I Know You Page 10

  Geoff’s head shot up with a crack. Literally. He heard his neck crack as he sat up and locked eyes with the Duke of Marshbane.

  “Your Grace! I…”

  The Duke lifted his hand up and walked further into the room. “Save it, MacAuley. Anything you say, while interesting, will probably be a lie, and I simply don’t want to hear it.”

  He gazed pointedly down at Geoff’s waist and that was when Geoff realized that not only had the Duke caught him hyperventilating in his son’s bedroom, he’d caught him hyperventilating in his son’s bedroom naked.

  In a rush, Geoff jumped to his feet, grabbed his dressing gown and threw it around himself, all while blushing furiously and trying not to notice the fact that the Duke was still eying him curiously. It took a lot of courage for him to look the Duke in the eye once more, and one thing anyone could say about Geoff was that he was never lacking in courage.

  The Duke’s expression changed when Geoff lifted his chin in a show of defiance. After all, David was an adult and in charge of his own life. Why would the Duke have any say in how he managed his personal affairs?

  “I’ve always liked you, MacAuley.” That was surprising, since the Duke rarely came in contact with him. “You took on my son when no one else had been able to reach him. During the first days of his…confinement, shall we say? Well, he was barely coherent. He would rant and rave about how the world was going to burn and he’d seen the fires himself.”

  Suddenly the Duke looked very tired. He swiped his hand over his face and looked up at Geoff with tears starting to glisten in his eyes. “It is not an easy thing to watch your child lose himself to madness. It is harder still when you take into account that I had already lost two children.”

  Geoff had honestly never thought of it from the Duke’s point of view. His second son had died young, in an unfortunate accident that no one could have prevented. His oldest had been killed at the hand of his mistress before she’d taken her own life. Now that he thought about it, his manner toward David made sense. The Duke wasn’t callous in his regard toward his heir; he was simply refusing to lose another son. He had been forcing David to fight for survival.

  “When David told me about you, on the first day he’d been coherent in nearly a month, I never hesitated. I went to Cambridge myself to ensure that you were still there and willing to accept the post.” The Duke smiled at him slyly. “The look on your face when I offered you the post without even interviewing you first…you were floored. You’d been treated so poorly by your own brother that you couldn’t believe another peer would take a chance on you.”

  “My bro-” David couldn’t even finish the word. He’d never liked referring to Reggie as anything but “the Earl” or “Reggie”. To admit that there was any blood between them left more than just a sour taste in his mouth. “How did you know, Your Grace?”

  Shaking his head good naturedly, the Duke laughed. “MacAuley…or should I call you Mr. Rockford? That is your given name, is it not? You were acknowledged by your father and therefore the right to his name is yours.”

  “Yes, Your Grace. I was acknowledged by my father. However, the current Earl dispossessed me shortly after our father’s death. I have not used the Rockford name since.”

  The Duke held up his hands, as if proving that he didn’t want to argue the point. “That too is your right. What I want to say, MacAuley, is that I was fully aware of who you were the day I first met you. I had my man of affairs do some digging, as David had mentioned you previously during his rants. I wanted to know everything there was to know about you. When I had discovered that Reginald Rockford was your brother, and how he’d treated you, I was sorely tempted to storm Cressledown March and beat some sense into the boy on your behalf. Instead, I decided to simply do what my son had suggested and bring you to London to care for him.

  “Under your care he flourished. He began showing signs of coming out of the darkness, but there was a change in him I hadn’t expected.”

  Geoff held his breath, afraid that he knew precisely what the change had been and the implication that would be left upon his door. Though he’d worked for David for just over a year, the two of them had only become lovers recently.

  Not getting a response from Geoff, the Duke continued. “I am not accusing you of anything nefarious by any means. My son’s life is his own to lead, but last summer I noticed for the first time that, though he had returned to visiting his clubs while in town and traveling the estates on business, he was doing so with only you as a companion. He no longer associated with the friends he’d held in high regard before his time in the Army. Furthermore, it had been reported that he often turned women away when they approached him for company at clubs or gaming hells. In every way except the vows, he had become a monk.”

