Page 19 of Duke of Iron (Unyielding Dukes #2)

Seventeen

“ R epeat that,” Logan said.

Forge did not cower, but his eyes bounced from Logan to Calenham and then to the scarred surface of the table. “I said, the boy’s name is William Blackmore.”

A silence pooled in the small room, thick enough to smother. Calenham straightened against the wall. Logan let the name turn over in his mind like a coin—one side stamped with his own, the other blank. Impossible.

He said, “You’re sure of this.”

Forge nodded. “It was all I was told. William Blackmore, to be raised in the manner of his birthright.”

“My birthright,” Logan said, fighting the urge to shout the words. “Who delivered the message?”

“I told you, Your Grace, I never saw his face. It was always the same arrangement. He left the note, I collected it, and I did as instructed.”

Calenham, voice unexpectedly gentle, asked, “What did the notes say, precisely?”

“Nothing I haven’t already told you. Deliver the child, well-fed and clean, to the Duke of Irondale. Say nothing if questioned. Never return to the house.”

Logan paced, one hand clenched and the other raking through his hair. “No other names? No address, no further instructions?”

“None. The money came wrapped in brown paper.”

“So the child is meant to be my… What?” Logan turned on him. “Heir? Ward? I have never…” He broke off, the implication refusing to resolve.

Forge seemed to shrink into the chair. “That is all I know, Your Grace.”

Logan stared down at his hands. He wanted to punch the desk, the wall, or the world. Instead, he forced his voice to be calm. “If I find you are lying, Forge, I will see you delivered to Newgate myself.”

“I believe him,” Calenham said. “Men like this don’t invent stories. Not when they can simply disappear instead.”

Forge dipped his head. “May I go now, Your Grace?”

Logan waved him away, not trusting himself to speak.

The runner showed Forge out. Logan remained, rooted. Calenham waited until the sound of boots on stone faded, then said, “You are taking this remarkably well.”

“Am I?” Logan muttered.

Calenham pulled out the other chair and straddled it. “Logan. If you are certain you’ve never sired a child, then this is an elaborate game. The question is who is playing it, and why.”

Logan’s mouth twisted. “The line ends with me, Edward. I made damn sure of it.” He shook his head, the oath from years past echoing in his mind. “My father—he wanted only an heir. I was not enough. I told myself I would never pass on his blood, not if the Crown itself ordered it.”

Edward studied him. “You seem less convinced now.”

Logan could not answer. Every memory of his father’s house, every cut and bruise and shout, rose inside him, clawing for dominance. Yet there was the child, left at his door, carrying his name. William Blackmore.

He forced himself up. “If this is a plot, I will untangle it. If it is real…” He let the rest die.

Edward followed him into the hallway. “What will you do?”

“Find the next piece,” Logan said. “And hope it does not cut deeper than the last.”

They parted ways at the corner. Calenham gave a mock salute and vanished into the fog, while Logan turned for home with the weight of generations pressing on his shoulders.

He reached Irondale House in time to hear a scream—smaller and higher than any he’d heard in his worst nightmares.

The foyer was chaos—two footmen looked as though they’d rather desert than approach the staircase, and Bexley stood like a man about to face execution.

The noise came from above, the familiar nursery wail, except this time it sounded less like a baby and more like a banshee possessed.

Logan took the stairs two at a time.

He found the nursery door open, and the maids inside frantic. Rydal (or William, as his mind now insisted on calling him) lay in the cradle, red-faced and howling with fresh fury. The two maids looked at each other, at the crib, then at Logan, their expressions a study in horror.

“Where is the wet nurse?” Logan demanded.

“She’s—she’s gone, Your Grace,” one maid stammered.

The other held out a folded sheet of paper. “She left this note, sir.”

Logan snatched it and read.

To His Grace, the Duke of Irondale,

I regret to inform you that I am unable to continue in your employ. The infant’s nature is most alarming, and I fear for my nerves and constitution. He cries in ways I have never witnessed, and I can only conclude the fault is neither mine nor the house’s. I am truly sorry for the inconvenience.

Respectfully,

Mrs. Pettigrew

Logan crushed the note in his fist. “Where is Mrs. Paxton?”

“She’s gone to find a new wet nurse on short notice.”

He turned to the cradle. The baby’s face was mottled, his cries reaching a new pitch of misery. For the first time, Logan wondered if the child might actually detonate. “Can you do nothing for him?”

Both maids shook their heads. “He will not take any milk, Your Grace. Nor will he sleep. He only wants to be held, but…” She trailed off, eyes wide.

