Chapter 1
England, April 1816
Summerlin Hall, Devonshire
“My son, it’s a miracle you’re home again! Such a miracle!”
A miracle or a curse, Walker considered wryly, though he could not help but be moved by his father’s sincerity.
His father, Charles Scott, the Duke of Summerlin, no less.
Not a royal duke, but a duke all the same, the hereditary title granted long ago to Charles’s great-grandfather for loyal service to the Crown.
An ailing man, too, his richly brocaded coat hanging from his too thin frame. He shuffled next to Walker as they walked together into the library that smelled of tobacco and old books, his hand shaking where he clutched Walker’s arm. Watery eyes as pitch-black as Walker’s own stared into his face.
“My son, my long-lost son. Alexander.”
Walker swallowed uncomfortably, but he held his tongue and did not correct his father. He’d done so many times since he’d arrived at Summerlin Hall a week ago, reminding the duke that the only name he’d known his entire life was Walker.
Walker Burke.
Just as the only family he had known was the woman he’d thought his mother, Molly Burke, who had worked as a housekeeper in some of the finer homes in Boston to feed and clothe and educate him.
Yet she hadn’t been his mother at all, but a nanny to him and his twin brother, Andrew, until she had abducted Walker as a two-year-old child and fled with him to America. If not for Molly’s tearful confession right before she died and Andrew’s portrait hanging in the hall that had been like looking in a mirror when Walker had first seen it, he doubted he would have believed the incredible tale.
He and his deceased brother hadn’t just been twins, but identical from their raven-black hair, midnight eyes, and chiseled features many might call handsome. Their father claimed Walker bore the same height and rugged breadth of shoulders as Andrew. Dear God, how could so many loose threads have been woven together into an outcome that had begun as mere happenstance?
“Take me over to the fire, my son. These old bones crave the warmth.”
Walker nodded and walked with his father to the immense fireplace where flames crackled and burned brightly.
His father wasn’t old, but the disease sapping the life from him made him appear twice his age. A pair of sumptuous leather chairs were drawn close to the fire, which was his father’s favorite place to while away the hours amidst his books and maps. The duke sank into the nearest chair with a sigh of relief and gestured for Walker to sit as well.
Instead, though, Walker went first to pour them each a brandy, filling his own glass to the brim.
He could use a stiff drink. Whenever he thought of the uncanny turn of events that had brought him to Summerlin Hall, his head would begin to pound. Just as it was pounding now!
The last time he’d been in England was three years ago when he and his closest friend, Jared Giles, and Jared’s incomparably lovely bride, Lindsay, had been spirited safely out of the country to Brittany, France. After Lindsay had so courageously rescued them from certain hanging, a daring plan devised by her best friend, Corisande, and aided by her husband, Lord Donovan Trent.
It had been Donovan who had recognized Walker’s striking resemblance to a comrade that had died in Spain while fighting with him against Napoleon’s forces—his twin brother, Andrew Scott!—and who had set an inquiry into motion.
Donovan had set everything into motion. The inquiry into Walker’s true parentage, as well as an inquiry into how Jared had come to be impressed at seventeen into servitude aboard the man-of-war Trident though he’d sworn he was the Earl of Dovercourt.
Four brutal years of servitude that had left Jared’s back scarred from lashings, followed by three years in a rat-infested prison in the West Indies. Walker had known him for five of those miserable years, impressed as well at only fifteen from an American merchantman after he’d left Boston to seek his fortune upon the sea.
Bitter memories tightening his throat, Walker had all he could do to swallow a draft of brandy.
His back and shoulders, too, were striped by countless lashings. Yet he had survived it all just as had Jared, as well as the men who had escaped with them from that West Indies prison, to serve as the crew aboard the Vengeance. One fierce burning purpose had driven them—to consign as many English ships to a watery grave as they could hunt down and set ablaze in retribution for the horrors they had suffered.
Yet for all the mayhem and destruction they had caused, not one soul from those hapless ships had lost his life. That fortuitous fact ultimately had allowed Lord Donovan to win every man who had sailed aboard the Vengeance a royal pardon. It had taken him almost three years, but the victory over Napoleon and the end of the war between England and France had found George, the Prince Regent, in a forgiving and generous mood.
Jared and Lindsay had returned to Dovercourt Manor in West Sussex a month ago with their young son, Justin, while Walker had arrived in Devonshire only days ago. He’d had a thriving textile mill outside Boston to attend to, which had made him rich in his own right during the concurrent war between England and the United States.
Yet when he’d received a letter from Donovan that the Duke of Summerlin’s health was growing more fragile, Walker had decided to tarry no longer. He’d sold his shares in the mill to his partners and made the journey to a new life he would never have imagined even in the most extraordinary dream.
Walker tossed back the rest of the brandy and poured himself another drink, then made his way back to his father with two glasses.
With shaking fingers the duke accepted the drink. Charles’s eyes never left Walker’s face as if he couldn’t believe a son that he had thought might be dead, stood alive and whole and strapping in front of him. He nodded to the opposite chair.
“Sit with me, Alexander. We’ve much to discuss…and I fear our time is growing shorter.”
Walker felt his throat grow tight as he obliged him. To have never known his father until now only to face the specter of his death grieved him, he couldn’t deny it. So he did what had always got him through when life seemed too brutal, too cruel, too unfair, and made light of his father’s somber tone by smiling wryly at him.
