Aslyn desperately wanted to be there when the duke entered the library and Mick confronted him, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave the duchess’s side. She’d awoken shortly before the physician arrived and immediately burst into tears, asking Hedley for forgiveness while he held and rocked her. It had broken Aslyn’s heart to see her tormented so. After giving her a sleeping draught, Dr. Graves had asked Aslyn to stay until the duchess drifted off.

But sleep eluded the poor woman while her gaze continually fluttered around the room as though she searched for something lost. Finally, she settled into stillness, her focus on the window where late-­afternoon sunlight filtered in, capturing dust motes in their slow descent.

“We’d been married only a month,” she said flatly, quietly, and Aslyn wasn’t certain she was speaking to her, was truly aware of her presence. “I bled. Not much, but still I assumed it was my monthly. I thought the lightness of my bleeding was a result of losing my virginity. I bled after the attack, naturally. How can a woman not when she is treated so roughly? But afterward I had no more menses. Hedley hadn’t touched me—­I couldn’t stand for him to touch me after that ruffian . . .” She swallowed, tears misted in her eyes.

Aslyn squeezed her hand. “You don’t have to talk about it.”

Slowly the duchess turned her head until she held Aslyn’s gaze. “We hadn’t been intimate you see. After what I thought was the monthly bleeding, after the attack. I didn’t see how the babe could be his. A boy. An heir who might not carry his blood.” Desperately she clutched Aslyn’s hand. “Do you understand? I had no way of knowing for sure. During all those long months, still I prayed it was Hedley’s. I knew when we’d last been intimate. I counted the weeks. I knew when the babe should be born if he was my love’s, but the day came and the day went and the babe stayed within me. I convinced myself, it couldn’t be his. Two weeks later, when it finally arrived, the timing indicated it had been sired by that monster. Now I know he was merely tardy.”

“So you told people the child died.”

She shook her head. “No, no one knew. When I realized I was increasing, we moved to an obscure estate where Hedley’s father had kept his mistress. They were both dead. They didn’t need it. We isolated ourselves. Only a handful of servants. We waited. Day after torturous day. I thought I would go mad.” She gave Aslyn a sad smile. “I think I did a bit.” She looked back out the window.

“It’s understandable,” Aslyn said gently. “The horror you endured, survived . . .” Now she understood all of the duchess’s precautions, worries. “I’m certain Mick holds you no ill will.”

“He loves you.” She pierced Aslyn with sad, brown eyes. “I do not think we kept watch over you as closely as I thought we had.”

“I was not as obedient a ward as I should have been.”

She smiled knowingly. “Women never are when they’re in love.”

“I suppose not.”

“Poor Kip. To discover he has a brother. And my poor Hedley. The guilt he has suffered all these years for taking the boy away. He did it for me. Perhaps if I had looked at the babe, held him, I might have discerned the truth.” Once more, the window drew her attention. “But all I wanted was to forget.”

He wasn’t a bastard. He’d been born to be duke. Not a street urchin, not a dustbin boy. Those thoughts kept running through his mind, as he stood in the library, Hedley’s vow to see his birthright restored still echoing between the walls. He should have felt empowered. Instead, for some unfathomable reason, he felt less, unmoored, a ship lost at sea in the midst of a tempest. His entire life, every action he’d ever taken, had been fueled by the anger over the circumstances of his birth. The anger was still there, but now it was directed at Fate and its cruelty.

He imagined the duchess as a young woman, younger than Aslyn, as young as Fancy, being forced upon and the man who loved her striving to lessen her anguish. And all the while a child growing within her to serve as a reminder—­at least in her mind—­of the horror that had transpired.

Infanticide was not uncommon. Even legitimate children were often unwanted, snuffed out. Society was finally beginning to take notice. Parliament was enacting laws to protect infants and bastards. But thirty years ago, bastards died and no one wept.

He’d been spared because Ettie Trewlove had lost her own children to typhus and had thought it a punishment from God. He’d forgiven her for her past. How could he not forgive the duke and duchess?

The duke tossed back what remained of his scotch, cleared his throat, met and held Mick’s gaze. “You are my legitimate heir, and now that we are aware of that truth, we must determine how best to proceed in order to make things right. I can compose a letter to be printed in the Times, speak with my peers—­”

“And tell them what?”

“I shall declare you as my legitimate heir.”

“How will you explain my sudden appearance, or more importantly my disappearance years ago? I assume you announced then that I’d not survived my birth.”

“We never let it be known she was with child. Only Bella, I and a few trusted servants knew of the situation.”

“So you must also explain a child no one knew was expected, and you can’t do that without revealing the truth and the shame that goes along with it, for you and your wife. She was raped. It is not something about which people speak. And they certainly don’t announce it in the Times. If you do so, it will merely make her and you relive what you have struggled for years to forget.”

“Your rightful place—­”

“Is exactly where I am. I didn’t want you to acknowledge me because I wanted your titles, lands, or properties. I wanted you to recognize me and explain why you cast me aside. You have done that. To be honest, in similar circumstances, to protect the woman I loved, I might have done the same.”

“And there stands the man with whom I fell in love.”

Turning slowly, he faced the door where Aslyn waited. In her eyes he could see that there also stood the man who had broken her heart. If he could do it over again, he’d have stopped his quest the moment he met her. “Can you spare me a few minutes in the gardens?”

She looked to the duke, to Kipwick, back to him. “A few.”

