Alexander was used to having many demands made on him. It came with being a duke. He had eight estates, each with tenants and employees, and although he had secretaries and men of business and bailiffs and stewards, ultimately all decisions rested with him. And if it was the Duke of Vickery’s responsibility to foster his estates, it was Alexander St. Clare’s purpose to bring an end to child labor. He’d written letters and given speeches, had campaigned and petitioned, had forged ahead, every month a little closer to his goal.

His days had been filled with things that needed to be done but he’d never had any difficulty holding it all in his head, in deciding what to do first, what second, what third. He’d never felt harried or harassed, never felt overwhelmed.

He felt overwhelmed now. Everything was chaotic in his mind. It was a relief to cede control, to let Lord Dalrymple arrange accommodation in Lansallos, to not have to make any decisions, to be told that this was where they were staying for the night, and that this afternoon they’d do nothing more strenuous than walk down to the cove.

The walking was a relief, too—to be outside, to simply be putting one foot in front of the other, no need to think or talk or make decisions. Not that his brain was silent. I am Charley Prowse. The name went round and round in his head. Charley Prowse. Charley Prowse.

It didn’t feel like his name. Didn’t feel like him.

They followed a cool, shady woodland path with a creek burbling alongside. Alexander walked mechanically, his boots crushing bright yellow celandine flowers. After some time they emerged into sunlight. A tiny part of Alexander’s mind noted that this was a clifftop meadow and that the sea was close by; the rest of his attention was occupied by his new name, his new history, his new family. “The landlord says there’s a cutting that leads down to the cove,” he dimly heard Lord Dalrymple say. “Shall we?”

Alexander didn’t care where they went. I am Charley Prowse. Charley Prowse. He followed the Dalrymples, placing his feet automatically, oblivious to the beauty of the day. The path sloped downward, banks rose on either side, the sky was blotted out, his left shoulder brushed rock, his right shoulder brushed rock—

Abruptly, all his attention refocused on the here and now.

He was in a tunnel. A dark tunnel. A dark, narrow tunnel.

Georgiana’s voice echoed ahead. “How quaint this is.”

Alexander froze. Memory swept through him: soot in his eyes, soot in his nose and mouth, the rough warmth of bricks pressing close, no way forward, no way back. No light to see by. No air to breathe.

His panic was absolute. It consumed him utterly. Alexander turned and blundered his way back up the tunnel, bruising himself on stone. He burst out into daylight, bent over, and vomited, his stomach emptying itself violently.

When the paroxysms had finished, he straightened and wiped his mouth, shaking convulsively, gasping for breath. The panic retreated and a measure of sanity returned. He turned and looked at the dark hole he’d escaped from. It wasn’t a chimney, or even a tunnel, but a cutting in the rock, narrow enough that wiry mats of grass met overhead, blocking out the sun.

Alexander discovered that he was crying, hot salty tears that he could no more control than he’d been able to control the vomiting. The taste of tears and bile mixed in his mouth. He scrubbed at his face with shaking hands. “Fuck,” he said hoarsely. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” All that panic because a few blades of grass blocked the sun.

The terror had vanished the moment he’d burst out into daylight, but it had left behind a residue: despair, exhaustion, defeat, a sense that he’d completely lost control of his life, that he was as powerless as he’d been when he was four-and-a-half years old and forced to climb chimneys.

“Vic?” Georgiana emerged from the cutting, closely followed by her father. “Are you all right?”

His humiliation was now complete. Alexander turned away, rubbing his face fiercely, trying to hide the tears.

“Vic, what is it? What’s wrong?” He heard concern in her voice. Concern because she didn’t know the truth, didn’t know that what was wrong was him, that he was twenty-nine years old but he still had his child’s terror of the dark.

Alexander had known two nights ago in the scullery that he couldn’t marry her, and he knew it again now, with utter, stone-hard certainty. And if he told her what was wrong with him, Georgiana would know it, too.

So tell her, a voice said bitterly in his head. You owe her the truth.