  There was no arguing with that line of thinking. David truly had been living like a monk since Geoff had taken over his care. Or…at least he had until recently. Geoff felt a blush rising across his neck and face.

  “Obviously that is not the case any longer.” The Duke waved the suggestion that Geoff and David were lovers aside, and continued on as if it was every day that he walked in on the aftermath of a sex act. “My biggest concern is that my son is taken care of.” When Geoff opened his mouth to argue the Duke held up his hand again. “Yes, yes. I know he is more than capable of taking care of himself in many ways. I also know that you would never let anything happen to him without throwing yourself in front of him at the first chance. My point is…I am just going to come right out and say it. I want to make sure you are not using my son to return to the life you previously lived under your father’s care.”

  The idea physically made Geoff ill. The Duke had said he liked him. That he knew all about him. That he knew that he would throw himself in harm’s way to save David. Why on earth would he turn around and suggest that he was using David to better his own standing?

  The smile that started to creep up on the Duke’s face told Geoff that the look of disgust on his own face was all the answer he had needed. “You are a good man, MacAuley. I have never doubted that. I needed to say it in order to get it off my chest. Sometimes we must do unpleasant things to protect the people we love.”

  And that was the truth. He had told himself that he had been trying to protect Anne by keeping his relationship with David from her, but in fact, he’d been acting the coward and only protecting himself. In order to truly protect Anne, he needed to swallow his own pride and face whatever wrath she wished to dole out.

  “Thank you, Your Grace.” Geoff bowed and made to leave the room, but the Duke held his arm out to stay his exit.

  “One more thing, MacAuley. Do you love my son? I know you care for him, but do you love him? Enough to risk the life that is surely in your future? Life is hard enough for bastards in the world of the ton, but unnaturals are made out to be monsters, not just undesirable. People see them as diseases and the Church will act harshly if they believe a servant has tried to ‘corrupt’ a peer. Your life would be forfeit if society were to discover your relationship openly.” Placing his hand on Geoff’s shoulder the Duke squeezed lightly. “I personally don’t give a fuck what people think, but there is a fine line between what people think and what people do. They can scorn you all they want, but I don’t want to see either you or David - or even Miss Edwards - in jail…or worse.”

  Geoff let that thought sink in. He knew he loved David. He’d finally just admitted it to himself. But was love enough to risk death?

  Looking into the eyes of the Duke, Geoff could only answer him one way. “You said it best earlier, Your Grace. I would throw myself in front of David to keep him from harm…any harm. I am not afraid.” He wasn’t going to confess to his father that he loved him before David heard the words from his own lips, but he truly believed that the Duke understood his meaning.

  With that he strode from the room and made his way to Anne’s chambers. When she returned there would be a lot to talk about.

  He couldn’t b
elieve he’d forgotten how cold it was. Spring in Kent was not exactly known for warm nights. Yet he’d still run into the cold air wearing nothing but a dressing gown and his dignity. And even his dignity was failing.

  He was worried about Anne, and he was seriously worried that he wasn’t going to be able to feel his toes if he didn’t get off the wet grass soon. He stopped for a minute and listened up ahead, hoping to hear even the slightest hint of Anne. Any noise that could tell him which way she went.

  As if the universe was answering his unspoken request, a light flickered ahead, from the direction of the gardener’s cottage. He knew that it was currently unoccupied, as the current gardener lived with his wife on the edge of the property in a larger house, built for them last year after their fourth child was born. His father liked to take care of his servants, and he also hated the idea of children being crammed in too tight of living quarters.

  David sped hurriedly toward the cottage, hoping fervently that it was Anne in there and not a poacher or squatter looking for a warm place to sleep. Yet as he got closer he saw a movement in the window and knew without a doubt that no squatter or poacher had a figure like that.

