in this house again.
“We should go,” he murmured, rising to his feet, helping her up. “With luck we will not have been missed yet. And Peter won’t have cause to call me out on the morrow.”
Her laugh, light and low, trailed across his skin. As he bent to secure the door back in the bottom of the drawer, Clara took up the candle, and the flickering candlelight washed over the hidden space, bathing it in a golden glow.
Frowning, he froze. His father had always kept childhood drawings and small notes and mementos in the compartment—things the man had held precious. They were all still there, as they’d always been.
But an odd bundle lay within as well, snagging at his attention.
Without a word he reached inside, taking it up. Then, sweeping an arm out, he scattered the teetering piles of correspondence and merchant notes from the desk in a billow of dust and laid his father’s bundle on the dull surface. There was no doubt in Quincy’s mind that it had been put there by his father before his death; the secret chamber had appeared just as it had the day Quincy left for America, undisturbed and undiscovered all this time.
Why, then, could he not remember just what this packet was?
“Quincy, what is it?”
“I’m not certain,” he muttered. He worked the twine loose, unwrapped the brown paper packaging, and began rifling through the items within: a dance card, a lock of jet-black hair encased in a brooch, a small collection of letters tied up tight with string. And…
“A deed,” he breathed.
He raised the expensive vellum with shaking hands, bringing it closer to his face in an attempt to read the formal words. As if heeding his call Clara moved closer, positioning the flame so it illuminated the document. He could not even muster a smile for her in thanks, so desperate was he to read the contents.
Some minutes later, the air thick with tension and dawning excitement, he raised his head and looked to Clara. Her lovely face was drawn, worry in every line.
“What is it, Quincy?”
He grinned, his entire body thrumming with excitement. “This might be the thing I need to save the dukedom.”