“No, no,” Eversley squawked. “My point is that my real son, my true son, would make a better duke. I should have the right to choose!” He looked around the table wildly. “This—this serpent who calls himself my son refused to break the entail as well, so the family of my heart will be left destitute. The poorhouse awaits!”
“You left the duchy and estates to the care of my mother and myself over two decades ago,” Thaddeus said, sounding impatient now. “Your allowance has been more than adequate to support your current household, and I shall continue it.”
“Not to mention all those ermine robes,” Jeremy put in. “Royal regalia is bloody expensive.”
“Your other children are my half siblings,” Thaddeus added. “I will not condemn them to destitution.”
“This is growing tiresome,” the Duchess of Lindow said in her clear, calm voice. “I believe that we have granted His Grace a sufficient audience.” She raised her hand. “Prism, if you would be so kind as to escort the duke to a bedchamber. Or his carriage, if he would prefer.”
Eversley’s eyes kindled with rage, and his wizened hands gripped the arms of the chair as if he expected the butler to try to rip him from his seat. “I intend to send an announcement to the Morning Post, to be published after my death, explaining that I married Florence before my family forced me into a false union! Your mother won’t be happy,” he spat at Thaddeus.
He lifted a visibly shaking hand in the air and clawed inside his waistcoat before he drew out a folded piece of parchment. “Here it is!” he screeched. “It’ll be in all the stationery shops in London. I closed it with the ducal seal, so no one can question it.”
“Oh, they’ll question it,” the Duke of Lindow said. “I don’t know where you got the idea that the ducal seal is more than a picture pressed into wax.”
“I can eliminate that threat,” Viola’s husband, Devin, said. “I keep a sharp eye on all the printing presses in London since my wife is not fond of seeing her image in stationery shops’ windows. It’s the work of a moment to send a groom around to each. I’ll have a man in London by noon tomorrow.”
“That’s right!” the Duke of Lindow said. “I’ll send along a man as well, with instructions for my solicitor. They will inform every newspaper in London that publication of such an announcement will result in immediate and expensive legal challenges. Financial ruin will follow any such publication.” He turned to Thaddeus. “My wedding present to you.”
Thaddeus let go of Joan and stood, smiling at Devin and the Duke of Lindow. “Thank you both.” Then he turned to his father. “Eversley, your cruelty to my mother has been documented in the press. Should this publication happen, she would be pained, but unsurprised. The rest of England would be disgusted, but also unsurprised.”
“The Wildes will support the rightful heir to the Eversley dukedom,” the Duke of Lindow said, standing as well. Then he added, “The heir who plans to marry my daughter, although he has unaccountably neglected to ask me for her hand.”
Joan rose and leaned against Thaddeus’s shoulder, winding an arm around his waist. “As a matter of fact, I have not yet agreed to marry him.”
Around the table the family jumped to their feet in a clamor of congratulations, completely ignoring her disavowal.
Thaddeus met the Duke of Lindow’s eyes, nodding, before he turned back to his own father.
Eversley gave Thaddeus a burning look, closed his eyes, and slumped back in his chair, rubbing his heart. “The newspapers won’t be able to resist it.” He closed his eyes. “Sharper than a serpent’s tooth is a thankless child.” He gasped for breath and managed to bellow, “You are no longer a son of mine!” before he collapsed back against his chair, eyes closed.
Prism stepped forward. Six footmen arranged themselves around Eversley’s chair.
“Out,” the Duke of Lindow said, unemotionally.
Without ceremony, they hoisted the invalid into the air and whisked him out the door.
“I can’t decide whether your father’s side whiskers, his ermine, or his arrogance is more objectionable,” the Duchess of Lindow said, giving Thaddeus a wry smile. “I am glad that your mother missed this distasteful performance.” She turned to the butler. “Prism, we have always taken comfort in the fact that our household has never betrayed us to the press. I must ask you to make it clear that Lord Greywick is a member of the family and should be protected as if he were a Wilde.”
“On that front, I gather you have something to ask me,” the Duke of Lindow said to Thaddeus, throwing a meaningful look at Joan.
“No, he doesn’t,” his daughter retorted. “I haven’t accepted his proposal. Perhaps I shan’t.”
Thaddeus consciously relaxed his jaw, the anger spurred by his father’s behavior coursing through him, making it difficult to engage in the Wildes’ version of light badinage.
Joan glanced up at him and slid her arm from around his waist. “If you please, Thaddeus, escort me on a visit to Percy.”
“Percy?” Thaddeus ripped his attention from the memory of his father—his father—renouncing him. He had never been a true son of Eversley’s. As a child, he couldn’t understand his father’s languid disdain, any more than he could understand why his parents lived separately. Thaddeus had consequently devoted his life to the pursuit of perfection, the perfect son, the perfect athlete, the perfect scholar.
To no avail.
“Our piglet,” Joan clarified, slipping a hand in his arm and guiding him toward the door. “If you’ll excuse us,” she called behind her.
They walked into the corridor and out of the castle without another word.
Chapter Twenty
Joan loved to act; ergo, she ought to enjoy drama when it came her way.
That was not the case. She felt ill at the revelation of Eversley’s hard heart and selfish demands. “How did your mother ever bear living with him?” she asked Thaddeus, as they walked around the side of the castle, heading for the cowshed where Percy resided.
“They weren’t in the same household for long,” he replied. “Only until she gave birth to a son. I believe that his parents managed to exert some sort of promise that he would remain at Eversley Court until an heir was born, but no one ever spoke of it.”
The night was lit by a near-harvest moon that cast a silvery glow over the grass. To their left, light shone from a few windows in the castle, but most were dark. A breeze was rustling the poplar trees, and somewhere an owl announced the start of a hunt.
Percy had been housed in a fine shed built for Viola’s two beloved cows. Thaddeus hung the lantern he had brought with him from a nail in a beam, so it could light the small room.
Joan walked straight over to the pen. Percy was nestled against the side of a sleeping heifer, but he bounded to his feet and came over to sniff her hand, his mouth curled in an eternal grin. “You’re growing up, Percy old fellow. He’s losing his fuzz,” she added, over her shoulder.
The only answer was a hard thump behind her that caused the shed timbers to shiver. Percy gave a squeal and ran back across the pen to press his body against his friendly bedmate.