“Vic.” He felt a tentative touch on his sleeve. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m afraid of the dark,” he said, and felt shame, such shame, shame in his chest, shame in his belly, shame.

“What?”

He turned to face her, knowing what he must look like, flushed and tearstained. “What’s wrong is that I’m afraid of the dark.” His voice was loud, almost a shout. “I can’t go down there.”

Both Georgiana and her father glanced at the cutting and back at him. He saw astonishment and confusion on Georgiana’s face . . . and dawning understanding on Lord Dalrymple’s.

“Alexander,” he said, “it’s all right—”

“No,” Alexander said. “It’s not all right.” He turned and walked away from them.

* * *

He walked fast, almost running, and once he knew he was out of sight, he did run. Not to get away from the Dalrymples but to distance himself from the moment when Georgiana had seen him for who he truly was. He ran until his chest was burning, then staggered to a halt and bent over, hands braced on his knees, lungs heaving.

When he’d finally caught his breath, he straightened and wiped the sweat from his face and looked around. He was in a clifftop meadow fringed with hedgerows and trees. The sea was a vivid, sparkling blue and buttercups were bright in the grass. Alexander stared at the beauty surrounding him and felt despair and defeat. I pretend to be a man, but I’m not one. And now Georgiana knew.

He closed his eyes, remembering the shock on both their faces.

Oh, Christ, he’d practically shouted at them.

Alexander shoved his hands through his hair. “Fuck,” he said, out loud.

At least he hadn’t stayed to see the shock on their faces transform to disgust.

If you’re going to do something, do it well, his father had always told him. Well, if he’d had to burn his bridges, at least he’d done it thoroughly, crying in front of the Dalrymples, raising his voice at them, running away.

“Fuck,” he said again.

He’d have to face them. Of course he had to, at the very least to apologize, but he wasn’t ready for that moment yet, and so he kept walking.

After half a mile, he came to an empty country road. There was no signpost in sight, but he didn’t have to be a genius to know that turning left would take him back to Lansallos and turning right would take him further away.

He went right, striding fast, his boots crunching in the dry dirt and throwing up puffs of dust.

The road sidled closer and closer to the cliffs until there was nothing between it and the sea but an eighty-foot drop. Alexander went to stand on the very edge. The sea breeze was strong, buffeting him back. He had to lean into it to stay upright. Waves crashed on the rocks below. He stared down at them. Why aren’t I afraid of this?

He should be. An eighty-foot cliff, not sheer but close enough, with the occasional thorn bush sprouting from the rock. If he fell, he’d die.

But heights had never been something he’d feared.

Alexander sighed, and stepped away from the edge.

The road turned inland after a quarter of a mile. Alexander stayed by the cliffs, following a rough path. A riding officer’s path, most likely. To deter smugglers.

But he saw no riding officers, or smugglers. Only sheep. And after an hour he came to a sizable fishing village. I could get lost there, Alexander thought, looking down at the busy harbor and the stone houses climbing the hillside. Be someone other than who I am.

It was tempting. Very tempting. To leave Alexander St. Clare behind and simply become Charley Prowse. To never return to Thornycombe. To never see Georgiana again.

Except that if Georgiana wanted to find him, all she had to do was ask herself where he was. And he couldn’t do that to her, anyway—just vanish from her life. Not after what had happened to Hubert.

He sighed, and walked down to the village.

* * *

Alexander had a handful of coins in his pocket. He spent one of them on a pint of ale. It was only after he’d drained the tankard that he took note of his surroundings. The tavern was a working man’s one, a primitive place with rough trestle tables and a dirt floor.

Alexander drank his second pint more slowly, observing the other patrons. They were an uncouth lot, loud in their laughter, inclined to rowdiness, their accents so thick that it was almost impossible to understand what they were saying.

I would have been one of these men, he thought. If Joe and Martha hadn’t died, he could have been sitting here right now.

There was an odd, disorienting moment when he felt as if two of him sat in the taproom, one dressed in the trappings of wealth—a coat of blue superfine, soft buckskin breeches, the best top boots Hoby could make—while the other wore a coarse smock and rough leather breeches and wooden clogs. The first man, the wealthy one, sat off to one side; the other man didn’t. He was part of the crowd, laughing with his friends.

