Page 160 of The Dueling Duchess

“I was waiting for you.”

“Well, here I am.” He squinted into the gloom and could just make out the shape of her. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m sorry I asked you to leave today.”

Her voice sounded so small and sad and . . . un-Cecile-like that guilt at his disappearance flooded him.

“You needn’t be sorry, darling. Your inheritance is none of my concern and I wasn’t behaving very well, in any case.”

He heard her moving before he saw her coming toward him, the light from the lantern outside the door fracturing in the leaded glass sidelight and illuminating her face, which looked drawn and haggard.

“What’s wrong, love? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

She gave a watery chuckle. “In a sense I have. My mother is alive—and I have a sister.”

“What?”

She nodded.

“I thought you didn’t have any siblings.”

“So did I.” Her eyes looked glassy even in the gloom. “I learned today that my parents were estranged because my mother did not want my father teaching me his craft. They separated and each of them kept a child. Can you imagine doing that? Splitting up your family as if they were nothing more than a litter of kittens?” Guy reached for her, and she immediately fell into his arms. “I have an entire family I never even knew existed,” she mumbled into his shoulder. “Not just a mother and a sister, but aunts, uncles, and scores of cousins.”

He stroked her hair, unable to come up with the right words.

“And then there is Gaston’s family.”

“Gaston? Who is—oh, the duke.” Guy ground his teeth at the thought of her being on a first-name basis with the smug, far-too-handsome Frenchman.

Behave yourself! he mentally chided.

“What about him, darling?”

“His family is enormous, and they’ve been hiding for decades. Now they are finally able to return home, only to discover they’ve been cheated out of their inheritance thanks to the duke’s will.”

“It was the duke’s decision, and it was his property to dispose of however he pleased. He didn’t cheat them and neither did you.”

“I know that is true. But I can’t help thinking he would not have left his fortune to me if he’d had even a small hope of his family ever returning—or having anything to return to. Without that land there is nothing to support the château, Guy. Gaston would have to sell it, and his family would be left with nowhere to live yet again.”

He put her away from him just far enough to see her face. “What are you trying to say, Cecile?”

She shook her head and sniffed, pulling a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbing at her nose. “I don’t know. This is just so much to take in.”

“You don’t have to decide everything tonight. There’s plenty of—”

“No, there isn’t plenty of time. Gaston received his rights back to the property, but it is horribly encumbered and—don’t ask me to explain it all, but Monsieur Dumas says the creditors have begun some sort of legal proceeding and will take the château before the end of the summer.”

“Well, that’s a shame, but—”

“You don’t understand, Guy—my mother and all that side of the family still live on the duke’s property, they have been there all this time and I never even knew about them. You see, they lived far away from the château itself on one of the duke’s tenant farms. But if these creditors take over, they will have to leave their home.”

Guy had a sick feeling in his stomach. “What are you thinking, Cecile?”

“Gaston’s family will have to challenge the marriage in order to get the money necessary to fight the proceedings, but that will take years and the château will be lost in the meantime. I can’t allow that to happen if there is any way I can stop it.”

He didn’t speak. What in the world could he say that wouldn’t betray his feelings—his selfish desire?

“It sounds like you are planning to go to France.”