Page 4 of The Odyssean Duke

As he approached the front door to the townhouse, his grandmother tightly grasped the doorway. She tipped her chin up and, despite being significantly shorter than he, managed to give the impression that she looked down her nose at him. Clad in mourning black, Stephan suspected that she was trying to pose herself as a grieving mother, but he knew her too well to believethatimage. How had he once trusted this woman? Everything about her was false, an act meant to inspire sympathy for those foolish enough to care about her.

“Not your grandson,” he drawled. “I never thought that ten years away could cause such harm to your mind and memory. Fear not; I will find the right physician to help you.”

Anger flared in her eyes.

See?Stephan thought.I will not be bullied and forced away like some shy adolescent.

Stephan took a step forward, but his grandmother remained stubbornly clinging to the doorway. He arched an eyebrow and cast a critical eye over the street. Mayfair was at her most beautiful, springtime blooms and carefree aristocrats lingering in the streets. Would his grandmother truly wish to make a scene and draw the neighbors’ attention to them?

Perhaps. She was an unusually petty woman. It would not do his reputation any good for the Dowager Duchess to be forcibly removed from his doorstep, but Stephan was prepared to resort to that if necessary. His grandmother was like mistletoe, wrapping herself around the title and choking it of life. Stephan suspected she had done the same to his father, and he would not be her next victim.

“Maybe a change in scenery would improve your health,” Stephan continued. “The countryside, perhaps.”

She scowled at him. Stephan maintained his cool composure, but inwardly, he was nothing short ofgleeful.

“I will not leave this house,” she scoffed. “I have held this place together since before you were born. Just because you decided to stop playacting as warlord and pretend at being a duke?—”

“So youdoremember me,” Stephan said.

Her scowl deepened, and Stephan drew a small, bitter satisfaction from having frustrated Her Grace even the smallest amount. He had returned to London amuchbetter man than when he had left.

“You will have to be content with managing the dowager house,” Stephan continued, “or nothing at all. I intend on remaining here for every Season for the foreseeable future and maybe even longer should the fancy strike me.”

“You will not!”

“Iwill,” he said, forcing his tone even. “Whether you like it or not, I am the Duke of Rothbury, and everything that belonged to my father is now mine.”

At last, his grandmother pried herself away from the door. She stormed to him until they stood scarcely a foot apart. Stephan lifted a brow, waiting as color rose to his grandmother’s face. At last, she stormed past him.

Stephan continued to the house, climbing the familiar steps and trying in vain to force away the knot of trepidation that tightened in his chest. As a young man, he had never been able to best hisgrandmother, and while the fact that he had made joy bloom in his chest, Stephan still had a sense that it had all been too easy. His nemesis could not be so readily defeated, could she?

“Enjoy it while you can!” Her Grace called after him. “You will not hold it for long!”

Stephan paused at the threshold. Those were the words of a desperate woman, and he ought to pay them no heed. He dug his nails into his palms. There was still a small inkling of doubt that the words might be something more than an idle threat. He turned around, overcome with a mixture of dread and self-loathing.

“And why is that?” Stephan asked.

His grandmother’s lips curled into a cruel smile. “Your father believed that you were unsuitable as his heir.”

“Is that so?”

“Indeed. Did you expect anything else after being away for ten years?” his grandmother asked. “That is hardly the behavior of a respectable heir.”

Stephan clenched his jaw. “An assessment which you doubtlessly agreed with.”

“Can I be blamed for looking after the welfare of the dukedom?”

“The dukedom’s welfare or your own?” Stephan asked.

“You assume the two are inherently contradictory,” she said. “That tells me that you are unaware of how much I have given to the Duchy of Rothbury.”

“You are mistaken.”

The Dowager Duchess smiled thinly. “It is true that you are the Duke of Rothbury, but your father in his wisdom placed some unusual stipulations on the title and its accompanying fortune.”

Although Stephan had not moved from the threshold, something inside him seemed to grow very still at her words. He forced himself to appear outwardly unbothered, even as his thoughts tossed about like a tempest. “Such as?”

“Your father made me the trustee of the Rothbury fortune. If you fail to produce an heir within a year of inheriting, you will keep the title,” she said, a victorious gleam in her eyes, “but none of the assets that accompany it. You will be a duke in rags, so, fortunately, you have some experience as a naval officer. You will likely need to work.”