Page 30 of Duke of Iron (Unyielding Dukes #2)

Twenty-Six

“ W here is the Duchess?” Logan asked three days later, surveying the empty drawing room as if it had personally betrayed him.

Bexley was waiting with a silver tray—no doubt prepared for a far more civilized inquiry about the morning’s post. “Her Grace is out,” Bexley replied. “A tea invitation arrived from Miss Evangeline Richfield, and Her Grace left an hour ago, after breakfast.”

Logan kept his face impassive, though he felt a sharp spike of—what?

Annoyance? Agitation? It was not jealousy, he decided, but a more dignified emotion.

Discomfort, perhaps, at the way his wife had taken to vanishing during daylight hours.

Not that he blamed her. He had, in fact, encouraged this sort of thing.

He simply had not realized he would dislike it so thoroughly when it occurred.

“Thank you, Bexley.” Logan paused, then added, “If the Duchess returns before luncheon, send for me. I will be in the blue study.”

“Very good, Your Grace.”

He turned on his heel and strode from the room, passing Mrs. Paxton in the hall.

The housekeeper bobbed a curtsy and attempted to meet his eye, but Logan swept past, feeling a sense of restlessness that would not be mollified by administrative duties or the satisfaction of managing his household with ruthless efficiency.

Something in him was unsettled, and he did not care for the sensation one bit.

He did not go to the study. Instead, he found himself climbing the grand staircase two at a time, intent on some undefined purpose that would, with any luck, distract him from the absence currently occupying most of his conscious thought.

At the landing, he heard the soft coo of the baby and the murmured encouragements of Miss Hall.

He followed the sound and pushed open the nursery door.

Miss Hall was perched on the edge of the chaise, one hand cradling Rydal as he gnawed on the ear of a battered stuffed rabbit. She looked up, startled. “Your Grace?”

Logan ignored the question and crossed the room in three steps.

The child saw him, smiled broadly, and dropped the toy in favor of reaching for Logan’s cravat.

“You have no sense of self-preservation,” Logan told the baby, plucking him up under the arms and holding him at arm’s length.

“You will catch your death, sitting up here in a draft.”

Rydal squealed, delighted.

Hall bit her lip, visibly restraining herself from correcting the Duke on the matter of the nursery’s temperature. Instead, she offered, “He is in high spirits today, Your Grace. I believe the tooth has finally arrived.”

“Excellent. He will need every tooth for what lies ahead,” Logan replied. He set the baby on his hip and regarded the nurse. “I am taking him out this afternoon.”

“Will you require the pram, Your Grace?”

“I will require only a blanket and a set of clean clothes. And a bottle, if you must.”

Hall nodded, darted about the room to assemble the requested items, and managed to have the child bundled and ready with military precision.

She held the rabbit out as well, and Logan considered it before accepting.

“You have grown attached,” he said to the toy, “though I cannot imagine why. It has neither wit nor teeth.”

Rydal burbled, unconcerned.

Logan tucked the child under one arm, the rabbit under the other, and marched from the room with the certainty of a man who knew exactly where he was going. Which, as it happened, was not the case.

He did not relish the idea of a walk in Hyde Park, nor did he wish to parade the baby about town for the benefit of gossips and shopkeepers. There was an errand, however, that had lingered at the bottom of his conscience for weeks. It was time to cross it off the list.

The carriage was readied with brisk efficiency, and soon they were rattling through the city’s labyrinth of streets. Rydal watched the world with greedy eyes, flapping his arms and gumming at the buttons of Logan’s coat.

They arrived at Green Street, and Logan climbed the steps with the baby in his arms, a vision he imagined was as disturbing for the servants of the Beamond household as it was for himself.

The butler who answered the door was the same who had greeted Logan during his last, far more official, visit.

The man blinked at the sight, but kept his composure.

“Mr. and Mrs. Beamond are expecting me,” Logan said.

“Indeed, Your Grace. Please, this way.”

He was ushered into a subdued parlor, all heavy curtains and the faint odor of dried flowers.

The room was already occupied—Mrs. Beamond sat at the window, hands folded in her lap, while her husband stood behind her, one arm draped awkwardly over her chair.

They both rose as Logan entered, but it was Mrs. Beamond who spoke first.

“My goodness,” she said, voice trembling just slightly. “He is… he is larger than I imagined.”

Logan regarded the baby, who was now chewing on his own fist with single-minded dedication. “He is relentless in all things,” Logan said.

The couple seemed to absorb the sight, as if it were too much to take in all at once.

Mrs. Beamond waved them closer. “May I?” she asked, and Logan—after a quick scan for any obvious threat—handed the baby to her. Rydal looked up, unbothered, and continued his campaign of self-destruction on her string of pearls.

Mrs. Beamond laughed, a sound that had the edges of tears. “He looks nothing like Rebecca,” she said, stroking the child’s hair. “But he does have her stubborn mouth.”

Mr. Beamond cleared his throat. “Your Grace, we are grateful that you agreed to come.”

Logan inclined his head. “I owed you the courtesy. And I thought it right that the boy knows his family.”

Mrs. Beamond kissed the baby’s cheek, eyes glistening. “He will not remember us, of course.”

Logan did not answer. He did not know what to say.

