Page 2 of Dukes All Night Long

A ugusta awakened abruptly, sitting bolt upright.

She was not in her bed, but on a settee in the drawing room at the Darrow School.

It was a formal space, one used for instructional purposes with the students.

The fire was banked low in the hearth, casting flickering shadows along the pale wallpaper and tidy furnishings.

Paintings of pastoral settings adorned the walls, and a tea service rested untouched on a side table near the window.

The room was elegant, rigidly so—designed less for comfort than for the practice of genteel conversation and proper manners.

“What is happening here?” she asked, her voice thick and shaky.

The duke stopped his pacing and turned to glower at her with hard eyes, cold and glittering like ice under sunlight.

“You are my wife. You have abandoned me. You have taken up residence here under a false name, and that will all cease immediately. You will return home with me at once and make some attempt to repair the destruction you have wrought in everyone’s lives! ”

“I most certainly will not be going anywhere with you, sir! I have no idea who you are, and whomever it is that you think I am, you must be mistaken.”

“Is he? It seems quite likely that he is,” the Duke of Clarendon said, his tone contemplative. “You arrived here one year ago, and the duchess disappeared eight months ago.”

“We need proof,” Effie said, addressing Rosemere directly, her voice firm but fair. “I cannot simply allow you to claim this young woman is your wife without some form of evidence.”

“Then summon her sister, who will provide all the evidence you require… they are identical twins, after all. Mrs. Abelard is at Thirty-Seven Sparrow Street,” he replied curtly, his tone clipped with restrained fury.

But Augusta was no longer hearing him. The world had narrowed, the walls seemed to tilt slightly, and her heart beat like a drum in her ears.

Twin. The nightmares that plagued her suddenly made so much sense.

Walking, arms linked, in a garden with a mirror image of herself—a mirror image whom she’d feared.

Initially, she’d thought the dream simply some manifestation of frustration at her failure to remember her past self.

“Reddinger Place,” she whispered, her voice barely audible, as though speaking from within a dream.

The duke shook his head slowly, a look of grim confirmation on his face.

“Mistaken, indeed. You are Verity Reddinger—or you were, at one time. Reddinger Place is your family home… where we met and where I courted you in the days prior to our marriage… when you could still speak to me with a civil tongue in your head.”

And suddenly, the need to know—the need to rediscover her own identity—overwhelmed everything else, even her fear of his very evident fury. Her hands trembled in her lap as she forced herself to meet his gaze.

“I will go with you. I cannot deny that I felt some sense of recognition when I saw you. Everything you have said is easily verifiable. And according to the laws of England, you have the right to demand it… I will go with you.”

*

In the carriage, Colin stared at her across the expanse of the conveyance with a mixture of rage and relief.

The plush interior, once familiar and comfortable, now felt claustrophobic.

On the one hand, her return would still the whispers—or at least some of them.

On the other, he would have to bring her back into his home—at least until he could petition for divorce—and then watch her wreak havoc as she had before. The very idea made his jaw clench.

“I would like an explanation,” he said at last, his voice low and tight.

“I cannot give you one,” she said simply. “My first memory is awakening on the riverbank, my head bleeding and feeling completely terrified without understanding why.”

“That isn’t good enough!”

“Would you have me lie?” she asked, her voice even but with a trace of sorrow beneath it.

He laughed bitterly. “As if you’d ever recognize the truth!

You were like a changeling bride. Sweet and lovely before the wedding, and as soon as the vows were said and the register signed, you turned into a conniving monster.

It’s little wonder your own sister could barely tolerate you.

When I think of how you convinced everyone that she was the villain, that she was the one not to be trusted, when all along it was you—”

“I dream of her… my sister. And I fear her. Or I assume that I do,” she said softly, her eyes staring out the carriage window as if trying to summon the vision.

“In my dream, we are walking in a garden, our arms linked. And I can feel her nails digging into my arm… even through the pale-green velvet I am wearing. I thought those dreams were simply a representation of my struggle to remember my past. But perhaps they were more than that.”

“Green velvet… like your wedding gown?” he asked, the words barely more than a whisper.

She simply stared at him, her expression one of dismay, as if she truly did not recall.

Colin shook his head, eyes narrowed. “You are a superb actress, Verity. I will grant you that. Truly superb. I’m half convinced you are telling the truth.

But then I know how devastating it can be to fall beneath the spell of your lies.

I once believed you loved me, and now look where that’s gotten me. ”

She fell quiet then. And as he watched her—watched the way she sat with her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her chin tilted slightly downward in thought—he couldn’t stop himself from seeing her.

Seeing her . She was still, even with all that had transpired between them, inarguably the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

From her dark hair and oddly light-brown eyes that seemed to flash like a glass of brandy in firelight, to the delicate arch of her brow and the way her lips pressed together in moments of hesitation, she looked almost fey, as though she belonged to another world or realm. How could it not be Verity?

But she was not the Verity who had terrorized his servants and made his young sister’s life a living hell.

This woman before him was the Verity he’d been betrothed to—the one who had charmed him, who had stolen his heart and made him think such fantastical, romantic thoughts.

The Verity who had laughed with him on picnics, quoted poetry with unselfconscious delight, and once kissed him behind a hedge while the gardener cleared his throat in warning.

The Verity who had once done so much more than that when they were alone in the confines of her room.

Then he noted the way she stroked the back of her own hand with one finger, slowly and unconsciously, through the thin leather of her glove. A small, soothing motion. And his heart began to pound for an entirely different reason.

“Show me the scar,” he said, his voice tight.

She blinked in confusion. “What?”

“The scar on the back of your hand,” he said curtly. “I want to see it.” In point of fact, he needed to see it. A terrible suspicion had suddenly bloomed within him, taking root and spreading fast. If he was correct, then they had both been the victim of a truly diabolical scheme.

He held his breath as she peeled off the glove with slow, hesitant fingers. There, on the flesh between her thumb and forefinger, was a silvery white crescent. The mark she’d once told him had resulted from her sister biting her hard enough to draw blood when they were but five years old.

“In the four months of our marriage—that you were present for—you never allowed anyone to see your hand… you said you hated the scar. That it was ugly, and you disliked explaining the manner in which it was received,” he mused aloud, the memories clicking into place.

“Something that you had never done prior to our marriage.”

The carriage came to a halt, and he didn’t wait for the door to be opened. He simply did it himself and then jumped down, the step echoing on the cobblestones.

“Come with me. We haven’t any time to waste.”