The Reluctant Duke (A Seabrook Family Saga)(2)

“Excuse me, Your Grace, there is a gentleman here to see you.” Giles reached out to hand the duke a calling card, but Thomas waved it off.

“Read it for me.”

“Yes, Your Grace. A Mr. Charles Hamilton begs leave to see you. Shall I send him in?”

Thomas caught Giles’s critical gaze as it scanned the cluttered room.

“Perhaps you should meet him in the blue drawing room?” Giles suggested brazenly.

“Give me five minutes and escort him to me here.” So what if his study looked lived in? He had nothing to prove to this stranger.

Devil take it. What can the man want with me? And do I care?

He pondered this as he buttoned up the top three closures of his starched white shirt and tied his cravat. Thomas might be a duke and used to being dressed by his valet, but he was far from helpless. He tied a damn fine knot if he did say so himself.

Thomas scanned his study for his waistcoat before remembering he’d come down from his rooms without one. He had thrown all propriety to the wind the past several days––barely eating, bathing, or changing his clothes.

He put his bottle of brandy, his only trusted companion, into the deep drawer of his desk and waited for his visitor to be presented.

Though his friends Amesbury and Norwich had called each day since the fateful card game, he had refused to see them. What must they be thinking? That he finally needed to be committed to Bedlam? A knock sounded on the study door.

“Enter.”

Giles led Mr. Hamilton into Wentworth’s study and closed the door quietly after a silent bow. The small rotund man, several decades Thomas’s senior, was dressed impeccably in shades of brown. But if one looked closely, as Thomas did, the man’s skin looked grayish. He appeared to be terribly ill.

“Excuse the intrusion, Your Grace.” His visitor bowed his head.

“Please sit down, Mr. Hamilton.” The man sat, and Thomas continued. “What is your purpose in coming here?”

Was he here to reclaim his losses? Hope fluttered wildly in the duke’s chest.

“I’m here to see to the future of my estate and holdings in America.” Hamilton held up his hand. “Before you interrupt me, let me explain several things to you. I played you the other night. I wanted to lose to you. I wanted to get to know you in a familiar setting. See for myself what type of gentleman you are.”

Hamilton paused. “Your father and I were close friends during our younger days. After my family was disgraced, my father hung, and all titles and holdings stripped by the Crown, your father gave me money to start over in America. He was new to the title and had many obligations for those funds, yet he would never let me repay him. I’m repaying him now by saving your family from financial ruin.”

The duke opened his mouth to ask a question.

Hamilton ignored him. “Please let me finish. I’m also being selfish, for my daughter’s sake. I am dying. I’m not sure I will survive the crossing back to Boston, and I need you to take control of my businesses and the guardianship of my daughter, Emma. Everything is explained in these papers––everything you need to know about my daughter and my businesses and holdings. There is also a private letter for my daughter. Please give it to her upon her marriage or when she turns twenty-five.”

“But—” Words escaped Thomas as his world shrank down to his own pounding heartbeat and the gentleman facing him with so much pain and sadness in his eyes.

“I realize,” Mr. Hamilton continued as he rose from his chair, “all this comes as a surprise to you, but I assure you when you read the private letter addressed to you, you will understand my reasoning. All I ask is that you do not disappoint me where my daughter is concerned. Take her under your wing, introduce her into Society, and arrange a good marriage for her. I have made you my heir, with a substantial amount in a trust for my daughter.”

Hamilton hesitated, clearing his throat. “But whatever you do, you must not let her find out about our family’s past, about our card game, my illness, or how I die. And no one other than your immediate family and the two trusted friends from the gaming table must know any of this. It would ruin all I have planned for and done if the ton finds out my daughter’s real origins.”

Mr. Hamilton rose, took a step toward the door, and turned. “I will not have her suffer for my father’s sins.”

***

Thomas could relate to Hamilton’s comment about a father’s sins. Did not his whole family suffer for their father’s sins? Against his will, voices from the past echoed around him. He could hear his own voice choking back the words he’d uttered to his mother after he found his father’s body. The scene began to evolve. Christ, not again. He would not relive the finding of his father’s body again.