The baby shrieked with pleasure, then clamped onto Mrs. Beamond’s finger with his teeth. She smiled at the pain, then passed the child to her husband, who regarded the little fist with a mixture of awe and terror.

After a few minutes of this, Mr. Beamond said, “Your Grace, I wonder if we might speak—man to man. In the other room.”

Mrs. Beamond nodded, wiping her cheeks. “I will keep him here,” she said.

Logan followed Mr. Beamond into a study that was the opposite of his own at Irondale—small, cluttered, the papers and books stacked with no discernible method. The older man shut the door, then leaned against it, as if requiring the support to stand.

“You are a man of duty, are you not?” Mr. Beamond asked.

Logan considered the question. “I was raised to be,” he said.

Mr. Beamond nodded. “I was not. I was raised to be agreeable, to never cause a scene. I see now that it was a mistake.”

Logan said nothing. He suspected he was not required to.

“We cast out our daughter,” Mr. Beamond said, “for a single moment’s indiscretion.

She was found in a room alone with a gentleman—nothing more, nothing less.

But the world demanded we act. The world, and my wife’s family, and all the people who spend their lives enforcing the rules they themselves cannot keep. ”

Logan listened, hands folded behind his back.

“We sent her away,” Mr. Beamond continued. “To Italy. To die in a place where no one would ever think to find her. I thought it would save her, or at least save us, but it did neither.”

He looked at Logan, eyes red but unflinching. “If I had been a man of duty—if I had been like you—perhaps she would still be here.”

Logan shifted his weight. “I am not the example you want, Mr. Beamond. My own father?—”

“Your father was a monster,” Mr. Beamond interrupted. “But you are not he. That is why we asked you here today.”

Logan frowned. “What is it you want?”

Mr. Beamond stared at his hands for a long time. “We would like to raise the boy. As our own. You and your Duchess may visit as often as you wish, of course, but… but we are old, and we have nothing left but this. We would like a second chance.”

Logan did not answer immediately. He felt the words settle on him, heavy as lead.

“I had not considered,” Logan said, “that you would want him. Most men?—”

“Most men are fools,” Mr. Beamond replied.

Logan thought of the baby, of his wide eyes and grasping hands, of the way he slept only when May sang him lullabies in her dreadful soprano.

He realized, with a cold jolt, that he did not want to let the child go.

But then he thought of May, and the future she might have if not chained to the scandal of another man’s bastard. He thought of how she had agreed to stay only because of the baby, not for Logan’s own sake, and how he was depriving her of the very freedom he had promised.

He swallowed, hard. “I appreciate the offer,” he said. “But I must decline.”

Mr. Beamond’s mouth twisted. “Is it pride, Your Grace? Or revenge?”

Logan considered. “Neither,” he said. “It is only… I cannot give him up. Not yet.”

The older man nodded, accepting the answer with a resignation that bordered on relief.

They returned to the parlor, where Mrs. Beamond had Rydal asleep on her lap, the rabbit tucked under his chin. She looked at Logan, then at her husband, and said, “Did you tell him?”

Mr. Beamond nodded.

She pressed her lips together. “Very well. We will not press the matter.”

Logan took the baby gently from her arms and settled him against his chest. The small weight felt like an anchor. “Thank you,” he said, meaning it more than he expected.

Mrs. Beamond rose, smoothing her skirt. “You are welcome to visit any time. Both of you.”

Logan nodded, and after the customary farewells, let himself out.

The carriage ride home was silent except for the baby’s breathing. Logan stared out the window, letting the city blur past. He felt as though he had lost something, though he could not have said what.

He wondered what May would think when he told her. Would she be relieved? Disappointed? Would she mourn the life she might have had, if not for the accident of one infant and the mistakes of so many adults?

Logan thought of her, the sharp wit and the ridiculous spectacles, the way she never gave up on anything—least of all him. He remembered the night she had confronted Lady Kitty and Lady Christie, the fierce look in her eye, and realized he had never wanted anyone as badly as he wanted her.

He did not know what to do with the wanting. He did not trust it. He had seen what love could do to men—how it hollowed them out, made them weak and desperate. He had sworn, as a boy, never to let himself need anyone so badly.

He looked down at the baby, sleeping now, one hand curled around Logan’s finger.

This is how it starts , he thought. You promise yourself it is only for a little while. You tell yourself you are in control. And then, one day, you realize you are not in control at all.

He wondered if he should let the Beamonds take Rydal. If it would be better for everyone in the end. If it was the only way to keep the world from falling in on itself, as it always seemed to do.

But when the carriage pulled up to Irondale House, and the servants came running to take the baby and his things, Logan found he could not let go.

He carried the child inside, up the stairs, and into the nursery, where Miss Hall was waiting with fresh linen and a look of utter surprise. “You brought him back,” she said, as if she had half expected the baby to be gone forever.

Logan grunted. “He belongs here. For now.”

He watched as she settled Rydal in his cradle, then turned to go. As he descended the stairs, he wondered if May was home yet. He wondered what she would say when he told her everything.

Logan wondered, not for the first time, if he was becoming the man he had always despised.

He loosened his cravat, trying to breathe, but found the air in the room was too thin.

This is what happens. Let yourself care, and you will lose everything.