  As he climbed the steps Anne met him at the door. “Please just let me be.”

  “Let me explain first.” He didn’t enter the cottage yet, but he wasn’t about to just turn around and go back to the house. Too much rode on her understanding what she had witnessed. “Can I come in?”

  She gaped at him in shock. “Isn’t this your house?”

  “Technically all of this belongs to my father. This is a gardener’s cottage, but it is currently out of use.” He looked over her shoulders and saw the Holland Sheets covering all of the furniture. He hadn’t been positive that his father had left the cottage unoccupied, so he wanted to make sure he wasn’t lying. “However, if you don’t want me to come in I will gladly tell you everything I have to say out here.” He looked down at his cold feet, which looked to be turning a bit white in places. “Well, maybe not gladly, but I will respect your space.”

  She looked uncertain, but after thinking about it for a moment, she motioned for him to enter. “I suppose I can let you warm up. Though, I’m not sure anything you have to say will…” She let the sentence fade. Obviously she was still shaken.

  He took a seat on a covered ottoman and notice that the light that he’d seen had been her laying a fire in the hearth. Though not giving off a lot of heat at the moment he could tell from the structure that it would be blazing soon enough. He wondered where she’d learned to lay fires.

  “Geoff taught me.”

  He jumped as she walked from behind him and sat on a covered settee closer to the fire. “Excuse me?”

  “I could tell that you were wondering who taught me to lay fires. It was Geoff. When we were little we used to sneak into an out building along his father’s estate. He taught me how to pick locks, climb trellises, and lay fires.”

  The look in her eyes told him that she was having a hard time connecting her past life to what she had seen in his bedchamber. “Anne, I know…”

  She held up her hand. “Before you give me an excuse about how sorry you are and it won’t happen again, I just want to know how long you two have been together? And why did neither of you tell me?”

  He wanted to blurt out that if she wanted them to stop then they would, but he bit his tongue before he made that hasty promise. It wasn’t the truth anyway. He would be able to give up Geoff about the time that he gave up breathing.

  He blew out a breath and locked eyes with her before answering her first question. “The feelings have been there for a while, but we only became lovers recently.” He wasn’t about to tell her that it was the night he found out he was to marry her. He had a feeling that bit of information would sink his chances before they even got off the ground. “As far as why we didn’t tell you? Well, it’s not a simple question to answer. There are some things you need to know before you can really understand what you saw and how you fit into all of this.”

  “How I fit in?” The look of confusion on her face was actually promising. It meant she wasn’t yelling, throwing him out, or laughing. She was listening.

  “Yes. You do fit in.” He took another deep breath and started from the only place he could. “How much do you know about my family or my history in general?”

  “Not much at all really.”

  “Fair enough. I was the third born son. I was never supposed to be the heir. In fact, I wasn’t even the spare. I had a fairly charmed childhood for the first ten or so years of my life. That changed when my brother Stephen fell off his horse while riding near our house one summer. It was one of those accidents where no one did anything wrong, yet everything went wrong. The horse stepped on a rock wrong and came up lame. Stephen noticed it and called for a groom to help him down so the horse could be seen to. As the groom approached a wild hare ran across the yard and spooked the horse. Stephen fell and hit his head. When the horse came down the leg gave way and the horse rolled…on top of Stephen. By the time the groom got the horse off, he was already dead.”

  Anne’s hand was already covering her mouth by this point, but he couldn’t stop to spare her. He needed to tell her the whole story. And it was only going to get worse.

  “I became the spare, but I was still allowed more freedom than my oldest brother, John. I was allowed to choose my studies at Cambridge, and I was allowed to join the Army later on. I thought it was all fun and fancy free days. But I was wrong. War was…well, it was hell. I saw so many innocent people slaughtered because they refused to turn over their properties or supplies to the French Army. I saw our own troops doing things no civilized person should ever witness. By the time I returned to England I was so disenchanted about the world that I needed something to ground me again.”

