Thomas forced himself not to respond. The afternoon hardly needed another fistfight. But the insult was acute. His entire life he had put Wyndham first. The title, the legacy, the lands. Nothing had ever been about him, about Thomas Cavendish, a gentleman born in the English county of Lincolnshire; who loved music but abhorred the opera; who preferred to ride astride rather than in a carriage, even when the weather was inclement; who loved strawberries, especially with clotted cream; who had taken a first at Cambridge and could recite most of the sonnets of Shakespeare but never did, because he preferred to linger over each word in his own mind. It never seemed to matter that he found satisfaction in manual labor, or that he had no patience for inefficiency. And no one cared that he had never acquired a taste for port, or that he found the current habit of snuff asinine at best.

No, when the time came to make a decision—any decision—none of this had ever mattered. He was Wyndham. It was that simple.

And apparently, that complicated. Because his loyalty to his name and his legacy was unchecked. He would do what was right, what was proper. He always did. It was laughable, really, too ironic to contemplate. He did the right thing because he was the Duke of Wyndham. And it seemed the right thing might very well mean handing over his very name to a stranger.

If he wasn’t the duke…Did that make him free? Could he then do whatever he wished, rob coaches and despoil virgins and whatever it was men with no encumbrances chose to do?

But after all he had done, for someone to suggest that he would put his own personal gain above his duty to his family name—

It did not cut to the bone. It burned.

And then Audley turned to Grace, offering her that annoyingly smarmy smile, and said, “I am a threat to his very identity. Surely any reasonable man would question his safety.” It was all Thomas could do to keep his hands—fisted though they were—at his sides.

“No, you’re wrong,” Grace said to Audley, and Thomas found himself oddly comforted by the fervor in her voice. “You misjudge him. The duke—” She stopped for a moment, choking on the word, but then squared her shoulders and continued. “He is as honorable a man as I have ever met. You would never come to harm in his company.”

“I assure you,” Thomas said smoothly, regarding his new cousin with a cool eye, “whatever violent urges I possess, I shall not act upon them.”

Grace turned her temper upon him at that. “That is a terrible thing to say.” And then, more quietly, so that only he could hear. “And after I defended you.”

“But honest,” Audley acknowledged with a nod.