The noise grew louder, there was a general stir of movement, men were standing, calling across the taproom to one another, picking up their tankards, jostling each other in the doorway.

Alexander sorted through the few words he’d understood.

“A boxing match?” he asked the tapster.

“Aye,” the man said. “A turnup, out back.”

Alexander picked up his own tankard and drifted outside.

The boxing match was a friendly one, but friendly or not, one man ended up with a bloody nose, the other a blackening eye. Grinning and winded, they reclaimed their tankards. There was some good-natured shoving, a little heckling, and two more men stepped forward and squared off against each other.

Alexander stood and watched and drank his ale, part of the crowd but not part of it. No one jostled him, no one spoke to him.

The men fighting had impressive physiques, but no form at all. Alexander winced as a punch went glaringly wide, winced again as an opening was missed.

When that match was over, Alexander put down his tankard. He took off his coat, his waistcoat, his neckcloth. God only knew where his hat was. Probably back at the cutting.

He rolled up his shirt-sleeves and stepped forward.

The laughter and the heckling stopped. Silence fell. Everyone was staring at him.

Alexander waited, but no one stepped forward to fight him. “What?” he said finally. “No one here wants to hit me?”

Someone snorted, someone else laughed. Of course they wanted to hit him, the stranger in their midst with the expensive clothes and the aristocrat’s voice.

A man stepped forward. He was about Alexander’s age, about his height, with weather-beaten skin and big, calloused hands. He put up his fists. “I’ll fight yer.”

* * *

Alexander had had boxing lessons since he was eight years old. He wasn’t an outstanding boxer, but he was a good one. He won the bout in less than three minutes, sending the man off with a bloody nose. After that, everyone wanted to take a turn with him. When he was still unvanquished after four more bouts, someone handed him a tankard of ale. Someone else asked him his name. “Charley,” he said, and gulped down the ale.

He had two more bouts, sweating and panting, laying down his last opponent with a cross-buttock throw, then spent the next half hour repeating the move over and over with men who wanted to learn it. Some of them smelled of fish and some of them of sheep and all of them of ale and old sweat, but at this moment there was no difference between himself and them. His accent and his clothes meant nothing. He was one of them.

Someone pressed another tankard into his hand. He drank thirstily.

“You wrestle?” asked the man he’d first fought, his bleeding nose now staunched.

“Never tried it,” Alexander said.

“Want ter try?”

“Absolutely.” He drained the tankard and wiped his mouth with the back of one hand. “Now?”

A ring of men formed around them. There was laughter and good-natured teasing and a sense of anticipation, as if a spectacle was about to be witnessed.

“Ready?”

“Ready,” Alexander said.

Ten seconds later he found himself on his back in the dirt, winded and wheezing. His opponent helped him to his feet, grinning.

“What the devil was that?” Alexander said, once he’d caught his breath.

“Cornish wrestling.”

Everyone wanted a chance to toss him on his back in the dirt, but each toss taught him something. Alexander collected a bloody nose and some bruises—and experience. Cornish wrestling was about speed and brute strength and footwork and shifting one’s weight at the right time, but most of all it was about leverage. When he finally brought someone to the ground, he hooted with glee. Several men slapped him on the back. Someone shoved another tankard into his hand. He drank it, bruised, bloodied, and elated.

* * *

It was almost dusk by the time Alexander returned to Lansallos—by farm cart. He wasn’t drunk, but he was fuddled. Definitely fuddled. He climbed carefully down at the crossroads, thanked the man, and fumbled his last coin from his pocket.

The cart rattled away. Alexander stood, swaying slightly. He was beginning to feel his bruises. He cautiously fingered his nose. It didn’t feel swollen.

He squinted at the inn, squinted at the church, and chose the church. He climbed the path, found his family’s grave, and stood looking at it. He didn’t feel like Alexander St. Clare anymore. He felt like Charley Prowse.

“Alexander?”

He turned quickly, almost lost his balance, caught himself. “Sir.”

