The knowledge rolled through him, obliterating everything in its path, taking with it the last of his hope. It was a blow. A crushing disappointment.

What now?

Upon his return to England, he’d dutifully claimed his new role as heir to the Duke of Birchwood. He’d moved into the London Mayfair residence with the duke and duchess and for the last two months he’d begun learning his new position and what was expected of him.

The duke and duchess were welcoming if not precisely warm. But then they had never been warm people. They were august members of the noblesse. Warmth was not a quality to be found among their ilk. Your ilk now.

They’d aged since he’d last seen them. Naturally. But it was not merely the accumulation of years. They wore their grief like a heavy mantle. They’d lost three sons. The toll was profound. Constantine had vowed to do everything he could to ease their grief and lighten their burdens.

The venerable duke wanted to groom him and apprise him of his myriad duties? Very well. Con would allow him that. He would not be known as the Duke of Birchwood who failed and sank the dukedom to ruin. He’d become a sponge and soak up everything the old duke could teach him and honor all those who had come before him.

The duke and duchess wanted him to pay court to his late cousin’s betrothed? Very well. He’d pay court to the fine Lady Elise. He’d even propose once a respectable amount of time had passed, assuming the lady was receptive to such an offer from him and didn’t view him as second best and inferior to her first choice duke.

He’d never imagined himself married. Hellfire. He had thought to make a lifelong career out of the army—and no. He had never planned to be one of those officers who married and took their wives with them on their posts.

The duchess’s chronic pain? He’d determined to tackle that, too. Somehow he would find a way to alleviate her considerable discomfort. The poor woman had suffered enough. If anything happened to her, it would finish the duke. The couple appeared sincerely devoted to each other—a definite anomaly among the aristocracy.

They’d lost their sons, and Constantine was duty bound to care for them now as the heir.

The heir.

It still left his stomach in knots. He’d never wanted the title. Never even thought it possible to possess it—never once had it passed through his consciousness—but it was his now. The responsibility weighed heavily on him—a yoke about his neck from which he would never be free.