The Duke's Secret Heir

Max knew Fred was referring to the musket ball lodged near his lung, the reason for his current ill health. He said, ‘I expected to find you at Sulphur Well this morning.’

There was a slight but definite pause, then Georgie said quietly, ‘He was too weak to walk that far this morning.’

‘Nothing serious,’ said Fred quickly, when Max frowned. ‘I have been trotting too hard, that is all.’

‘When we arrived back last night he could hardly manage the stairs to bed,’ Georgie told Max. ‘He was no better this morning so I summoned Dr Ingram. He has promised to visit us later.’

Frederick gave a huff of impatience. ‘And he will tell you what we already know, that I must expect to be up and down.’ He glanced at Max. ‘Georgie blames herself for keeping me out so late last night, but dash it all, Max, I do not want to sit at home like an invalid, waiting to die.’

‘But perhaps you should have left a little earlier,’ Max suggested.

‘When everyone was having such a good time? Never. It does me good to be amongst my friends. I was particularly glad to see you and Ellen Furnell getting on so well. I have to admit you made a very handsome couple on the dance floor. She’s a dashed fine woman, ain’t she? And Georgie’s closest friend, you know.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Our children are almost the same age so we have much in common,’ Georgie explained.

‘That is good, because I wanted to ask you about her.’

‘What’s this?’ Frederick looked up from the sliver of ham that he was pushing around his plate. ‘Are you interested in the beautiful Mrs Furnell? I vow I shall take it very ill if you throw over m’sister for the golden widow!’

Max could not smile. He knew his friend was funning, but the words flicked him on the raw. How was he to tell his friend he was married and had been for four years? Thankfully, he was saved from replying by the news that Dr Ingram had arrived.

‘So the old sawbones is here, is he?’ Frederick wiped his mouth and put down his napkin. ‘I’ll see him in the sitting room. No sense in climbing all those stairs again. No, no, stay there, Max. Georgie will be back to keep you company in a moment.’

Max watched as Georgie hurried to help her husband to his feet. He noticed how heavily Fred leaned on her shoulder as they went slowly from the room and when she returned a few minutes later there was an anxious crease in her brow.

He said bluntly, ‘He has grown much weaker, even in the few days I have been in Harrogate.’

‘Yes.’ She sat down at the table and poured herself another cup of coffee. Her hands were trembling slightly, but she spoke calmly enough. ‘The bullet has shifted; he cannot breathe so well now. Dr Ingram thinks it will move again, and next time it might be...be fatal.’

‘Is there nothing that can be done? If it is a question of money—’

She shook her head. ‘Thank you, Your Grace, but, no, that would not help. If Fred could be induced to lie in bed and never move then his life might be prolonged, but he says that would be worse than anything. He is getting progressively weaker. Dr Ingram thinks it cannot go on more than a few weeks.’ She hunted for her handkerchief. ‘For myself I am resigned to it, but I hate to think of little Charlotte growing up without her father.’

‘Oh, Georgie, I am so sorry.’

‘Your Grace is too kind.’

‘It is Max,’ he said, grief adding a touch of impatience to his voice. ‘You know how much I hate formality.’

She gave a watery chuckle. ‘I shall try to remember. I wanted to thank you for coming to Harrogate. It has cheered Fred a great deal to have your company. He won’t ask you himself, but I know he would like you to be here until... until the end.’ She wiped her eyes and smiled bravely. ‘That is why I was so pleased you came to the ball last night. You seemed very taken with Ellen Furnell and I hoped she might encourage you to prolong your stay.’

He felt a frown gathering. ‘If I remain in Harrogate, it will be for Fred’s sake and yours. But I did want to ask you about Mrs Furnell.’ He saw the sudden lift of her brows and said quickly, ‘Please—ask me no questions, Georgie, not yet. Just tell me what you know of her.’

‘I cannot tell you a great deal. She was here when Frederick and I arrived and has been in Harrogate a number of years, I believe. We became acquainted almost immediately, because of the children.’ She smiled. ‘I like her very much, she has been so kind to Fred and me. Oh, I know they call her the golden widow, which sounds so very frivolous, but she is very well respected. Truly, she is admired by everyone and gives generously to good causes.’

‘A paragon, then.’

‘You sound disapproving, but I assure you I have never seen any evidence of artifice or ill breeding in her. Since we have been in Harrogate, Ellen has been a very good friend and heaven knows I have needed one.’