Lord Dalrymple looked him up and down. “Been in a fight, have you?”

“Wrestling.” He squared his shoulders and steeled himself for the dressing down he deserved. “I apologize for my behavior this afternoon, sir. It was unpardonable.”

“Was it?” Dalrymple smiled faintly. “Sit down, Alexander. We need to talk.”

Sit?

He stood bemused for a moment, then followed Lord Dalrymple to a stone bench outside the church, warm in the last of the day’s sun.

Lord Dalrymple sat. Alexander sat, too, aware of how disheveled he was, how grimy, aware that he stank of his own sweat and other men’s sweat and blood and dirt and ale.

Lord Dalrymple didn’t seem to mind. “Thank you for your apology,” he said, “but it’s quite unnecessary. The apology is mine to make. Leonard told me about your dislike of the dark years ago. I should have remembered.”

Alexander stared down at his hands. Dirty hands, with a smear of dried blood across the knuckles. “I’m twenty-nine,” he said. “I shouldn’t still be afraid of the dark.”

“I’m fifty-seven,” Lord Dalrymple said, “and I shouldn’t be afraid of heights, but I am.”

Alexander remembered the clifftop road and the eighty-foot drop, remembered standing on the very edge and leaning into the wind.

“Age has nothing to do with it, Alexander. I once saw a man older than either of us faint at the sight of blood.”

Alexander studied the blood on his hands, and then glanced at Dalrymple.

“Intelligence has nothing to do with it, either. A chap I was at Oxford with—Smythe’s his name, brilliant mathematician—is terrified of birds. I remember a sparrow flew into the room once, tiny little thing . . .” Dalrymple measured the size between forefinger and thumb. “Smythe completely panicked, ran out of the room with his hands over his head. He was mortified afterwards, poor fellow.”

Alexander considered this for a moment.

“We all fear different things, and your fear of the dark is nothing to be ashamed of. Smythe has no reason to fear birds, and yet he does.” Dalrymple’s voice became quieter, gentler: “You have a very good reason to be afraid of the dark, and no one will think less of you because you do. Believe me.”

For some reason Alexander’s eyes filled with tears. He looked down at his hands again, blinking fiercely.

Lord Dalrymple was silent for almost a minute, then he said, “Oliver got stuck up a tree once, when he was five. It was Miranda who rescued him, not me. I couldn’t.” Another minute passed, and then Dalrymple said, “There aren’t any words to express how ashamed I felt that day. My own son, and I was too afraid to climb a tree. What you said today . . . it’s what I told Miranda afterwards.”

Alexander heard his own words replay in his head. No. It’s not all right.

“Do you know what she said?”

He glanced at Lord Dalrymple again and shook his head.

“Pish pash. Stop being so silly.” Dalrymple huffed a laugh. “She couldn’t understand why I was so upset about it.” His face twisted. “Oh, God, my own son.”

Alexander reached out and touched Lord Dalrymple’s arm. “Sir . . .”

Lord Dalrymple managed a smile. He laid his hand over Alexander’s. “The point I’m trying to make, Alexander, is that sometimes it’s easier to accept flaws in other people than it is in oneself. You’re afraid of the dark, and you find that hard to accept, but I want you to know that we accept it, and we don’t think any the less of you because of it.”

Alexander’s throat grew very tight.

“Do you understand?” Lord Dalrymple asked.

“Yes,” he managed to say.

“Good.” Dalrymple smiled, and patted his hand. “I’ve known you since you were seven years old. I think of you almost as my own son. Sometimes I forget that I don’t know you as well as I think I do. I’m sorry about this afternoon.”

“Don’t be, sir.” Alexander’s throat was still tight. He hesitated, and then blurted: “I think of you almost as my father, too.”

Lord Dalrymple was silent for a moment, and then he said, “Thank you.”

“I hadn’t realized all that you’ve done for me until I read my father’s diaries. He said . . . you didn’t send Oliver to school because of me.”