Logan’s mind flashed to May, rocking the child in the chair by the window, singing her infernal lullabies. “Where is the Duchess?”

“She’s abed, Your Grace. Exhausted. Mrs. Paxton said she was the only one who could calm him.”

He glared at the child, who responded by screaming even louder.

He turned to go, but Mrs. Paxton intercepted him at the door. Her arms were folded, her face unreadable. “Your Grace. The infant is in distress.”

“I can see that.”

She leaned in, her voice pitched low. “I know it is not my place, Your Grace, but perhaps—just perhaps—you should try what the Duchess did. He seemed to like it.”

Logan wanted to tell her that he’d sooner eat the fireplace poker. Instead, he said, “Very well. Leave us.”

Mrs. Paxton did not move. “The servants will be waiting in the hall should you require assistance,” she said, then ushered the maids out behind her.

Logan glared at the child, who glared back, a challenge in every inch of his pinched little face.

“Fine,” Logan muttered, and bent to scoop the baby from the cradle.

The moment he lifted Rydal—William—the wails redoubled.

Logan tried cradling the child in the crook of his arm.

No improvement. He shifted, supporting the head as he’d seen May do.

The noise lessened by a single decibel. Encouraged, Logan rocked back and forth, a rhythm that felt both idiotic and undignified.

He walked the length of the nursery, pacing with the child in his arms. After a minute or two, the howling faded to a series of wet, hiccuping gasps. The baby’s tiny fist latched onto Logan’s cravat and refused to let go.

Logan stared at the child. In this light, he could almost see a resemblance—not to himself, but to some ancestor whose portrait haunted the family gallery. There was a set to the brow, a stubbornness in the jaw, that made his stomach turn.

“What do you want?” he asked, not expecting an answer.

The baby sneezed, then burrowed into the fold of Logan’s sleeve.

He rocked in the chair, refusing to feel anything at all. He is not mine. He cannot be mine. This is a ruse, an elaborate joke, and soon the world will tire of it.

But still he rocked, and after a while, the child slept.

He did not notice Mrs. Paxton return until she was standing just behind him, her voice so quiet it barely disturbed the air. “The maids say you have a way with him, Your Grace.”

Logan snorted. “They have low standards.”

“They are young and inexperienced,” she replied. “You do not seem young, nor inexperienced. Yet you hold the child as though you have done so before.”

He almost told her about the years spent raising his own brother, the endless hours sitting in dark rooms with a baby who refused to sleep, the way even then he’d been expected to manage the household while still a child himself. But he said nothing.

Mrs. Paxton inclined her head. “If you would like me to stay with him, Your Grace, I can send in the maids.”

Logan shook his head. “I will manage.”

“Very good,” she said, and vanished again.

Alone, Logan studied the sleeping child. He did not feel pity, or affection, or any of the softening nonsense that so often infected the world. He felt only the old, familiar dread—the knowledge that fate had outwitted him yet again.

He was trapped. He was furious. And worst of all, he did not know which of those feelings hurt more.

The baby’s tiny fist loosened on his cravat, and Logan stared down at him, at the impossibility of it, and the weight of his name.

He looked around the nursery—at the blanket May had embroidered with blue thread, at the battered old toy rabbit she’d set by the pillow, at the books she’d lined up along the windowsill.

He wondered if he should tell her what he had discovered today. And he wondered, not for the first time, how it was that one small, wretched creature could unravel a lifetime of certainty.

May woke to the sound of footsteps, and she turned in bed to see her lady’s maid. “Your Grace?” Abbot called softly, coming closer. “I am sorry to disturb you, but…”

May was already rolling upright, nearly losing her spectacles in the process. “The baby,” she said.

Abbot nodded. “He’s been quite beside himself. Mrs. Paxton thought it best not to wake you, as you’ve not slept well in days?—”

“I am awake now.” May brushed her hair with her fingers and cinched the wrapper at her waist, feeling something between dread and resolve. “Thank you, Abbot. I shall see to him.”

She climbed the stairs at a near run, the wood cold and smooth beneath her feet. The noise grew louder as she reached the nursery. But this time, instead of the usual chorus of female voices, she heard only a single one. Male, low, oddly gentle despite the subject matter.

“You’re very proud of yourself, aren’t you?” Logan’s voice, tired but steady. “Had the entire household in hysterics before breakfast.”

May paused, hand on the door frame. It felt intrusive to listen, but there was a draw to his words, a gravity that pinned her in place.