‘Yes of course, I beg your pardon,’ said Max. ‘Do you know anything of her husband?’

‘Ellen was already a widow when she first came here, I believe, and her little boy was born here. He is a little older than my Charlotte and will be four in the autumn.’

Her little boy. His son. Something unfamiliar slammed into Max’s gut, surprising him with its violence.

‘Your Grace? Is anything wrong?’

Max saw the innocent enquiry in Georgie’s eyes and knew it was time to tell the truth.

* * *

Ellen waved away the freshly baked muffins that Snow was offering to her. She had no appetite for breakfast, having spent a sleepless night trying to find a solution to the horrors that pressed upon her. Max’s arrival had turned her world upside down. She would set her lawyers to look again at the army records, but in her heart she had no doubt that what Max had told her was true and he was as unhappy as she about the situation.

She felt physically sick with regret. If she had trusted him, they might now be living very happily together, but it was too late for that. She had killed his love, she must face up to the fact and to the future. It did not look very bright, but many couples entered into loveless marriages. She would survive. And at least he was not going to take Jamie away from her—that must be her consolation.

Ellen glanced at the clock. He would be here soon and then she would learn her fate. Most likely she and Jamie would be whisked away to one of his estates, where they would live in seclusion while the shocking news was announced. It would cause uproar, she had no doubt. At some point she must be presented at Court as the new Duchess of Rossenhall and she would have to face the sly remarks and tittle-tattle, but she knew enough of her world to be sure that her story would eventually be eclipsed by another scandal and she would be able to get on with her life.

But what life? Max had been her first, her only love. There had been so many suitors, most of them concerned only with her fortune, but none had ever touched her heart. She had grown up hedged about by warnings that gentlemen would court her for her fortune and she had never found it difficult to keep them at bay. She had developed a protective shell, always laughing, always smiling, until she had fallen in love with Major Max Colnebrooke and let down her defences. She had thought he loved her for herself. She had not told him of her immense fortune, and, although he had said he was the younger brother of a duke, their respective backgrounds had seemed unimportant, a world away from the reality of love under a desert sky. Ellen loved Max from the first moment she saw him and married him without a second thought. If the marriage was legal then everything she owned now belonged to her husband. Even her son. She must make her peace with the Duke, for Jamie’s sake.

She heard the thud of the knocker and carefully put down her half-empty coffee cup. It was time. Snow had instructions to show the Duke into the drawing room and she went there to join him, pausing momentarily outside the door to smooth down her gown and take a deep, steadying breath.

Max was standing before the fireplace when she went in. He was staring moodily at the carpet and when he looked up his expression did not change. Formality and good manners dictated how she should behave. She sank into a deep curtsy.

‘Your Grace.’ Silence. ‘Will you not sit down?’ Ellen perched on the edge of a chair and folded her hands in her lap, trying to look composed. ‘I must tell you how much I...regret...the misunderstandings that have occurred between us.’

‘Ha! Regret, you call it? Treachery, more like.’

She ignored this. ‘I wish to be plain with you, Your Grace. To tell you the truth.’

‘No doubt that will be a novelty for you, madam.’

Ellen winced at his sarcasm.

‘I never lied to you and I will not do so now,’ she said quietly. ‘There never was a Mr Furnell. I never married. When I discovered I was carrying your—our—child, I decided to pose as a widow.’

He looked at her hands. ‘Where is the ring I bought you—did you discard it, sell it, perhaps?’

‘No. It is in my jewel box.’

Ellen thought of the heavy gold ring he had given her, engraved with Arabic characters she could not read but that he had told her said ‘I love you’. Crossing the Mediterranean in the French frigate she had more than once wanted to throw the ring into the sea, but she had kept it, clinging on to the hope that when she was back in England she might be able to prove he had not lied to her, that he really was the man he purported to be. By the time her enquiries were concluded, and her lawyers had told her that Major Max Colnebrooke could not have been in Egypt that winter, she knew she was pregnant and she had put the ring carefully away. It was the only token she had of the child’s father. Now she glanced at the plain gold band on her finger.

‘I thought this was more in keeping for a respectable English widow.’

‘A very rich English widow.’ Her eyes flew to his face and he continued. ‘You say you never lied to me, but you will admit you omitted to tell me the extent of your fortune. I only discovered it once I set about looking for you in England.’

She could not resist saying bitterly, ‘Yet for all my wealth I am not considered a suitable consort for a duke.’