The Duke is Back (EBOOK)

London, May 1814

Phillip Grayson was on his way to a ball, and not just any ball, a ball where all the attendees believed he was dead. He sat inside a luxurious carriage belonging to his friend, Viscount Clayton, as the conveyance pulled to a stop in front of the Cranberrys’ town house. The Season had begun barely a fortnight ago, but this was the first event Phillip had attended. Indeed, it would be the only social event he’d been to in well over three years. He glanced out the window at the groups of finely dressed partygoers making their way toward the Cranberrys’ front door.

Phillip swallowed hard. That was a lot of people. There would be even more in the ballroom. He hadn’t been in a crowd in nearly a year. And the last one hadn’t been filled with beautifully dressed partygoers laughing and sipping champagne. Far from it. It had been on a battlefield in Spain. And he had lain dying on the packed earth, the screams of his countrymen ringing in his ears, the smell of gunpowder burning his nose while his blood soaked into the soil, and the world around him went black.

Phillip clenched his jaw. Such thoughts wouldn’t help him tonight. He must focus. He’d spent months preparing for this moment. And he was ready. He was. He needed all his wits about him. There was no telling how everyone would react to the proof that the rightful Duke of Harlowe was very much alive and (seemingly) well.

“Ready?” Clayton’s wife, Thea, asked, giving him an encouraging smile from the opposite seat. Thea was as kind as she was beautiful, with her dark hair and inquisitive gray eyes.

Phillip nodded. “I’m thankful to have you two at my side tonight.” While Phillip and Clayton had been friends since childhood, Phillip and Thea had become close while he’d recovered from his injuries over the last year. She’d reintroduced him to his horse, Alabaster, who Clayton had purchased at auction after the Arabian was returned to London from the Continent…from the war.

“Don’t worry,” Clayton said. “Follow me.”

A footman opened the door to the coach and the viscount alighted first, turning to help his lady. Phillip soon followed, smoothing a hand down his white shirt front and black waistcoat. It had been an age since he’d been dressed in such fine evening attire. His clothing had been much more casual at Clayton Manor, and before that, as a captain in the army, he’d worn a uniform for years.

“I never expected to be back here,” he said as he took a deep breath and stared up at the town house as if it were a ghost.

“The Cranberrys’ house?” Thea asked, her brow slightly furrowed.

“London,” Phillip clarified. He expelled his breath and gestured to Clayton to lead the way. “Shall we?”

Clayton started toward the front door while a hundred possible scenarios played through Phillip’s mind. How would everyone react to his arrival? He’d gone over each scenario during the last months to prepare himself, but nerves were still getting the best of him tonight. He must tamp them down. They had no place in his performance this evening. He’d spent the better part of the last year at Clayton’s estate in Devon, hidden away from London and Society, recuperating both physically and mentally from the shots that had knocked him off Alabaster in battle and nearly taken his life. He’d been planning tonight for months. It was time to take his rightful place in Society.

His wounds had healed quickly, but the worst pain had come a couple of months afterward, when he was strong enough for Clayton to inform him that his older brother, Malcolm, was dead. Not only that, but Clayton’s good friend the Marquess of Bellingham—a spy for the Home Office—had reason to believe that Malcolm had been murdered.

Until today, the only people who knew Phillip was alive were Clayton, Thea, Bellingham—known as Bell to his friends—and Bell’s superior officer at the Home Office, General Grimaldi. Grimaldi had finally allowed Phillip to quietly inform his mother just this afternoon. The poor woman had believed all this time that both her sons—her only children—were dead.

Without telling her why, Clayton had asked Phillip’s mother to visit him at his town house earlier today. The look on her face when Phillip had walked through the doors of Clayton’s drawing room had nearly made Phillip weep. She’d collapsed against the settee while Phillip had rushed over to hug her. “I’m sorry, Mother. I couldn’t tell you till now.”

Thankfully, Mother hadn’t asked many questions and had agreed to keep the news of Phillip’s return a secret until he revealed himself to Society tonight. She had reacted with pure joy this afternoon, hugging him and smoothing his hair as if he were still a boy and not a man nearly thirty years of age. The memory made Phillip smile.

There was only one other person whose reaction he cared about as much. And she was most likely standing in the Cranberrys’ ballroom right now. The thought sent both a frisson of awareness and a tingle of apprehension through him.

Phillip took another deep breath. Why, again, had Grimaldi and Bell thought this was the way to do it? Oh, yes. The element of surprise. They had several operatives stationed about the ballroom tonight, watching for reactions from certain guests. Guests who might have had reason to want Malcolm dead.

Phillip, Clayton, and Thea made their way up the steps to the town house as carriages continued to drop off more guests behind them. Thankfully, no one appeared to have noticed Phillip yet. He was wearing a hat and coat and was shrouded in shadows. But it would only be a matter of moments before he entered the house, then the ballroom. He would doff his outerwear and the butler would call out his name. And then…

All hell would likely break loose.

Phillip swallowed and kept his gaze trained on Clayton’s back. There was no better man than his friend. Clayton and Thea would ensure that Phillip made it through this night in one piece.

At the front door, an underbutler allowed them in, barely giving Phillip a second glance. He breathed a sigh of relief. After doffing their cloaks, gloves, and hats, the three of them continued up the grand staircase to the ballroom. They paused in front of the carved double doors to the enormous room.

“Ready?” Clayton said this time, giving Phillip an encouraging grin.