“Ah, now, that’s dramatic, Your Grace. What have we left to discuss that we haven’t touched upon already? We’re agreed I’m a fish out of water here. Your son, yes, but raised as a brash American. You know as well as I that it’s going to be difficult for me to fit in—”
“Not if you’ve a suitable wife beside you.”
The glass to his lips, Walker nearly choked on the brandy coursing down his throat. Yet he had no chance to utter a word as his father continued on.
“It’s your first and foremost duty as the future Duke of Summerlin, Alexander. You’re twenty-six years old! You must marry well and soon. A young woman of the nobility who’s been born to this life and can guide you—and you must have children, a son to one day inherit the title and all of this…”
His father gestured to their sumptuous mahogany paneled surroundings and then to the manicured grounds outside the tall arched windows, acres upon acres of land making up the Summerlin estate. Meanwhile Walker found himself leaning forward in the chair and shaking his head incredulously.
“I’ve only just arrived and now you would have me wed with children playing at my feet? It’s been jarring enough to discover I’m not American at all, but English—as well as the only living son of a duke! A year or two to grow accustomed to all this change would be preferable—and I’m not the marrying sort, Father, never have been. Jared would vouch for me there—”
“Ah, yes, your friend, the traitor.”
Bristling at his father’s biting tone, Walker regretted bringing up what had been a sore topic since he’d arrived at Summerlin Hall. The duke had nothing good to say about the man once known as the Phoenix who had sunk five of his merchant ships during the three years the Vengeance had terrorized the seas—though he knew Walker had been a part of exacting such revenge upon England as well.
“A traitor no longer, Father, but pardoned by Prince George, like myself. I owe my life to Jared several times over! If not for him, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you today—and if others like yourself still see him as a traitor, then I’m one as well. What noble family would wish for such a blight upon their daughter?”
“No! We’ll not speak of it again! No one will dare to speak of it and insult His Royal Highness’s judgment. You are one of the most eligible bachelors in the realm and any well-bred young woman of the ton would be honored to become your bride!”
His father visibly shaking, so much so that the brandy sloshed from his glass onto the thick carpet, Walker took the drink from him and set it upon a side table. Then he met the duke’s eyes.
“I could not have known those ships were yours, Father, but I again ask your forgiveness all the same. It’s best we forget the past and look to the future.”
“Yes, yes, the future. The Season has begun in London and you must take your place there as my son, my heir. Will you do this for me, Alexander?”
Walker noted that his father’s pallor had grown a sicklier white. How could he in good conscience continue to argue with a dying man? Marriage was the last damnable thing on his mind, but he nonetheless nodded.
“Excellent. Now I must ask for your forgiveness as well, but I forbid you to marry anyone outside the ton—”
“Forbid?” Walker bristled again, his jaw growing tight.
“Yes, harsh as it may sound. You must trust that I know what’s best for you, for Summerlin. Only such a wife will ease your path and your acceptance among us. It would torment me to my grave if I knew you would be forever treated as an outsider. Do I have your word that you will abide by my wishes?”
Desperate tears had filled his father’s eyes, which made Walker swallow the heated words threatening to fly.
After years of hell toiling aboard a British man-of-war and then sitting in a stinking prison when he’d had no say over his life, his own destiny, it was all he could do once again to nod his head. Yet if his acquiescence brought peace to his father’s last days, he would agree to it.
Already the duke appeared to have relaxed, and he indicated for Walker to hand him his glass of brandy.
“Your late mother, Anne, was the daughter of a marquess, our marriage arranged for us by our parents. It wasn’t love at first, but we learned to care for each other deeply. I will not go so far as to arrange your marriage, but you know my wishes. Your mother would have wished the same for you—I told you that she never gave up hope that she might see you again. Andrew’s death simply proved too much for her.” Charles sighed heavily, but then seemed to draw himself up in his chair and raised his glass to Walker with trembling fingers. “To your noble bride, the future Duchess of Summerlin!”
Walker answered his father by raising his own glass, though it was a hard thing to bring it to his lips. Charles seemed to have no such trouble, and to Walker’s surprise he even uttered a dry laugh after downing a good swallow.
“I can imagine the uproar you will cause once the ladies of the ton and their marriageable daughters catch their first glimpse of you—though I doubt Lady Belinda will allow anyone else near you.”
“Lady Belinda?”
“Andrew’s betrothed. Your mother didn’t really care for her, but there was no question that she came from one of the finest families in England. A beauty, too. Blond, regal…and quite determined to become Andrew’s bride. Her father, Sebastian Cavendish, the Earl of Stratham, is rumored to have gambled away much of the family wealth but their lineage is impeccable.”
“So no love match for my brother, but a beautiful fortune hunter.”
“Love rarely enters into these arrangements, Alexander, ah, but who can say? Belinda went into mourning after Andrew died and eventually allowed others to court her—my late brother’s only son, Russell, among them. You’ll meet him soon. Yet she spurned her suitors when word spread of Lord Donovan’s inquiry about you. She’s been waiting some time to meet you…quite anxiously, I’ve heard. Perhaps, my dear son, the happy day of your marriage is closer than you think.”
Happy day? As Charles took another shaky sip of brandy, Walker drank, too, emptying his glass with one swallow.
Damnation! His father’s miracle was beginning to look like more of a curse after all.