  He paused for a minute. Breathing hard and remembering the next few weeks in a sort of vivid nightmare. “I went back to Cambridge and visited an old don of mine. He had a young pupil living with him, on the verge of taking his exams. I had met the pupil before, shortly before I had bought my commission, but he’d changed in the two years or so since I’d seen him last.”

  “Geoffrey.” It wasn’t a question. She already knew that it was true.

  “He reintroduced himself as Geoffrey MacAuley, but I vaguely remembered him using a different name before. He was more serious and far darker in his outlook. When I asked the don what had happened, the don just shook his head sadly and said that Geoff was going to need to find employment after the exams because he couldn’t afford to continue on as a scholar. I told him I would keep my eye out for openings when I returned to London.

  “Next, I headed to visit my brother here before moving on to the city. I was still fairly jumpy and didn’t care for guns, so John canceled his plans to hunt just so we could spend a few days fishing. A couple days into the visit a carriage arrived carrying his former mistress. She approached us as we were returning from the creek and John went ahead to intercept her and tell her to leave. I watched them quarrel and didn’t really think anything of it. But then she pulled out a gun. Before I could react she shot John in the chest, killing him almost instantly. I ran to him, not caring about my own safety, completely ignoring her as she stood there sobbing that he made her do it. Then she stopped sobbing.”

  David felt his hands go sweaty as he replayed what happened next in his mind. Usually he didn’t like to think about it, but this time he needed to analyze it, for Anne’s sake. “I didn’t see the knife in her hand until I turned around and told her to run for a doctor. She just stared at me blankly before she raised her hand and plunged the knife straight into her breast.”

  He heard Anne gasp, but he was too far gone in the memory to react to it. “She never made a sound. She just collapsed and lay there silently, staring up at the sky until her eyes couldn’t see it anymore.”

  The feeling of a hand on his brought his eyes to hers, but he couldn’t really make the emotional connection yet. “S
omething in me broke at that point. I started screaming and couldn’t stop. My batman came and tried to calm me, but he couldn’t get me to quiet. The local doctor didn’t know what to make of it at all. It wasn’t until my father arrived that I finally stopped, but by then I wouldn’t look at anyone. I wouldn’t acknowledge anyone.

  “I remember everything that happened around me from that point on, but at the time I just couldn’t react to it. Emotionally I was dead.”

  He saw the tears that ran down Anne’s cheeks and he suddenly remembered that he wasn’t emotionally dead any longer. He gripped her hand to show her that he was still here, and she squeezed back.

  “What happened after that?”

  “My father put me in a country asylum until he could locate a doctor who would care for me at home. My batman left once the mutterings started, so my father was forced to be the one to look after me. Looking back on it I don’t think he minded so much. He hadn’t really liked my batman anyway.

  “After about a month I sort of came out of it. I remembered Geoffrey and told my father to find him and offer him a job. My father went personally and brought Geoffrey back, telling him that he was now going to be my valet. I was in such shock that my father had found him that it was like my mind forgot to be broken. Slowly I started functioning again, but it wasn’t ever really enough.

  “Geoffrey and I developed a…mutual need?…for each other. I needed him to calm me and make me feel whole, and he needed to tend to me so he could keep the depression of losing everything he’d once had at bay. The relationship was probably not the healthiest in the beginning, but it was what it was. I honestly cannot tell you when our feelings for each other grew to be more, but the first time we made love…” David found himself trailing off, knowing that he needed to tell Anne the whole of it, but wondering just how much she could handle. He decided just simply to be honest and accept the consequences. “The first time we made love it was a natural culmination, but also the beginning of something else. You see, it happened just as you arrived in my life. Though I don’t believe in fate or destiny I cannot deny that from the moment I met you I have felt more alive than I have in the last three years. I stopped pretending to be someone I wasn’t - even with Geoff - and started simply accepting life as it happened.”