The Duchess Read online

  “Is that you?” he whispered. “Trevelyan?”

  Trevelyan removed the black cloth that covered his body and grinned at his younger brother. “None other.”

  Harry sat up then and leaned back against the padded head of the bed. “Pour me some whisky, will you? There, on that table.”

  Trevelyan went to the table and poured out two glasses nearly full of single malt Scotch, handed one to his brother, then sat on a big carved oak chair near the bed. “Is that all I get? An ‘Is that you?’ No fatted calf? No welcome home parade?”

  Harry took a deep drink of the whisky. “Does Mother know you’re here?”

  Trevelyan drained the glass and poured himself more. “No.” He narrowed his eyes at Harry. Several people had written about the intensity of Trevelyan’s eyes. Whenever people met him, it was what they remembered the most and remarked upon. His eyes were black and intense and angry.

  Harry finished his whisky. He hated scenes, hated controversy, and with the return of his brother from the dead, he knew there was going to be one hell of a fight. “She ought to know,” he said as he held out his glass for a refill.

  Trevelyan didn’t answer, but looked at his half empty glass. “I don’t plan to stay long, only long enough to recover my strength, write a bit, then I’m off.”

  Harry was beginning to fully understand what it meant that his older brother was not dead after all. He looked at Trevelyan in the pale red glow of the lamplight and he may as well have been looking at a stranger. He’d been two years old when Trevelyan was sent from home and he’d seen his brother only a few times in those intervening years. To say that Trevelyan was the family black sheep was an understatement.

  “You know, of course,” Harry said slowly, “that this makes you the duke.”

  Trevelyan snorted, telling what he thought of having a title. “You think I plan to settle down now and manage this monster of a place, as well as the others? How many of these places do you own now?”

  “Four,” Harry said quickly, studying his glass rather than looking at his brother. Trevelyan always had a way of reading a person’s innermost thoughts. And if he couldn’t read them, he could usually ask so many questions that a person was worn down by him.

  “Come on, what’s on that English mind of yours?” Trevelyan said amiably.

  “You’re as English as I am, and, besides, I’m half Scots.”

  “Is that why you’ve been running about in that damned kilt? Is your ass freezing?”

  “As a matter of fact, it is,” Harry said, smiling, then made the mistake of glancing up at his brother.

  “It’s the girl, isn’t it?” Trevelyan said.

  “What do you know of her?”

  “A bit,” Trevelyan said mysteriously.

  At that Harry began to laugh. “It was you. You were the old man she met. You were the one who caused her horse to throw her. You were the sick old man who fainted on her.” Harry sat up straighter in bed. It seemed that all his life his brother had been an adult. One of their uncles had said that Trevelyan had been born full grown, that he hadn’t wanted to bother with childhood and so had skipped it. It rather pleased Harry to hear his older brother called an “old man.”

  “You should have heard her,” Harry continued. “She was disgusted, couldn’t stop talking about the old man.”

  Trevelyan got up from his chair and walked to the far side of the room. But she didn’t tell you my name, he thought. “Do you know that she wants to write a biography of me?”

  Harry was feeling more self-confidence in the presence of his brother than he ever had in his life. “She wants to write about everything. Read about everything. You’re about the seventh or eighth man and the third woman I’ve heard who she wants to write about.” Harry paused. “Did you tell her who you were?”

  “No. I told her I was related to the family and she told me about the dead brother who may or may not have been—” He paused. “An overzealous letter writer.”

  “She does give her opinions, doesn’t she?”

  Trevelyan turned back to his brother, and his eyes were as intense as a snake’s. A man had once told Harry that he’d met Captain Baker and he could swear that the man could go for hours without blinking. “You seem to like her well enough.”

  Harry shrugged. “She’s all right, but then she is an American.”

  “And quite lovely,” Trevelyan said under his breath.

  At that Harry started to come out of the bed. “Now see here, Vellie, you can’t mean to try to take her. She’s my heiress and no one else’s.”

  Trevelyan sat back down on the chair and gave his brother a smile. “An heiress, is she? Is that why you want to marry her?”

  “One does have to keep a roof on the house. And Mother—”

  “Ah, yes, our dear mother.” Trevelyan held his glass up to the light. “How is our mother?”

  “As well as she can be.”

  “Still running everyone from her room, I gather. Has your little heiress met her yet?”

  Harry swallowed more of his whisky. “Not yet. Claire just arrived yesterday.”

  “Do you think she will like your heiress?”

  “Does it matter? Claire is suitable.”

  “For an American.”

  “At least she’s not one of those loud, brash, pushy Americans. Always talking about ways to make money. Always wanting to change things, then calling it progress.”

  “You can certainly tell that this family is against change. Grandfather’s clothes are still hanging in the wardrobe in his room, just as they were when I left here when I was nine. Tell me, is Mother still charging for the newspapers?”

  “Economies have to be made. Mother’s not bad, not really.”

  “To you she’s not,” Trevelyan said softly, and the way he said it made Harry look away.

  After a moment of silence, Harry spoke again. “What do we do now? Tell the world the second brother has come back from the grave and is to be the duke? Or perhaps, from the look of you, you’re ready to stop all your wanderings and tell the world who you are. Or have been. However you want to say it.”

  “I told you my plans. I want to rest and write, that’s all. You can be the bloody duke for all I care.” He fixed Harry with those eyes of his. “I want my expeditions financed. And, by the way, how the hell does the Prince of Wales know that Captain Frank Baker might have once been the earl of Trevelyan?”

  “Father told the queen. He thought she should know and should give you a few medals.”

  Trevelyan laughed at that. “What would I do with them?”

  “Hock them and pay for another of your trips?” Harry said, and made his brother laugh. Harry drained his glass and looked at his brother. “Honestly, Vellie, what do we do now?”

  “Vellie,” Trevelyan whispered. “No one’s called me that in a long time.” He smiled at his brother. “We don’t do anything. You keep building that big monument on the hill to your dead brother and I continue being Captain Baker. You marry your heiress and raise a few brats and put a new roof on this building.” He paused. “And you send me money for expeditions.”

  “It’ll never work. Too many people in the family know who you are. Mother knows what you do.” Harry frowned. “And look at you. You look more dead than alive. No wonder Claire thought you were an old man. You can’t continue to go on five-year expeditions into nowhere. You won’t live another three years.”

  “All the better for the family then,” Trevelyan said with some bitterness, then he leaned forward to look hard into Harry’s eyes. “You know as well as I do I’ve never been a part of this family. All I need now is a place to hide until I’m steadier on my feet, then I’ll be off again. If Captain Baker turns out to be alive after all, then it will dispel all rumors that he was part of your family. The earl of Trevelyan died months ago. Leave it at that.”

  “But when Mother hears you’re alive she’ll—”

  “Tell her someone else has assumed the identity of Cap