Phillip lifted his chin and straightened his shoulders. “As I expect to be.”

Thea gave him a quick smile and a reassuring squeeze on his elbow. “You’ll be magnificent,” she said. “And we’ll be with you every step.”

Clayton pushed open the double doors. The butler stood just inside the entrance. As Clayton leaned over and whispered in the butler’s ear, Phillip kept his gaze trained directly in front of him at the blur of light and sound that made up the crowded ballroom. It was loud and bright and filled with people. His throat began to close. But he did what Forrester—the man who had helped him recover—had told him to do. He concentrated on one moment, one breath at a time. Breathe in. Breathe out. Three. Two. One.

“Lord and Lady Clayton, and…the Duke of Harlowe,” the butler intoned. The man’s voice was clear and strong, but there had definitely been both a pause and an emphasis on his title. Phillip’s jaw clenched. Breathe in. Breathe out.

A pin hitting the polished parquet floor would have made a racket. The chattering ceased. The music stopped. All eyes in the ballroom turned to stare at the three of them.

Lady Cranberry, in dark-red skirts that aptly matched her name, came rushing toward them from her spot in the receiving line.

“Higgins, you must be mistaken,” she said, addressing her remarks to the butler. “This cannot be—” She turned to look at their trio and her face immediately turned ashen white. “Y…Your Grace,” she breathed, putting a ring-laden hand to her throat.

Phillip smiled at the woman and tipped his head toward her. He hadn’t seen her in quite some time, but she looked nearly the same as she had the last time he’d been at a London ball. “Lady Cranberry,” he intoned.

A strange noise that sounded like a cross between a hysterical laugh and a deep sob issued from the lady’s mouth before she managed to say, “I’d no idea you’d…” She cleared her throat and shook her head slightly. “Welcome, Your Grace. Welcome. Welcome.” She dipped into a deep curtsy.

The poor, flustered woman turned to the occupants of the ballroom and called out as if confirming that she’d verified with her own eyes, “The Duke of Harlowe, Phillip Grayson, is here. Please, do carry on.”

Everyone spoke at once, and they were all talking about him, staring at him.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Phillip gave Clayton and Thea a solid nod. He knew his friends were worried about him. But Phillip had expected this. He was prepared. He was done hiding. He would avenge his brother’s murder.

Their small group had barely taken more than a few steps into the ballroom when a dark-haired young woman in a sapphire evening gown broke away from a cluster in the middle of the ballroom and came toward them. Phillip watched her come. Her walk was familiar. Her curly dark-brown hair and even darker eyes—also familiar—came into focus as she neared. She moved inexorably toward him until she was standing directly in front of him. This was it. The moment he’d both anticipated and feared for nearly a year.

She searched his face. Tears welled in her eyes, but there was something else. A hint of unmistakable anger flashed there, too. Her lovely features had hardened into a mask of stone. “Phillip?” she breathed. The name sounded like an accusation.

He felt her voice like a stab to the chest. He hadn’t heard it in…three years. All this time, he’d only had her letters. The letters he’d lost during the war. All save the one that had been next to his heart when he’d been shot off Alabaster’s back and left for dead.

She was older now, a bit too thin. Sadness was etched in the tiny lines at the corners of her eyes. But it still physically hurt to look at her. She was so beautiful.

He’d dreamed of this moment many times over the last three years, but it had never been like this. And he regretted it had to be this way now. He regretted it very much.

* * *

Sophie took a deep, shaky breath. Phillip, the man she’d loved for so long, the man she’d believed to be dead for nearly the past year, was standing in front of her very much alive.

She swallowed hard, struggling to keep the tears that burned the backs of her eyes from falling.

“It’s really you,” she said, close enough to him now to see the small lines in his face, the familiar emerald color of his eyes, the tiny scar just below his lip. And she could smell him, too. The same familiar scent of soap and sandalwood that threatened to send her memory soaring back to an entirely different time and place. A time and place that now seemed like a century ago.

Just then, a thunderous crash sounded behind them. Sophie jumped and whirled to see a footman with a full silver tray of champagne flutes shattered at his feet. The ungodly racket had stopped time for a moment. When she turned back again to Phillip, his eyes were glossy, and he was staring straight ahead as if completely sightless.

“Phillip?” She uttered his name again with all the pain and anger that was colliding in her heart. She wanted to reach for him. She wanted to slap him.

He didn’t even glance at her. Sweat beaded on his brow as he continued to stare at the far end of the ballroom as if in a trance. The pretty young woman beside him—Lady Clayton, was it?—reached out and laid a hand on his arm. “It’s all right, Phillip.”

Sophie clenched her jaw. All right? Was Lady Clayton somehow trying to comfort Phillip given Sophie’s presence?

She searched his face again. He still wouldn’t look at her. An icy dread seeped into her middle. So this was how it would be? Phillip was intent upon ignoring her? So be it. He’d left her. He’d allowed her to believe he was dead all these months. And now he was looking right through her, with another woman’s hand on his arm.

Sophie’s own hand itched to slap him across his handsome face. Anything to garner some reaction from him besides his apathy. But no. She would not stoop to theatrics and common violence. She was better than that. She’d already survived losing him once. She could do it again.

Summoning all the strength she had, Sophie sucked in her breath, turned immediately on her heels, lifted her chin, and walked away. If Phillip Grayson intended to ignore her, intended to pretend as if they had meant nothing to each other…by God, she would do the same.