Free The Coachman's Daughter by Gayle Eden

with him. He was rarely in fit condition to talk
to.
    Deme shook his head and took a chair. He
waved his father to join him. “There’s something I wish to
discuss.”
    The Duke joined him after leaving the smoke
to rest on an iron tray outside, and placing his coffee on the
desk.
    Deme studied the green carpeting over
polished wood floors, choosing his words carefully. “I think I know
why you offered to hand Wimberly over to me so soon.” He raised his
gaze to his fathers. “But there are still the twins, and Jude, the
brothers when they return. This has always been home to them. It is
very much that, because of you and the Duchess. I beg you remain,
as this is your home, and if you wish to spend some time at Blakely
do so. You can give me stewardship over the lesser holdings.”
    Those blue eyes on him keenly, his grace
murmured, “It will be yours someday, Wimberly.”
    “Then let us wait until someday.” Deme got to
his feet and walked over to the spot his father had been. “This is
where we gather, where the memories for the siblings are. You and
Mama love it here.”
    “What is wrong, my son?”
    Deme released a terse breath and braced a
hand on the door opening, watching a rabbit slip out of the side
garden and along the cobbled walk.
    “I went into the village last night.”
    “I know.”
    “How?”
    The Duke grunted dryly. “Does it matter?”
    “No.”
    The leather chair squeaked and Duke came over
to stand beside him.
    They were shoulder to shoulder for some time
before his grace offered, “After your mother has her party and the
boys have left, we’ll discuss what you wish to oversee. It will be
a relief to me. You always had more of a head for keeping books and
keeping track of what needs done than I.”
    “Thank you. I haven’t been of much use in
awhile.”
    Though it was said with self-mocking humor,
the Duke pat him on the shoulder, a gesture he had not done since
Deme was a lad. After dropping his hand, he cleared his throat and
offered, “I never wanted the perfect heir Demetrius. That would
have made me daft. There are none of us perfect. I just want a
happy one. Wimberly’s aren’t restrained and serene; we learn more
from our mistakes than we do from advice.”
    Staring at him, Deme asked, “How did you come
to hire Patrick. Why he was here six years before Haven joined
him?”
    If the Duke thought that an odd change of
subject, he didn’t show it.
    “I met him in Ireland. I was wagering on a
race.”
    Deme felt his nape prickle. “And?”
    “And I am not sure that Mulhern has told his
daughter everything, thus it is not my place to break a
confidence.”
    “It will go no further.”
    The Duke went to sit behind the desk. He
absently scratched his jaw. “Patrick was employed by the
aristocracy. A young man of rank, who had three sisters in his
charge. One of those ladies gave birth to Haven.”
    “She is Patrick’s?”
    “Yes. It is a complicated tale. But the
brother duped him. He was something of a wastrel. The ancestral
estates were in trouble. He got wind of the affection between
Mulhern and his sister. He told Patrick if he would turn over the
purses and prizes he won, to get the estate out of debt, he could
consent for Patrick to wed his sister. Patrick did so, but over
time learned that the brother had already promised her to a gentry
fellow whom he also owed gambling debts to.”
    Deme guessed, “He had not paid off debts with
the money Patrick gave him?”
    “No. He gambled it away as fast as it was put
in his hands. Patrick however, did not discover the worst until he
went to see her brother and tell him his woman was with child.
Thinking themselves soon to wed, they had been lovers. Her brother
was enraged, but apparently hid it well enough.
    He strung Patrick along and kept her hidden
while the child grew in her. Patrick by now realized how desperate
the situation was for the both of them. He somehow got wind that
the Lord had instructed the servants to