He followed her into the hallway, down a long corridor, through a door and into the dimming sunlight. Most of the day had passed, and yet it seemed like he’d been here years already. They stepped onto a path filled with an abundance of flowers. He wondered if he took the time to sniff each bloom if he would find a gardenia.

He didn’t offer his arm; he doubted she would take it. Like Hedley earlier, he hardly knew where to begin.

She wasn’t only physically separated from him but mentally, as well. There was a wall between them that hadn’t existed before, and he hadn’t a clue how best to knock it down. Not reassuring for a man who had made a good deal of his fortune tearing down walls.

“She wants to see you,” Aslyn said quietly.

She. The duchess. The woman whose body had nurtured him, brought him into the world. He shook his head. “I am but a reminder of a past best forgotten, unfortunate decisions made.”

“She never forgot you. You were always there. For the duke, as well.”

“Everything I always thought I knew about myself has been shattered. I spent years imagining what my mother might have been like. Not once did I imagine her a duchess. I concocted a slew of reasons for why I was delivered into Ettie Trewlove’s arms. Not once did I ever consider what I learned today.”

“Why would you? I grew up in their household, and the duchess never revealed by word or deed that she’d been violated. It is not something about which people speak. I knew only that she was wary of the world beyond Hedley Hall and overly protective where I was concerned. Now I know the reasons. Neither of us can alter the past, but we can ensure it doesn’t influence the future.”

“It always influences the future. I was intent on destroying them, Aslyn.”

“And me.”

Stepping in front of her, he stopped walking. “No, never you.”

“Never?”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “Originally yes.” He opened his eyes, longed to cradle her face between his hands, draw her in and just hold her. “But then I came to know you, and you sent all my plans for you to hell. You don’t realize how courageous you are, and that makes you braver still. You gave no thought at all to the dangers when you saved Will. You didn’t hesitate to let Mary go. You’re curious about the lives of those who live outside the aristocracy, yet you don’t judge. At Cremorne, you accept that sometimes people are forced to do things Society frowns upon in order to survive. At my affair, you walked among bankers, bakers—­” he lifted a corner of his mouth “—­and candlestick makers, men with rough hands, and women with rough lives, and you never looked down on them. You never looked down on me. That first night, you spoke with Fancy as though you’d be equals in a ballroom.”

She scoffed lightly. “You give me too much credit.”

“I did not give you enough. You let me touch you when I believed myself marred with filth.”

“And here you are. Now you could have a dukedom.”

He hadn’t been raised to oversee a dukedom, to sit in Parliament, to be addressed as “Your Grace.” But he was intelligent enough to learn, to adjust, to adapt. He had no doubts there. But what place would his mum, his brothers, his sisters have in that world? He would make a place for them, see them accepted—­

But how to explain them and his absence all these years? The secrets behind his existence were certain to come out, to create undeserved pain for all involved.

“We can’t erase thirty years, pretend they didn’t happen. I can’t step into a role that another has been groomed to hold.”

“It happens all the time. An heir dies, upending the life of the next in line.”

“I don’t need a dukedom. I think Kipwick does. Who is he without it? Who am I with it?” He lifted his shoulders, dropped them back down. “I am the same man either way. I didn’t realize it until you. For so long, I believed if people knew I had blue blood coursing through my veins, I would be accepted by all. I wanted that acceptance, I craved it with as strong a ferocity as Kipwick craves his next win at the tables. It was an addiction, an obsession. Until I found something I wanted more—­you.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “You broke my heart. I trusted you with every aspect of me.”

“I know, and I didn’t deserve your trust, your affections. I came here today with the intention of winning you back.” He shook his head. “Not in one go. I didn’t expect you to forgive me from the start. I wouldn’t ask you to. But I thought if I could convince you to give me a chance, to perhaps start anew, that I could convince you slowly, over time, that I was worthy of you. I was willing to take as long as it took.”

She said nothing, merely studied him as though searching for the truth and fearing what it might be. He’d done that to her. The duchess had given her years of admonishments regarding the dangers in the world, but it had taken him to prove that trust couldn’t be easily given. She was so beautiful standing there in the waning light that it hurt. It hurt to know he’d brought her pain and sadness. It hurt that he had disappointed her. It hurt to know that he had to walk away.

“I know you love the duke and duchess dearly.” He looked to the darkening sky. “Kipwick as well in some manner.” He returned his gaze, his attention, his focus to her. “I came here today because I love you, Aslyn. But I understand now that in trying to win you over, I would be forcing you to choose me over them, and I cannot ask that of you.”

Her delicate brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

“They are your family.”

“They’re yours, as well. You’re their son. They see that, they understand it.”

“But it’s not enough. In some ways, it’s crueler that I am. I am not a product of what happened to the duchess, but I am a reminder of it. Even if we tell no one the truth, how do we explain my presence? I resemble Hedley too much for there not to be speculation, for there not to be the whisper of scandal. Their happiness and well-­being—­as well as yours—­is best served by my absence.”

“So you come here today, make me start falling a little bit in love with you all over again, and leave, never to return?”

“I can’t be in their lives. I can’t be in yours. Don’t marry Kipwick. You will find someone else more deserving, more deserving than either he or I. You are worth so much, and somewhere there is a man who will realize it.”

He didn’t give her time to reply, to comment, to convince him he was wrong. He simply started striding out of the gardens, knowing if he stayed a minute longer, he was going to take her into his arms and never let go.