“Is that what he said?” Dalrymple smiled. “It’s not quite true. I didn’t want to send Oliver to school. Your father’s proposal suited me perfectly.” His smile faded. “Do you know what school taught me? It taught me about bullying. It wasn’t a lesson I wanted Oliver to learn—and he would have learned it, believe me. And you would have, too.” Dalrymple grimaced faintly. “You’re so big now that it’s hard to believe you were the child you were. But you were that child, Alexander. I remember the first time I saw you—so small and thin and pale and . . . and fragile. You would have been bullied, duke’s son or not, and Oliver would have, too, for his quietness, and I was glad to accept Leonard’s offer and have Oliver tutored alongside you. And you can believe Cathcart was glad, too—there’s no way he could have afforded to educate Hubert properly—so don’t think that Cathcart or I made choices we regretted for our sons. What suited Leonard suited us.”

Alexander stared at him, and then said, “Was it that bad for you? School?”

Dalrymple grimaced again. “It was an ordeal.”

“I’m sorry.” He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. Such a banal offering.

Dalrymple shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

Even so. Thought of this quiet, intelligent man being bullied made Alexander’s throat tighten again. He looked away, and stared across the graveyard. “That’s not the only time you altered my life. I read Father’s diary from 1804. Maria Brougham.”

Dalrymple said nothing.

“I should thank you,” Alexander said. “I came very close to offering for her. I might be married to her if you hadn’t . . . intervened.”

“Meddled is the word you’re looking for,” Dalrymple told him.

“Meddled, then,” Alexander conceded. “And if I’d known at the time I’d have been furious. But now . . . God, I almost offered for her!” He rubbed his face. His nose hurt. “I wasn’t very wise when I was nineteen.”

“None of us are,” Dalrymple said.

“I almost fought a duel over her. Did you know? With Harry Honeycourt of all people.” He grunted a sour laugh, rubbed his face painfully again. “Oh, God.”

“You were nineteen,” Dalrymple said. “And she was very beautiful.”

“She wanted a duke. Any duke.”

Dalrymple said nothing.

“Thank you for telling Father to get me out of London.”

“You’re welcome,” Dalrymple said.

They sat silently for several minutes, while the shadows lengthened on the ground. The last of the day’s sunlight was mellow and golden, looking almost thick enough to touch. Alexander thought about Maria Brougham, beautiful and poisonous, and then he thought about Georgiana, who was pretty rather than beautiful, and who was funny and sweet and thoughtful and wise and perfect.

Regret gathered in his chest.

The light changed, became duller, less golden. The sun had set. Darkness would soon descend.

Lord Dalrymple rose to his feet. “You’ll dine with us?”

Alexander hesitated. He could wash the sweat and dirt and blood off, but . . . “I’ve had too much to drink. I don’t want Georgiana to see me like this.” And then, because he owed Lord Dalrymple the truth, he blurted: “I know I asked your permission to propose to her, but I can’t. I can’t marry her.”

“No?” Lord Dalrymple looked down at him gravely. “Because of this afternoon?”

That was part of it, but not the whole. “Because of everything,” Alexander said. “Because of this.” He gestured at the graveyard. “Because I don’t know what I’m going to do anymore.”

“Do? About what?”

Alexander looked away from those too-acute eyes. He kneaded his hands together. “Maybe I’m better being Charley Prowse. Maybe I should give the dukedom to my cousin.”

“You can’t give it to him. You are the Duke of Vickery. The House of Lords can’t reverse peerage decisions.”

“Only because it hasn’t been done before. Maybe I could be the precedent.”

There was a long moment of silence. “Is that what you want?” Lord Dalrymple asked. “To not be a duke?”

“I don’t know.” Alexander rubbed his face roughly. “I don’t know anything anymore. Except that I can’t ask her. I just can’t.”

Another long moment of silence limped past. Alexander stared down at his scuffed, dirty boots, acutely aware of Lord Dalrymple standing in front of him.

“Have your feelings for Georgiana changed?” Dalrymple asked finally.

“No.”

“Well, then,” Dalrymple said. “No need to make any decisions tonight. Come along, let’s get back to the inn. You look in need of a bath.”